While I'm not a systems programmer, from what I've read (particularly from Poul-Henning Kamp) I think enriching the virtual memory abstraction is going to be a key area for OS innovation shortly. MMU's and the signaling mechanisms offer a unique ability to trap events happening dynamically within your program. I think by revising the userland/kernel API, I think there's likely many interesting ways for userland software to better utilize the MMU's in modern processors.
While I'm not a systems programmer, from what I've read (particularly from Poul-Henning Kamp) I think enriching the virtual memory abstraction is going to be a key area for OS innovation shortly. MMU's and the signaling mechanisms offer a unique ability to trap events happening dynamically within your program. I think by revising the userland/kernel API, I think there's likely many interesting ways for userland software to better utilize the MMU's in modern processors.