# $NetBSD: ROADMAP,v 1.4 2005/12/13 15:30:18 briggs Exp $ A high-level roadmap for NetBSD This file contains a general map of where we would like to take NetBSD over the next N years. It is not highly detailed or overly specific about each item. There are several different "TODO" files and "NetBSD Projects" lists in various places that contain some more detailed plans. This is the framework in which those projects and plans are expected to fit. As this is a volunteer project, there are no specific dates beside these items. These items may or may not get picked up in any order, and the roadmap may change as technologies and perceived needs change. The roadmap, of course, is constructed in the context of the Project's (broad) goals: * clean design * stable * fast * clean licensing * portable * interoperable * conformant * commercial-ready * research-ready * hobby-ready In general, we are headed for: * "State of the art" tools (current (and stable) GNU tools, addition of Solaris's dtrace or similar functionality, kernel core dumps on all platforms and post-mortem analysis tools, performance analysis tools with support for hardware assists like PMCs) * Support for all devices without encumbered code * Managed growth of the base system * Minimal GPL / LGPL code in the base system * Maximal performance without compromising portability * "State of the art" technology in the kernel and userland * No bugs, no security vulnerabilities * In combination with pkgsrc, a complete system for a variety of users, administrators, and researchers: desktops, embedded devices, servers, workstations, and portables This is, by no means, a comprehensive list, and purposefully aggressive. One of the many challenges will be to achieve excellence in each arena we tackle and not settle for being a "jack of all trades, master of none." The following, more specific, items are divided into rough categories: 1. Platform independent kernel 2. Platform independent userland 3. Platform dependent kernel 4. Platform dependent userland 5. Other If you'd like to take on a project, please record your name/email, the date that you're claiming a project (or part of a project--if a part, please specify the part), and an expected completion date. This will hopefully avoid both duplication of effort and too many or too-extended stalls. 1. Platform independent kernel ============================== aa. Modular scheduler supporting CPU affinity and some soft RT features. The BSD scheduler is good for a wide variety of operating conditions, but some applications really want some soft real-time capabilities and multi-processor systems could benefit from taking processor affinity into account (including support for HT CPUs). ab. Reduction of the giant lock There are several proposals for the best way forward on this, but we really need a couple of people with time to step forward and lead us here. ac. Expansion of wedge support Complete the development of wedges and retire disklabels except where needed for compatibility. ad. Volume management Allow us to grow, shrink, and move partitions (and, where possible, filesystems). ae. High-performance, maybe log-based, journalled fs w/ snapshot support Addition of logs, journals, and snapshots to FFS is a lot, another filesystem could be cleaner and faster. af. Expansion of ieee1394 support Where possible, fully support DV, disk, and network devices. ag. Generic device hotplug support Support hotplug of all devices and busses that support it. This should be divided into subcategories and does cross over some into platform-dependent areas. SATA, SCSI, FC, USB, Firewire, PCI (PCI-X, and PCI-Express), etc. There is some rudimentary support present, but it is far from comprehensive. ah. Suspend and resume support We should be able to fully utilize suspend and resume on PCs, macppc, and anyone else who supports it in hardware (sparc, hpcsh, hpcarm, etc). ai. Complete support for LWPs There are still vestiges of the kernel that predate LWPification and should be updated. [ What other than ktrace? ] aj. PTHREAD_CONCURRENCY > 1 support A single process that uses threads should be able to reliably utilize more than one CPU. ak. AIO support POSIX aio_*() with full support for Asynchronous I/O (AIO) in the kernel. al. Modern parallel port support Complete support for bidirectional and "advanced" functionality from parallel ports. am. NFSv4 Bring our NFS up to current standards. an. Update the locking mechanisms in the kernel This requires some platform support. A good bit of work is on the now-archaic "newlock" branch. It requires some overhaul of cpu_switch/scheduler so that mutex_*(9) and ltsleep(9) can interlock. ao. Review TCP/IP developments Look into RFC3168 (ECN, http://www.icir.org/floyd/ecn.html) and other "recent" and current TCP/IP research. Adapt our stack to the more modern world. ap. Kernel linker (ala FreeBSD's kld) aq. CARP/VRRP Functionality is great, but there might be some concern here over Cisco patents. ar. UDF filesystem support OpenBSD has recently added this. as. RAIDFrame support for 3-way RAID 1 at. RAIDFrame support for RAID 6 au. More modern drivers We lack support for a number of more modern devices (PCI-Express, RAID cards, etc.) that are supported on other open source OSes. av. iSCSI initiator support We should be able to utilize iSCSI volumes. aw. Run-time changable limits to SysV IPC Some of the limits for SysV IPC are hardcoded in the kernel configuration--these should be changable via sysctl. 2. Platform independent userland ================================ aa. Keep up with the X world Track X.org progress. Maintain existing XFree86. ab. Reentrant libraries Make sure that all libraries are re-entrant and usable for threaded applications. ac. gcc updates This requires some work to rework the gcc4 builds to work with BSD make(1) or update BSD make(1) or consider the unthinkable. ad. gdb updates ae. binutils updates Probably go along with gdb updates. af. Better post-mortem debugging tools It would be useful to have something between ps/*stat/etc. and gdb with a core file. Something, perhaps, like SysV(?) crash(8). ag. Better 802.11 utilities and support To truly support mobile users, we need better support for scanning for base stations and affiliating with them. ah. Internationalization Citrus, wide-char curses (SoC integration?), collation, localized printf with positional parameter support, time & currency support, etc. NetBSD has a global user and developer base and our i18n support should reflect that. ai. System packages In some fashion, we need to support system packages. This is at least to allow for sane binary audits and binary patches. aj. Provide support for binary packages in install We should have an integrated install that can install a desktop as functional as other free operating systems. Without sacrificing the quick and clean basic installs that we have now. An extension of sysinst might fit the bill. Or a tool that's both invoked by sysinst and available on a running system. ak. Native signing/privacy software This could be BPG (from SoC) or openpgp-sdk. al. Userland version identification What binaries are installed? Who really knows? This relates at least somewhat to (ai). 3. Platform dependent kernel ============================ aa. Move evb ports to evb* if they're not already there (sandpoint) The existing evb* ports are kind of catch-all ports for eval boards. Some of the existing non-evb* ports really belong in the evb* category. ab. m68k ports need to share more code Some progress has been made here in recent years, but there is more work to be done. ac. Kernel core dump support for all platforms Some platforms (PowerPC ports, ARM ports, etc.) don't have full support for kernel core dumps and post-mortem debugging through libkvm. This should be updated. ad. NDIS Support for binary network drivers on x86 platforms. 4. Platform dependent userland ============================== ab. m68k should be able to share sets Some progress has been made here in recent years, but there is more work to be done. 5. Other ======== aa. More and better regression tests The suite of tests that we have now is limited. We should expand these and provide systems (or manage a volunteer pool?) to run the tests on -current and release branches on a variety of platforms. ( Perhaps virtualize some with qemu or similar? ) ab. Native Java on multiple platforms Getting i386, amd64, sparc64, and PowerPC would be a good start, although PowerPC will require more work. We have the go-ahead, but we need the people to work on it. ac. Power control framework Related to suspend/resume support, we should have some framework for dynamically stepping processor speed, controlling fans, shutting down and/or powering subsystems to conserve power and keep the system with thermal limits.