I have no doubt that Hurd is a neat system, but the pathetic part is that they couldn't even get a 1.0 release after 16 years.
It's not a priority at all... And they're trying to everything
perfectly, and I think it would work pretty damn well too. I remember reading
an interview by one of the main GNU/Hurd dev's, and at the time (November, 2001) there was 4 other main dev's. And I wouldn't be surprised if the team has shrunk since then, but something tells me it's probably bigger...
JA:
Is there a target date for the next official release?
Neal Walfield:
Not that I am aware of.
JA:
It would seem to me that having another official release would generate more
interest and potentially increase your user base. What needs to happen before
we'll see another official release?
Neal Walfield:
I am sure that an official release would generate a lot more interest
in the GNU/Hurd, however, I do not know if we need that type of
interest at the moment. The developers are already spread quite thin
and having to play technical support (which is what you promise when
you do a release) would be quite taxing. Additionally, we can only
ask users to give us so many chances. If we release today and they see the
current limitations, a year later, they may not be so willing to try
again.
As for what is required before another release, I am not the
maintainer, however, some important items that need to be done
eventually include: integrating pthread support; rewritting libdiskfs
to allow larger partitions; and using OSKit-Mach, an implementation of Mach based on the University of Utah's OSKit which would provide a new driver framework. There are also stability issues that need to
be addressed and the VM subsystem needs some work.
ATM, they're porting the Hurd to a different microkernel (L4), which has delayed them
loads, but once... IF it works, it's gonna be mental!
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