Research Issues in No-Futz Computing

David A. Holland, William Josephson, Kostas Magoutis, Margo I. Seltzer, Christopher A. Stein, and Ada Lim

Ninth Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems, Schoss Elmau, Germany

Abstract

At the 1999 Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems (HotOS VII), the attendees reached consensus that the most important issue facing the OS research community was "No-Futz" computing; eliminating the ongoing "futzing" that characterizes most systems today. To date, little research ahs been accomplished in this area. Our goal in writing this paper is to focus the research community on the challenges we face if we are to design systems that are truly futz-free, or even low-futz.