From: imran.geriskovan@ttnet.net.tr
Date: Sun 17 Aug 2003 - 17:50:36 EEST
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Hurd Advocacy?
Resent-Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 15:54:35 -0500 (CDT)
Resent-From: debian-hurd@lists.debian.org
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 13:31:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: Hurd Advocate <hurd_advocate@yahoo.com>
To: debian-hurd@lists.debian.org
What can the Hurd community do to promote their favorite OS?
It seems like the Hurd doesn't really have a critical mass of
users to spur the growth we'd all like to see. So I was wondering what
everyone thought was the best way to attract more developers/users to
the Hurd. The reason I initially looked into the hurd is the BitKeeper
fiasco. I found it unpalatable for free software to be beholden to a
proprietary master. I thought it would't hurt to look at the
alternatives. And I came across the Hurd. From what I could initially
find out, it seemed like it had interesting and modern architecture,
one
which could solve the "Linus doesn't scale" problem more cleanly than
the BitKeeper solution. (And here I'm assuming that things like
userspace device drivers and the fact that any part of the system can
theoretically be replaced on the fly really does solve that problem).
I
was, of course, also attracted just because it was something new and
different. So I wonder what attracts everyone else to the Hurd. To
that end here are a couple of questions I have.
- Is there any killer-app for the Hurd (available now or in the future)
that we think will bring the masses in? Or phrased a different way,
is there any one feature that people would be willing to think about
converting over for.
translators?
distributed OS?
better security model?
more customizable? (is that a word?)
- Are hardware compatibility problems more of a problem for newbies, or
is it the lack of software which stifles adoption. (And for the
record, I think the killer-app would be Linux and the Hurd running
side by side on top of the same micro-kernel. That would make
migration easier, since you could still have access to your important
hardware and software that hadn't been ported over yet)
- Is it hard to attract developers because the project is too complex.
Instead of just learning one system, you have to learn about two: the
hurd and mach. And who would want to learn about mach when it's
scheduled for removal whenever the L4 kernel gets traction (3-5 years
out?)? Or is it the "multi- threaded servers are hard to debug"
problem still.
- Is a lack of documentation the real hard thing for new developers to
overcome?
- Are we nice enough to newbs? (I tend to think so, but there was a
little hissy-fit about change-log colon-placement for hello.c on
bug-hurd last month)
- Do we suffer from a lack of charasmatic leadership and direction?
- Is there any one thing which could be fixed to attact a lot more
users?
PPP?
sound?
USB?
GNOME?
journaled file system?
OpenOffice?
- Is advertising our problem? Do we not get enough exposure to
potential developers? (And here I'm thinking CS undergrads) I'm
thinking that a new developer could have a lot more influence on the
design of the Hurd (since it's still in flux) than say a more mature
project like Linux or FreeBSD.
- Does anyone think that companies like RedHat or IBM might think about
funding some summer college internships to work on something like the
Hurd?
- Is there any future development that might drive people to the Hurd?
Like the SCO garbage or DRM binaries/signatures in the Linux kernel?
- Is our installation proceedure/Debian system overly obtuse?
- Are we always destined to play catch up with Linux? (eventhough we
had
a headstart?)
Anyways, I'd like to hear your thoughts.
The Hurd Advocate
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