Comment by mindstab | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mindstab | Hacker News Reader

As time goes on GNU HURD becomes sadder and sadder :/

They can't even seem to be consistently settled on their basics like what micro kernel they are using

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurd#Other_microkernels

In the 2000s they experimented with 3 other micro kernels, all of which went "no where". Over half a decade spending their limited dev resources on work that ultimately went no where since they are still apparently using Mach.

and now (from the article):

- GNU/Hurd 2013 is available for the 32-bit x86 architecture only

- Hurd can currently only make use of one CPU (or CPU core). That is to say, it will still run on multi-core and SMP machines, but only utilizing a single processor.

- Hurd generally uses device drivers ported from Linux 2.0 ... So the latest and greatest shiny hardware might cause trouble.

Once upon a time if you could get it to run on your hardware it was at least vaguely competitive, but now the thought of putting it on my 64bit quad core laptop... well... what a waste.

And instead of trying to even keep up, they are still trying to pick the right micro kernel...

"In years past, Richard Stallman was quoted as saying that Linux was a good option to use while the Hurd was still incomplete"

The Hurd authors might find your part-time projects just as sad and pathetic as you find theirs. There's not much I can say beyond that, since you've based your judgement on vague and wishy-washy concepts like going somewhere, being "vaguely competitive", and keeping up. It's no business of yours to criticize the direction of a project you have no involvement or stake in, especially when you can't articulate what direction you'd prefer.

The problem is HURD isn't positioned as a part time product, it's positioned as a replacement to Linux, which is inferior technically, just has more hands on deck right now. I'm not so scornful of the many many many other OS projects out there because they don't generally act like they are better than all that exists and going to naturally supplant it if they can just find the right microkernel... Also very few "side projectS" have been going on for like 25 years... So again my personal side projects are hard to compare to an organization's quarter century effort.

Direction I'd prefer? Working on modern hardware and taking full advantage of it! Was that not clear? That's the whole point. They spend all their time on on designing and redesigning archetecture and their software is now getting less relevant on real hardware. Mostly only makes sense now to run as a VM. Which is probably not what they want for the OS that is supposed to replace Linux....

My sad and pathetic part-time projects don't drag on for 25 years. :)

I wonder what could be done to actually turn the project around. There are articles on HN almost everyday about small project management this and agile that. What might actually help this project?

The first thing they would need is a compelling reason for people to spend their time on the project.

"In years past, Richard Stallman was quoted as saying that Linux was a good option to use while the Hurd was still incomplete"

Linux will remain a good option for a long time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com