Re: HURD

[Marcus Brinkmann]

Hello "John",

let me first say hello, and that you are welcome to share your ideas
with us, but that there are a couple of things you can do to entice
more useful replies.

First, have you browsed through the mailing list archive?  There are
many interesting discussions in there, which should give you an idea
about some of the design decisions we have tentatively made.  Many
things have changed over the years, but I think that there is a
reasonably clear picture what our primary focus of work is.

If you do this, you may find out that our primary interest is not the
underlying hardware.  We want to write a general purpose operating
system, which means that we target the hardware that's available to
most people first, and try to be portable.  Relying on specific
devices, even interesting ones such as FPGA, is not on the agenda, and
there seem to be no compelling reasons to do so.

Although interesting to see what resources you have found recently, we
can make more use of your input if you try to put it into the context
of the Hurd project.  You don't need to write essays, but a couple of
sentences why something seems relevant to this project would be very
much appreciated.  I am less interested in why you think the work is
interesting to you, but why you think that the work should be
interesting for us, given the work we have already done.

Your three phases plan did not give me any idea how you think the
user-space of the system should look like.  Maybe you can formulate
some goals for the end-user that the system should meet, so that we
can work backwards from there and fill in the gaps.

My last note is personal.  You decided to post anonymously.  This
means that we have no idea who you are.  You can build a reputation
under any pseudonym, but you should be aware that all contributions to
the Hurd must have their copyright assigned to the Free Software
Foundation, and if you reach that point you will have to reveal your
identity to the FSF at the very least.  My personal preference is to
talk and invest time into relationships with people who can become my
friends, and I have made many friendships working on the Hurd project.
By remaining anonymous, you are depriving yourself and us of that
opportunity.

Thanks,
Marcus