Blacklight OS Philosophy

Usual Kernels: Process Management, Memory Management, File Record Management, Disk Management, Peripheral Management, Network Management, Power Management

What I want my OS to do:

• Allow Programs to Execute
• Manage Memory Allocation
• Schedule Programs
• Read File Records From Disk Drives
• Create a new file system whose specification can be read
  • It reads data, but representation can vary
  • For example, data can be stored in tables instead of folders
  • It is kind of like a FUSE, but in the other direction.

• Support an LLVM backend for every programming language.

• Be able to make use of Board Support Packages to support any arcane hardware

• Blacklight OS CPU Binary Interface

• Blacklight OS Memory Management
• Blacklight OS Scheduler
• Blacklight OS Disk Management
• Blacklight OS File Management
• Blacklight OS Hardware Management (Separate from drivers, to handle integration)
• Blacklight OS Drivers (Collection)
• Blacklight OS HAL

• Blacklight OS Power Management

• Blacklight OS BSP Interface

• Blacklight OS POSIX Threads API

• Blacklight OS Logger

• Blacklight OS Audio Driver
• Blacklight OS Video Drivers

Core Applications

• Ice Cream Theory Web Browser (HTTP)
• Ice Cream Theory Social Network Client (ActivityPub) - Post, Chat, Micropost, Vlog, Music
• Ice Cream Theory Mail (SMTP/IMAP/POP)
• Ice Cream Theory Gallery
• Ice Cream Theory Motion Picture Player
• Ice Cream Theory Audio Player

• Ice Cream Theory Music Library Manager

• Ice Cream Theory Painter

• Ice Cream Theory Pixel Image Editor
• Ice Cream Theory Vector Image Editor
• Ice Cream Theory Font Editor
• Ice Cream Theory Image Compositor
• Ice Cream Theory Video Compositor
• Ice Cream Theory 2D Animator and Animator
• Ice Cream Theory 3D Modeller and Animator
• Ice Cream Theory 2D Game Engine

• Ice Cream Theory 3D Game Engine

• Ice Cream Theory Document Editor (LaTeX, ODF)

• Ice Cream Theory Spreadsheet Editor
• Ice Cream Theory Presentation Maker

• Ice Cream Theory Slideshow Presenter

• Ice Cream Theory Digital Signal Processor (with Tutorial)

• Ice Cream Theory Oscilloscope
• Ice Cream Theory Radio Signal Processor

• Ice Cream Theory Radio Broadcast Player

• Ice Cream Theory Software Market

Ice Cream Theory welcomes every project, but we would like to create our own reference implementations and make it the best. Nevertheless, this is not a product, and the sources are free for everyone to build upon.

Update Policy

We do not believe in time, so the updates will be of the form of rolling releases, and compatibility is almost always attempted to be maintained for a given line of OSes.

So any update will be named according to the date for reference, or it could simply be a number for dateless reference. But since we do not like time, it can instead be named based on events perhaps, as that is what would truly matter to us. If we've forgotten the events, there would be no reason to remember the date, so that we can relate to the time.

So it will be like Blacklight OS Update 54 (Mistral 0.2 Release)

Although an OS line will remain almost the same, it is possible that some update, such as a fundamental change in the ways of operation will make the programs incompatible, hence the compatibility breaking updates will have to be distinguished by a revision marker.

So an update will be like Blacklight OS Revision 3 Update 47 (Israel-Palestine)

Name Change Policy

We do not like to distinguish between natural laws, medicines, pliers and other inventions of engineering.

We would like to be able to describe a generic operating system, with all the possible features.

While Ice Cream Theory defines the possible blocks, Blacklight OS is a select combination of such blocks.

If at all Blacklight OS ever becomes Ice Cream OS, it will carry over to the names of the previous references to Blacklight OS too, so that Blacklight OS Revision 3 July 2024 will be referred to as Ice Cream OS Revision 3 July 2024.