KeyKOS, EROS, and other capability-based mainframe OSes could offer security and data integrity guarantees that “modern” OSes are only now just catching up with. Nothing from the Unix or VMS lineages, including Linux and Windows¹, really comes close.
The next chance for widespread adoption of a capability-based system is maybe Fuchsia; if Google ever deploys it for anything other than Nest devices, or if its open-source core gets picked up by someone else.
¹ Windows isn’t literally a VMS, but modern Windows descends from Windows NT, which was led by Dave Cutler, who had also been the tech lead on VMS. And there’s the joke about “WNT” and “VMS”.
KeyKOS, EROS, and other capability-based mainframe OSes could offer security and data integrity guarantees that “modern” OSes are only now just catching up with. Nothing from the Unix or VMS lineages, including Linux and Windows¹, really comes close.
The next chance for widespread adoption of a capability-based system is maybe Fuchsia; if Google ever deploys it for anything other than Nest devices, or if its open-source core gets picked up by someone else.
¹ Windows isn’t literally a VMS, but modern Windows descends from Windows NT, which was led by Dave Cutler, who had also been the tech lead on VMS. And there’s the joke about “WNT” and “VMS”.