I'd really like to see a much smaller, simpler, non-POSIX OS for running server apps.
The POSIX system interfaces (read, write, open, close, etc.) are OK. It's the Commands and Utilities that are the problem. Do you really need Bash available? How much of the 50,000,000 lines of Linux need to be inside your VM running your one web application? How much attack service is provided by the presence of all that stuff?
There's a project which has taken the C runtime library and made it run on a bare VM, so you don't need an OS instance at all. If you're just running one program, that makes a lot of sense.
The POSIX system interfaces (read, write, open, close, etc.) are OK. It's the Commands and Utilities that are the problem. Do you really need Bash available? How much of the 50,000,000 lines of Linux need to be inside your VM running your one web application? How much attack service is provided by the presence of all that stuff?
There's a project which has taken the C runtime library and made it run on a bare VM, so you don't need an OS instance at all. If you're just running one program, that makes a lot of sense.