Making meta-object protocols practical for operating systems

This position paper considers how Meta-Object Protocol (MOP) technology can be used to support operating system flexibility including the dynamic adoption and extension of the system. We are interested in applying MOPs to a domain (that of operating systems) where they have had little acceptance. We believe that this is largely due to the complexity of operating system software and the possible security loophole(s) that MOPs can introduce. We address these problems by the novel use of multiple, fine-grained MOPs and a category of MOPs called Extension Protocols to provide controlled, secure extension without the limitations of predefined “hooks” into the operating system