Re: HURDNG : Which type of OS design could we have to thinknowadays ?

[Nigel Williams]

"Neal H. Walfield" <address@hidden> wrote in message 
news:address@hidden
> On the other hand, you completely devalue legacy support.  I think
> this is the hardest problem and central to the adoption of new
> systems.

With hurdNg and coyotos I would gladly see legacy support de-valued (even 
jettisoned), I feel it is over-rated. I would rather see the useful legacy 
tools re-implemented for a new OS which offered new environments (as 
happened with UNIX and Macintosh, neither provided legacy support in the 
initial implementations). Attempting to maintain legacy support almost 
de-railed Windows Vista. Legacy support via virtualization (and data 
exchange via open-formats) seems a less exhausting approach.

> In short, I think you need to define some goals, consider their
> implications (in particular, what things are less important) and then
> think about how these new techniques that you've pointed to will
> facilitate those goals.

A goal to support widespread adoption (at least within a niche) I would like 
to see fulfilled, once hurd.L4 or coyotos can host services, is for a 
scalable web-server implementation which offered an application environment 
comparable (preferably better) to ASP or PHP. A verifiably secure web-server 
would quickly supplant IIS and Apache and permit people to return to sharing 
their digital artifacts with a credible degree of confidence.

nigwil