The Asterinas Book

asterinas-logo

Welcome to the documentation for Asterinas, an open-source project and community focused on developing cutting-edge Rust OS kernels.

Book Structure

This book is divided into five distinct parts:

Part 1: Asterinas Kernel

Explore the modern OS kernel at the heart of Asterinas. Designed to realize the full potential of Rust, Asterinas Kernel implements the Linux ABI in a safe and efficient way. This means it can seamlessly replace Linux, offering enhanced safety and security.

Part 2: Asterinas OSTD

The Asterinas OSTD lays down a minimalistic, powerful, and solid foundation for OS development. It's akin to Rust's std crate but crafted for the demands of safe Rust OS development. The Asterinas Kernel is built on this very OSTD.

Part 3: Asterinas OSDK

The OSDK is a command-line tool that streamlines the workflow to create, build, test, and run Rust OS projects that are built upon Asterinas OSTD. Developed specifically for OS developers, it extends Rust's Cargo tool to better suite their specific needs. OSDK is instrumental in the development of Asterinas Kernel.

Part 4: Contributing to Asterinas

Asterinas is in its early stage and welcomes your contributions! This part provides guidance on how you can become an integral part of the Asterinas project.

Part 5: Requests for Comments (RFCs)

Significant decisions in Asterinas are made through a transparent RFC process. This part describes the RFC process and archives all approvaed RFCs.

Licensing

Asterinas's source code and documentation primarily use the Mozilla Public License (MPL), Version 2.0. Select components are under more permissive licenses, detailed here.

Our choice of the weak-copyleft MPL license reflects a strategic balance:

  1. Commitment to open-source freedom: We believe that OS kernels are a communal asset that should benefit humanity. The MPL ensures that any alterations to MPL-covered files remain open source, aligning with our vision. Additionally, we do not require contributors to sign a Contributor License Agreement (CLA), preserving their rights and preventing the possibility of their contributions being made closed source.

  2. Accommodating proprietary modules: Recognizing the evolving landscape where large corporations also contribute significantly to open-source, we accommodate the business need for proprietary kernel modules. Unlike GPL, the MPL permits the linking of MPL-covered files with proprietary code.

In conclusion, we believe that MPL is the best choice to foster a vibrant, robust, and inclusive open-source community around Asterinas.