On Wed, 2003-05-21 at 14:23, Colin Watson wrote: > On Wed, May 21, 2003 at 12:26:37PM -0400, Mark L. Kahnt wrote: > > I think there is potential in it as a concept and research effort, but I > > increasingly suspect that we are going to see a fork of Linux to extract > > a microkernel and servers from its codebase (while still abi compatible > > with traditional Linux) before the current limited resources available > > to the Hurd community get to a generally viable o/s. > > You reckon? I think it's unlikely that anyone will want to spend the > enormous amounts of effort it would take to upend all the basic > assumptions of the Linux kernel to turn it into a microkernel; it would > be much more economical to just write one from scratch. Since monolithic > kernels are these days easily efficient enough for most if not all > purposes, neither goal attracts much attention. > > Cheers, > > -- > Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk] My views are less leaning to the *wisdom* of a microkernel fork of Linux than it is a sense that the Hurd, while it may have some fans of the concept, just isn't getting there on its own. At some point, it might be decided that rather than reinvent so much code, it makes more sense to build upon existing *and complete* work, by spinning off aspects of the Linux (or maybe one or another of the BSDs) kernel as services, with a goal being to have a system that could become microkernel neutral (as I understand the Hurd is supposed to be.) But as I mentioned, there appears to be a "Not Built Here" resistance - as Aryan Ameri wrote "Considering that RMS promotes GNU free software applications over their non-GNU free software equivalents..." and Linux itself isn't an FSF project, while officially the Hurd is, although when it comes to visibility, from what I see when I look for information on it (and I follow the debian-hurd list - it seemed to come to life only when Barry deFreese started trying to get involved,) it is drifting to the realm of vapourware in spite of the excellent intentions of those hoping to put it together living up to the theoretical promises of the system. -- Mark L. Kahnt, FLMI/M, ALHC, HIA, AIAA, ACS, MHP ML Kahnt New Markets Consulting Tel: (613) 531-8684 / (613) 539-0935 Email: kahnt@hosehead.dyndns.org
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