Re: about GNU Hurd

[Michael Heath]

You're right. Working on a short-term version and a long-term version in parallel is not absurd, IF you already have a complete, usable, stable system and people are using it. 

That isn't the case with the Hurd. Not many people use it, and not many people will use it until the improvements come that will only come with major progress. Supporting legacy development just splits your resources and makes it so the inevitable takes longer. 

Michael Heath

On 9/3/07, Richard Stallman <address@hidden> wrote:

    If we are sure we need HURD-NG, it is no-sense to work in Hurd on
    gnumach anymore. To ask people to work in Hurd on gnumach is then to
    ask hackers to work in something that wont be useful.

That's too strong a statement.  To work on a short-term version and a
long-term version in parallel is not absurd.  I think that people do
lots of work on the stable version of Linux while others do work on
preparing the next one.

But the Mach-based version of the Hurd is not stable, and not much in
use.  If we can make it good to use, in the next year or so, that will
be worth while.  But perhaps not easy or not feasible.

The servers of Hurd-NG will be made from the existing Hurd servers, so
developing them is still part of the main line of development.