> Taking Wintel as an example, that could be done by abstracting away the hardware. Require programs to be shipped as some high level bytecode, that your OS can then compile, JIT, or whatever, depending on the best current solution. That makes your programs dependent on the OS, not on the hardware. Port the compiling stack of your OS, and you're done.
A much better idea is already practiced as the most successful method of software distribution ever: JavaScript, or as I call it, source-only distribution.
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> Taking Wintel as an example, that could be done by abstracting away the hardware. Require programs to be shipped as some high level bytecode, that your OS can then compile, JIT, or whatever, depending on the best current solution. That makes your programs dependent on the OS, not on the hardware. Port the compiling stack of your OS, and you're done.
A much better idea is already practiced as the most successful method of software distribution ever: JavaScript, or as I call it, source-only distribution.