The TUNES Project: Redefining Computing

Tunes is a Useful, Not Expedient, System

TUNES is not another operating system or programming language project. Instead we seek to identify the best ideas in computer science and practice, popularize and standardize the lesser-known ones, and integrate them into the world's computing infrastructure. TUNES is also an ethical project, motivated by individual liberty above all else.

Road Map

Since we began in 1994, progress has been slower than hoped, but it's happening: Free Software and the Internet are household items, ingrained in our culture. Reflection has entered the mainstream programming lexicon. Computing power is cheap and plentiful. C is being displaced by dynamic languages like Python and JavaScript, functional languages like Haskell and F#, and Lisp dialects like Clojure. Distributed versioning is here in the form of GIT, Mercurial, etc. This is all clearing the way for the kind of software we envisioned.

Current activities:

1. Metaphor, a secure, scalable, fault-tolerant distributed computing [database?] framework for the popular cross-platform PLT Scheme environment. Proceeds from commercial users will support the further development of Tunes.
2. Development of a "Scheme Shell" offering Unix-like conveniences for interactive scripting within the high-level Metaphor environment.
3. Experimentation with parsers & compilers, language design, and operating systems -- focused on overall simplicity, performance, and the early identification of design & integration issues.

Once these projects are far enough along, we'll turn our attention to User Interfaces and application development issues.

Our ultimate goal is to develop a free operating system with a good balance of security, efficiency, ease of use, and programmability.