First, there seems to be no central archive of this mailing list. If
one exists somewhere, please let me know. Onto my topic ...
I learned of the HURD an year or two ago and have been passively following
it since; back then it was low profile project which didn't seem to serve
any significant purpose. Well, frankly, it still feels as if it doesn't.
But I am interested in the HURD. It strikes me as the Right Way to build
software. As a technically-minded individual I would be pleased if it
would grow to maturation and be usable. But for what purpose would I use
it? There is already Linux and *BSD. Why compete with and
offer to replace something that is already free and that works
well? I would rather have it serve a purpose for which there is no
current, free replacement.
I don't know about the background of those in this list, but I have been
involved in media all my life; I grew up with the demoscene and studied
all varieties of signal processing in school. It has taught me to
appreciate things that are fast, simple and lightweight, and it has also
taught me that immersive media will be the Next Big Thing. Look at the
developments ... signal (as opposed to data) compression is reaching new
heights as are our understanding and manipulation of speech, audio, and
video. Mix in an already huge, yet still relatively untapped market for
media entertainment and you can readily see the picture.
>From my perspective, it would be really, really cool if HURD grew up to be
a media OS, a platform tailored to supporting the generation and
consumption of audio and video. Linux, *BSD, Solaris and the like simply
don't cut it. Windows is only marginally better with its DirectX and
associated technologies. BeOS has aimed at a similar goal and seems to
have done many things right; unfortunately it is proprietary and suffers
all the associated symptoms. There is no reason why, if Targeted, Marketed
and Engineered properly, why "Media HURD" can't be as good as or better
than BeOS. Being open source, it could enjoy the benefits of proper design
and complement existing open source software, while riding the wave of
OSS popularity at the same time.
HURD is still in its early stages. This is an opportunity to shed a lot of
cruft that current open source OS' have gathered, while building something
that is new and that could be highly desirable and needed in the
not-so-distant future. I think it is an achievable and rewarding goal.
What do you HURD developers and users think?
