Comment by dannyobrien 2 days ago
Midori, Microsoft's capability-based security OS[1]. Rumor has it that it was getting to the point where it was able to run Windows code, so it was killed through internal politics, but who knows! It was the Fuchsia of its time...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_%28operating_system%29
> retention project
Never heard this phrase before, but I can definitely see this happening at companies of that size
Where did you hear it could run Windows code? Everything known about Midori publicly says the opposite, it was specifically designed at every point to be totally incompatible with all existing code. Maybe a few people on the Midori team fantasized about a migration path but it was never going to happen. Midori was designed from the start without migration in mind.
Have you come across Genode (https://genode.org)?
It's kind of in that space, and is still actively developed.
Midori was fascinating. Joe Duffy's writing on it is the most comprehensive I've seen: https://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/
I've heard someone at Microsoft describe it as a moonshot but also a retention project; IIRC it had a hundred plus engineers on it at one time, including a lot of very senior people.
Apparently a bunch of research from Midori made it into .NET so it wasn't all lost, but still...