[CLUE-Talk] gnu-hurd article

[Dennis J Perkins]

Dave Price wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 10, 2002 at 05:48:15AM -0700, Roger Frank wrote:
> 
>>I never did understand why GNU/Hurd was there at all.  There are
>>about a zillion flavors of Linux around with what seems like
>>a decent kernel.  If I tire of installing the distro of the week,
>>I tinker with FreeBSD.  That's about all the fun I can stand.
>>So what is the driving force behind the GNU/Hurd piece at all?
>>Does it have a particular application or customer segment that
>>is different than Linux or BSD?  Or is it a just personal thing with
>>the Stallman and FSF?
>>
>>---
>>Roger Frank
> 
> 
> 
> Historically, the hurd (and Stallman's gnu project) predates linux.
> It is just that RMS (what he thought were) the easiest pieces first,
> and left the kernel for the last.  Linus built a kernel first, and
> borrowed the gnu project's tools to build a complete unix clone.
> 
> He just never gave up the idea of a complete gnu (Free Software
> Foundation) system - so the hurd effort continues.  The gnu/linux
> community owes a great deal to RMS and his idea of a free unix system -
> not to mention gcc, glibc, etc.
> 
> aloha,
> dave
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> 

RMS has said that if the Linux kernel was around before they started 
doing Hurd, they probably would have used it.  Since they had already 
invested a lot of time and labor into Hurd, the GNU project opted to 
continue development.

Hurd does have some some interesting ideas but I don't know how feasible 
they are.  I have wondered if Hurd is best suited to cluster systems. 
Hurd will test these ideas and we'll see how well they work.