Philosophy of NunyaOS

What’s new and interesting in this model of operating system?

Nunya is an operating system designed with security in mind. Nunya contains the permissions of processes and future software by inserting hierarchical containment principles into its deepest levels. No processes can exceed the permissions of its parent, and parents can only monotonically restrict the permissions of child processes further.

What's the goal of the Nunya project?

The goal is to explore the tradeoffs made by an operating system with such deep hierarchical containment. Are certain types of processes impossible to implement? It is already clear that this model makes difficult some common aspects of operating systems, but it also opens up many interesting discussions on how such a system could be designed. Working on NunyaOS is a great way to explore the rationale behind the design decisions of current operating systems and their own weaknesses as well.

How did the project get started?

Nunya began as the result of an experimental course taught at the University of Notre Dame. The course, entitled "Open Source Software Development," aimed to teach students how to create an open source project that could support a community. Students would register for the class as a group of 4-6 and work on the project over the course of a semester, checking in with the professor regularly. The project chosen for the group was an conceptual operating system with the ideology outline above.