I'm a big fan of L4 and absolutely hate every GNU package I've ever run into. I joined this list because it's an L4 list, not because I like GNU. The concept of free software is great but re-implementing unix for the sake of re-implementing unix is pretty much the stupidest thing you can do. =( I installed Gentoo on my computer back in 2004 and am still using the same installation to write this yet still I can hardly use more than 10% of the features of the software on my system. GNU software is uniformly worse than awful because the authors never fail to blame the user for being unable to memorize command line syntax that is uniformly inferior to any given DOS utility. Sure, you can come back at me and say DOS (and all utilities written for it) had no features, but please don't fail to understand that even though the tools were arguably weaker, they were written in such a way that the *USER* was more effective at getting things done.
I'm fascinated to read that "L4 was rejected for hurd." I mean Jezus god damned motherfucking christ. Who could possibly reject the world's best publicly available kernel? Seriously, I am dying to read what the asshat ( http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ass-hat ) who made such a decision could possibly say for itself. Okay, now that I've enjoyed my daily screed against unix and all of its flavors, what do I like?, well I'll tell you. I want to see what I call a "system oriented operating system". A system where no program is any weaker than the kernel. -- Ie, can provide an internal operating environment. I wrote a paper on it back in 2001. However I am far too lame to get the project going myself, mainly because I couldn't find the documentation I needed back when I had the time and energy to work on such a project. =(( If you want a more buzzwordy description of essentially the same basic idea, read: http://www.ok-labs.com/solutions/secure-hypercell-technology In closing, I want to say that the GNU project desperately needs to do some soul searching. Is it the mission of the GNU project to foist a 30 year old technology, languages, and methodologies on the community or is it the mission of the GNU project to advance the state of the art of design, usability and performance that regular people can actually use? See KDE 3.5 for a positive example of free software done right. -- New president: Here we go again... Chemistry.com: A total rip-off. Powers are not rights.
