SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
From the phys.org article:
As modern software systems continue inexorably to increase in complexity and capability, users have become accustomed to periodic cycles of updating and upgrading to avoid obsolescence—if at some cost in terms of frustration. In the case of the U.S. military, having access to well-functioning software systems and underlying content is critical to national security, but updates are no less problematic than among civilian users and often demand considerable time and expense. That is why today DARPA announced it will launch an ambitious four-year research project to investigate the fundamental computational and algorithmic requirements necessary for software systems and data to remain robust and functional in excess of 100 years.
The Building Resource Adaptive Software Systems, or BRASS, program seeks to realize foundational advances in the design and implementation of long-lived software systems that can dynamically adapt to changes in the resources they depend upon and environments in which they operate. Such advances will necessitate the development of new linguistic abstractions, formal methods, and resource-aware program analyses to discover and specify program transformations, as well as systems designed to monitor changes in the surrounding digital ecosystem. The program is expected to lead to significant improvements in software resilience, reliability and maintainability.
DARPA's press release and call for research proposals.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by sigma on Friday April 10 2015, @01:59AM
Given that the BSD developers care about functionality and stability more than pandering to the lowest common denominator, I would fully expect a BSD install to last for several decades if not a century (barring component failures).
Then you're completely missing the point of BRASS. Their goal is to have software that is ADAPTIVE - software that can modify itself to cope with hardware and other resource changes and developments. BSD's stability (stagnation?) is the opposite of the dynamic system DARPA are envisioning, and like it or not, systemd looks much more like a step down that adaptive path than any other init system.
The Building Resource Adaptive Software Systems, or BRASS, program seeks to realize foundational advances in the design and implementation of long-lived software systems that can dynamically adapt to changes in the resources they depend upon and environments in which they operate.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @02:01AM
fuck you and systemd
(Score: 3, Funny) by sigma on Friday April 10 2015, @02:05AM
Fuck me?
Sorry, AC, but I don't go in for these backdoor shenanigans. Sure, I'm flattered, maybe even a little curious, but the answer is no!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by tynin on Friday April 10 2015, @02:23AM
I'm pretty sure you don't give a toot about systemd, because that isn't what this is about. It is about truly adaptive software that can integrate in the face of changing hardware. One of the places these systems will make sense is in infrastructure that just needs to do 1 thing well, and for a long long time. These systems will not be as modern as the new tech of that day yet to come, but they don't need to be, they just need to work. Some things shouldn't need to have a staff of admin's constantly relearning the latest init systems of the day to keep the machine working after the next patch. Having a solid high tech infrastructure that can be repaired and perhaps scaled with the hardware tech of the day would be a boon across the board for the entire baseline of civilization.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @07:49AM
You mean like TCP/IP along with the associated alphabet soup of protocols? Packetheads figured that stuff out decades ago. It would be nice to apply that methodology to other things. The track record for networking robustness is amazing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @08:24AM
Apparently TCP/IP software was not able to automatically adapt to a growing number of connected computers, so a manual update (IPv6) was needed.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Friday April 10 2015, @04:48PM
And call the software "Harry Seldon"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Funny) by lentilla on Friday April 10 2015, @02:12AM
systemd looks much more like a step down that adaptive path
Well put. Slightly further down that road and we'll be calling it "SkyNet".
(Score: 2) by sigma on Friday April 10 2015, @02:30AM
Well, since the kernel devs are working on 4.0 now, 4.1.15-1.1381_SKYN12nnmp [googleusercontent.com] can't be too far away...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday April 10 2015, @02:35AM
Like what? Write a controller for a caterpillar track robotic tank and have it adapting with no difficulties to starwars walkers?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sigma on Friday April 10 2015, @03:54AM
See tibman's comment below. http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=6948&cid=168614 [soylentnews.org]
It's about software that's tolerant to large disruptions to its hardware, potentially including, as you say, different robotics platforms.
Frankly, it's not that hard to imagine - older platforms like Multics and even commodity Amiga computers had some very good automatic configuration systems. A redesign that included the ability to search and integrate something like OSRS projects [osrfoundation.org] on demand should be able to handle robotic hardware variants.
Better hardware design standards that included a modern version plug and play of the Amiga's Autoconfig would go a long way to making component changes seamless, as would open hardware with ROM-based self-documenting properties.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @07:46AM
Then it is no longer the software that is adaptable but hardware that is fixed enough through time that software does not need to change itself. Might as well call windows infinitely adaptable because a usb stick can be plugged in with a patching script.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday April 10 2015, @01:26PM
A USB stick isn't a piece of hardware the OS is running on. The hardware shouldn't be fixed in time, that is the point. The software should be adaptable enough to recognize that ram, processors, and storage being added and removed from the system. You should be able to bisect the bus and the system still function (end users won't even notice).
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Informative) by q.kontinuum on Friday April 10 2015, @08:00AM
If only there was a "flamebait +1"... Som baits are just too entertaining to down-mod them ;-)
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @08:21AM
Ah, self-modifying code. I thought that was identified as bad practice a long time ago. ;-)