Indian Developers Redesigning Linux Kernel With OOP, C++ Support
DOS Lab IIT Madras and CDAC Chennai out of India are aiming to redesign the Linux kernel as MOOL, or the Minimalistic Object Oriented Linux. The project site explains, "MOOL (Minimalistic Object Oriented Linux) aims at redesigning the Linux kernel to reduce coupling and increase maintainability by means of OO (Object Oriented) abstractions. Excessive common coupling prevails in existing kernel. Studies have shown that common coupling is increasing in successive versions of Linux. This will make maintainability of Linux difficult in coming years. As a starting step we have tried to reduce the number of global variables of the kernel. Some global variables are used only by two or three kernel modules. These are passed as function arguments. The performance of the modified kernel is measured with the standard performance analysis tools. The modified kernel performs almost same as original. MOOL features a device driver framework to write drivers in C++ and insert them as loadable kernel modules."
The BOSS-MOOL kernel also supports localization at the console level, offer new message filters options, and other changes. The "BOSS" portion of their MOOL kernel is short for the Bharat Operating System Solution and is a Debian-derived distribution with better Indian localization support and other changes.
Unfortunately after being alerted of this new project this morning, I haven't been able to dig up too much more on this kernel effort... Sadly, tracing the kernel source is also difficult. When going to the download link from the kernel project, they just link to an ISO of their BOSS-MOOL Linux distribution. I haven't checked the ISO to see if they have a source Debian package of the kernel on there, but regardless have yet to come across a Git repository for their forked Linux kernel to track the changes.
Those interested in finding out more about this project can visit BOSSLinux.in.
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