Blacklight OS Philosophy

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.