Re: Contributing to Hurd

[olafBuddenhagen]

Hi,

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 12:55:44PM +0530, arnuld uttre wrote:
> > On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 10:45 PM,  <address@hidden> wrote:

> > Where did you pull that "22 year" figure from?... The existing Hurd
> > implementation is younger than that; Mach itself is older.
> 
> Development of GNU system started in 1984, so somewhere around that
> time Hurd discussion must have been started, that makes it 26 years.

Actual Hurd development didn't start before 1990. Obviously there has
been some discussions before regarding kernels -- but this is not
relevant in establishing how old the Hurd is. Or would you measure the
age of a child by the time when the parents first started thinking about
getting one?... ;-)

Anyways, the age is really irrelevant to the discussion. I only
mentioned it because there seems to be some confusion :-)

> Since 1984, there is no GNU system. In 2010, it still lacks a kernel,
> like in 1984

Nah, it does have a kernel... It is still not quite ready for everyday
use -- but the biggest problems we are experiencing have very little to
do with the microkernel used. As I said, the research work done with
Viengoos is interesting and important; but making the Hurd fit for
everyday use, most of all requires bug fixing and optimization work --
like with any other system.

Admittedly that's less exciting... ;-) But it has to be done anyways at
some point, no matter what microkernel is employed.

> and whatever we have today as Mach is far below (technically) the
> current Linux kernel.

The Hurd based on Mach is far behind in some regards, and far superior
in others. I don't think it's terribly surprising that we are not
superior in every regard, considering that we have a handful of
volunteers, as opposed to thousands of paid developers...

If you believe that using Viengoos will magically change that, I'm sorry
to disappoint you ;-)

> I don't see the point in following the development on Mach.

The point is getting a complete, usable GNU system. Isn't that what you
wanted?...

-antrik-