John Lions Distinguished Lecture Series

Professor Haibo Chen

Making Systems Research More Relevant: Lessons and Experiences with HarmonyOS NEXT

The relevance of systems research is often measured by its impact on industry practices. Professor Haibo Chen, who has spent around 8 years with various systems projects such as HarmonyOS NEXT and its open-source version OpenHarmony, revisits the lessons and experiences of conducting systems research crossing academia and industry. It then uses HarmonyOS NEXT as a case to illustrate the potential of systems research to drive tangible innovations in the intersection of academia and industry.

HarmonyOS NEXT explores many brave research ideas into practice, including microkernel-based architecture, distributed mobile computing and AI integration. By examining its architecture, features, and development process, Prof. Chen aims to identify key factors contributing to its success and to extract lessons for future collaborations between researchers and practitioners. By showcasing the potential of HarmonyOS NEXT, he hopes to encourage further exploration of how academic insights can be translated into innovative approaches for complex systems challenges.

Session 1: Dr Vanessa Teague

Verifying Australian election outcomes – whose job is that?

Elections are a special security problem because it is not good enough for systems to be secure and results correct – they must also be verifiably so. But producing publicly verifiable evidence of a correct outcome requires carefully-designed processes.

Dr Teague discusses the attacker model, verifiable election auditing, innovative instant-runoff election auditing, as well as important open problems, particularly for the single transferable vote. She also evaluates the sate of Australian election administration, identifying which processes earn public trust and how we can make improvements.

Session 2: Professor Timothy Roscoe

Real Operating Systems for Real Computers

Modern operating systems are written to run on, and manage, a class of computer that, at best, simply doesn't exist, and at worst, is a dangerous fiction.  Faced with denial, hardware vendors collude with this fiction by hiding most of a real, modern computer from the so-called operating system, and devote considerable resources and convoluted designs to maintain the illusion.  All parties might do this for more or less rational local reasons, but the result is a crisis in security and efficiency.

This is a lamentable state of affairs, but Prof. Roscoe take an optimistic view. This should be a golden age of new operating system designs that engage with, and solve, pressing real-world problems across the full range of computer systems.  He describes some ways in which academic computer scientists can come out of denial about operating systems design and implementation, and take advantage of this opportunity.

Session 1: Professor Willy Zwaenepoel

Software for Fast Storage Hardware

Storage technologies are entering the market with performance vastly superior to conventional storage devices. This technology shift requires a complete rethinking of the software storage stack.

Professor Willy Zwaenepoel, Dean of Engineering at The University of Sydney, showcases parts of his joint work on Optane-based solid-state (block) devices that illustrate the need for and the benefit of a wholesale redesign.

Session 2: Pia Andrews

Open Source – the Foundation for Open Government in the Internet Age

Many open source and maker communities demonstrate participatory governance everyday, with extendable architecture where anyone can contribute to shaping the world based on their values and skills. This kind of values-led, participatory and empowered approach to co-creation provides profound lessons for governments.

In this talk, open government, digital transformation and data geek, Pia Andrews will discuss how open source supports more open government and more equitable societies for us all.

A celebration of operating systems and open source - past, present and future.

Session 1

Welcome & message from Unix co-creator Ken Thompson

Gernot Heiser, John Lions Chair, UNSW Sydney

Fireside chat with John O'Brien

Brian Kernighan, Co-author of the famous "K&R" book on the C Programming Language at Bell Labs & John O'Brien, Former student of John Lions

The early days of UNIX at UNSW

John O'Brien, Former student of John Lions

When Databases met UNIX: A Love Affair

Margo Seltzer, OS researcher, UBC

Session 2

Hints and principles for computer system and design

Butler Lampson, OS researcher, Microsoft, Turing Laureate 

Session 3 

From UX (User Experience) to DX (Developer Experience)

Elizabeth Churchill, Director UI, Fuchsia, Google

The Go Programming Language and Environment

Rob Pike, co-creator Plan 9 @ Bell Labs, co-creator of Go Language, Google

Session 4

FOSS over the years

Andrew Tridgell, creator of Samba, AU open-source hero

Navigating through The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - FOSS Communities from an Australian Perspective

Sae Ra Germaine, President Linux Australia

Session 5

The sel4 microkernel: From research breakthrough to real-world deployment Gernot Heiser, John Lions Chair, UNSW Sydney

Lessons Learned from 30 Years of MINIX

Andy Tanenbaum, creator of Minix, FU Amsterdam