🚀 go-pugleaf

artk@Congruent.COM (Arthur Kreitman) writes:
>In the mean time, two
>important developments have occured.  First, linux has taken the world by
>storm.  By all accounts, there are 1,000,000 of them.  Second, OSF is
>making OSF/1, including its microkernel and a full xpg3 Unix subsystem
>available in source code, under an free, unrestricted license.

Free Software Foundation proponents may point out to you that a free
unrestricted license isn't the same as the GPL. I don't know what the
details of the OSF license is, but it probably allows people to make
proprietary modifications to the published source. It will put people
on a level playing field now, but in the future the state of free
software would be right back to where it was before these free OS's
were released.

>   It seems to be that time has passed by the Hurd.  No one cares, and
>no one will use it if it ever becomes real.  I think that is time to
>kill its development and move on to better things.

That might be true if the Hurd was a clone of a traditional Unix. From
the information that has been released, that is far from the case. The
way it is designed with most of the kernel functionality replaced by
code running at user level, rather than kernel level, it is very
possible that it will become a convenient testing ground for future OS
designs. It will also be easier to add functionality of future
proprietary OS designs to the Hurd than it would be for a traditional
Unix or Unix clone.
--
Andrew Langmead