MicroKosm, the operating system for the future, is making its international debout. Therefore, a brief explanation of our goals, and our progress in achieving them, is of order.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction to MicroKosm
  2. What can it do for you
  3. The state of its development, and what’s in store for the future
  4. What you can do
  5. Conclusion

Introduction to MicroKosm

MicroKosm is a new, innovative and powerful operating system kernel and ecosystem.

It is modular, light and reliable, created from scratch using industry-standard tools and practices, released for free under a permissive open-source license. Yes, completely free.

It follows the microkernel model without being constrained by it, allowing for unparalleled adaptability, making it possible for us to aim for MicroKosm to become the standard for computing devices around the world, no matter how hard the task may actually seem.

By its nature, it is to be device-angostic. It can be adapted to work on an unfathomably large selection of machines, from toasters to satellites, from phones to supercomputers, with minimal to no work required when moving software between radically different hardware configurations. With MicroKosm, ecosystem fragmentation can become a thing of the past.

It is also made to be updatable and expandable in the future, so as to always keep pace with the fast-changing times and it is of our utmost priority to make it easy for companies and individuals to develop for and integrate MicroKosm as an integral part of their modern workflow and product line. Writing drivers and porting software must not be hindered by anything.

In practice, what can it do for you.

There are always a lot of things that MicroKosm can help you achieve, depending on who you are:

Companies and corporations

Whether you’re a startup or a large corporation, MicroKosm can be part of your tech stack. We pride ourselves in its minimal design and flexibility, and we’re sure anyone can make use of it.

First of all, new features are being developed that will allow drivers to be updated at runtime, without causing any downtime. This will be not only useful for embedded and IoT devices, but also for any machines where any offline time can cause service disruption, such as servers and computing clusters.

Then, the modular driver interface makes drivers completely separated and compartimentalized, making crashes isolated and non-fatal. With future updates, system failures will be almost eliminated, thanks to new features that will allow crashed drivers to be reinstated in place, without the end user even noticing.

If you’re conviced, and want to use MicroKosm in the future, or you need some consultation, feel free to contact us. The details are in the About page.

Enthusiasts and students

MicroKosm is not only a commercial product, it’s also made by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

If you’re a young computer enthusiast or a CS students, it can be an important learning opportunity. Thanks to its small size, MicroKosm can be easily studied as a reference for future system programmers, who will be able to gain important skills on real software.

Also, as contributing to MicroKosm is open to everybody, you’ll be able to contribute to an open-source project, learn while doing it, rising the ranks and having something that can be a gamechanger in your resume.

You’ll be able to use MicroKosm on any device of your liking, writing programs for every sort of machine you may imagine, even smart appliances. If that’s what you like, then you cannot miss this opportunity.

If you’re convinced, don’t fret, we’re waiting for you in the MicroKosm circles. You’ll always be welcome.

General public

For normal computer-unsavy users, it’s still too early for it to replace their desktop and mobile operating systems. While we hope this will be for as little time as possible, even by optimistic estimates it will take a long time for it to become viable for the general uninformed public.

But don’t worry, progress is fast. Remember that MicroKosm is to date not even 9 months old, built by one young guy still going to school. To be surprised, always keep yourself informed by checking this website for new articles.

And, if you want us to move faster, consider telling people you know about our project. If you can find new contributors or clients for us, that would be wonderful.

What is the state of its development, and what is in store for the future.

The MicroKosm ecosystem is still in its early stages and, while most of the core concepts that make it up already set in stone, new ideas are constantly being considered.

This, however, doesn’t mean it is not ready. The kernel, in fact, will soon reach a new baseline sufficient for us to release the core documentation and specification on this website, together with the first version of the MicroKosm kernel. Therefore, while it isn’t usable as a daily driver yet, it is perfectly capable of supporting real-time and embedded software for resource-limited machines.

The ecosystem is develping fast. Frequent updates will be posted on this website whenever a major feature is added or a bug is resolved, together with PDFs detailing clearly the specs of the various cogs that make up MicroKosm.

If any company or individual wants to get on board for a project, we’ll make sure they’ll be able to get all the attention they need. In the future, we hope we’ll have the delightful opportunity of working with third parties, writing drivers with them and helping them integrate and use MicroKosm in their workflow.

What you can do.

There are many things you can do to help MicroKosm’s development. Any kind of help is foremost appreciated, as long as it helps us push forward with the development of MicroKosm. If you can contribute with code, that would be wonderful. Our repositories are on GitHub, feel free to ask Filippo Mutta for anything. You’ll always be welcome.

While we aren’t open for donations yet, we’ll open various ways to donate soon. If you are able to donate, your contribution will be publicly stated on a monthly readout of donators on this website and your name will be forever engraved on our project repository for everyone to see. We’ll always be grateful for your help, no matter the amount you can provide. It means testing equipment, better workstations and servers, and of course more motivation to work as hard as we can.

For more information, be sure to read the About page.

Conclusion

We hope we were convincing enough with our arguments. If you need some extra clarifications, or want to express your support, feel free to write to Filippo Mutta at filippo.mutta@gmail.com.
And, as always, see you in the future.