Design Paradigm
Specifying the general idea of a microkernel, Liedtke states:
A concept is tolerated inside the microkernel only if moving it outside the kernel, i.e., permitting competing implementations, would prevent the implementation of the system's required functionality.
In this spirit, the L4 microkernel only provides the four basic mechanisms: address spaces, threads, scheduling, and synchronous inter-process communication.
An operating system based on a microkernel like L4 has to provide services as servers in user space that monolithic kernels like Linux or older generation microkernels include internally. For example, in order to implement a secure Unix-like system, servers will have to provide the rights management that Mach included inside the kernel.
Read more about this topic: L4 Microkernel Family
Famous quotes containing the words design and/or paradigm:
“Westerners inherit
A design for living
Deeper into matter—
Not without due patter
Of a great misgiving.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice—there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we shall therefore have to examine not only the impact of nature and of logic, but also the techniques of persuasive argumentation effective within the quite special groups that constitute the community of scientists.”
—Thomas S. Kuhn (b. 1922)