I'm sure this discussion has been enlightening to all those involved, but I think it has run its course and I'm tired of it filling up my mailbox now. I have not really been paying attention, but from what I have noticed the the discussion that has taken place is not about the Hurd, but about system administration policies.
The intent of the Hurd is to provide flexible features that permit the person configuring the system to choose from a wide range of policy options and easily implement whatever they choose. Those specific choices are not issues of operating system design, but issues of local policy and personal preference. We Hurd developers are not interested in discussing these policy questions, and if we were then this would not be the forum for it. It is a design choice to aim for a wide range of configurations, but that is a choice we have already firmly made. If your position is that policy X should be intrinsically enforced by the system or that it should not be possible to configure for policy Y, then we will just have to agree to disagree, and perhaps the Hurd is not the system for you. Mentioning specific policies and explaining their desireability to the extent of proving them plausible is an appropriate part of design discussion, exploring how wide that range might be and what constrains it; but actual debate about policies is just not.
