=====================================================
 Genode Labs Newsletter - December 2011 / January 2012
 =====================================================

 Content

 1. The liberation of Genode's development process
 2. Roadmap for the year 2012
 3. Genode as FOSDEM 2012


 1. Liberating the Genode development process
 --------------------------------------------

 For the past three years, we conducted the development of Genode
 mostly inside Genode Labs and released the results of our work in
 the form of source code and documentation at regular intervals. But
 we have realized that in order to let Genode change the world, it
 needs more than our company. It needs a thriving community of users
 and developers. Hence, we came to the realization that liberating the
 development process towards an open community is our way to go.

 The transition started off with a reflection on our current
 situation posted on our mailing list:

   http://genode.org/news/steps-towards-an-open-development-process

 During December and January, we have migrated the project and our
 work flows to GitHub. We first started to embrace GitHub's issue
 tracker for the management of working topics:

   http://github.com/genodelabs/genode/issues

 The most significant step was leaving our Genode-Labs-internal code
 repositories behind and starting a completely public Git repository
 instead:

   https://github.com/genodelabs

 With the code repository going public, the way is cleared to opening
 up design discussions as well. Instead of having such discussions
 internally at Genode Labs, we will increasingly take them to our
 mailing list. With this new way of development, we hope to make the
 project much more approachable for people who want to get involved
 and let Genode reach far out beyond the reach of our little company.


 2. Roadmap for the year 2012
 ----------------------------

 We think that there is no better way to show our confidence in the
 maturity and flexibility of the framework than to actually use it
 for our personal computing needs. Furthermore, we hope that this
 undertaking will draw our attention to those parts of the framework
 that are possibly still underdeveloped for real-world use. So we can
 focus on the right things.

 For planning the roadmap, we first took an inventory of our actual
 computing needs. The result was a list of applications and features
 that we need to pursue our work. We then categorized the list into
 base topics.  Each of the four releases planned for 2012 will be
 focused on a different base topic. The roadmap discussion is
 summarized at:

   http://genode.org/about/road-map

 The February release will be focused on Unix productivity tools that
 do not rely on networking. The May release will add networking-based
 applications and a renewed device-driver infrastructure. In August,
 it is time for addressing the user interface and multi-processor
 support. The November release will enhance the platform support for
 our actual development hardware and introduce cryptography.


 3. Genode as FOSDEM 2012
 ------------------------

 In the last newsletter, we advertised on Genode's presence at FOSDEM
 2012.

   http://fosdem.org/2012

 In the meanwhile, the schedule of presentations at the microkernel
 developer room on Sunday (5th of February) had been finalized. We
 are happy that our project will have the chance to contribute to
 three presentation slots. Norman Feske will give an introductory
 talk about our project, presenting the big picture of Genode and the
 direction where it is heading. Stefan Kalkowski will give an
 experience report about the use of many different kernels as
 Genode's base platforms. Finally, Christian Helmuth will participate
 in a panel discussion. The complete schedule is as follows:

  Welcome! or Why do we meet here today    Jakub Jermar     09:00
  Introduction to the NOVA kernel API      Julian Stecklina 09:30
  Introduction of the Genode OS Framework  Norman Feske     10:10
  Introduction to HelenOS                  Jakub Jermář     11:10
  The microkernel overhead                 Martin Děcký     13:00
  The agony of choice                      Stefan Kalkowski 14:10
  Dive into HelenOS Device Drivers         Jiří Svoboda     15:05
  Panel discussion                                          16:00

 The microkernel developer room will be hosted in room K.3.201. If
 you have the chance to attend FOSDEM, we'd be pleased to meet you
 there!


 About the newsletter
 --------------------

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 Best regards
 -- 
 Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske
 Genode Labs

 http://www.genode-labs.com · http://genode.org

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 Geschäftsführer: Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske, Christian Helmuth

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