Aw: Re: Reviewing Hurd-on-L4 (and considering its future?)

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

> Betreff: Re: Reviewing Hurd-on-L4 (and considering its future?)
>
>  Forwarding my two replies sent directly to Paul and RMS to the list.

When reading the reply by RMS, keep in mind that he is argumenting about 
utility for the goal of ridding the world of the requirement to run proprietary 
software - for any task.

While I see the Hurd as great progress towards improving the Free Software 
solutions by making it much easier to hack low-level components, this does not 
replace existing proprietary lock-in. So in this, judging from existing 
information without taking unproven assumptions, RMS is right, because we did 
not demonstrate yet that it is easier to develop drivers on the Hurd than on 
Linux.

Widespread use of the Hurd might bring growth to low-level free software 
development similar to how LLVM pushed language development (to name a pain 
point) and how FUSE pushed filesystem development, but it also might not.

I personally think that the Hurd provides a much stronger foundation for a free 
software desktop than Linux. I already described that in detail on 

    Some technical advantages of the Hurd
    
http://www.draketo.de/light/english/free-software/some-technical-advantages-of-the-hurd

Best wishes,
Arne Babenhauserheide

> -----[ Begin original email ]------------- Original Message --------
> From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
> Sent: Tue, Jun 19, 2012 06:21 PM
> To: Rick C. Hodgin <foxmuldrster@yahoo.com>
> CC: 
> Subject: Re: Replacement for the HURD
> 
>     With either Linux or the HURD (as the HURD stands today) we cannot ever 
>     get there.  We cannot ever get to where we have a truly free operating 
>     system (kernel and up), even if we have the outward appearance and 
>     illusion of it.
> 
> I don't think that follows.  Both Linux and Hurd _are_ free kernels.
> The problem is that we lack free drivers and firmware for many peripherals.
> 
> Replacing the free code of Linux with some other free code won't get
> us the drivers or the firmware.  That requires writing drivers and firmware.
> 
> I simply don't see how replacing the free code of Linux with other free code
> would make progress along that dimension.
> 
>     I realized at that time how easily I could write a competitor to 
>     Blender, or a 3D CAD system.  I even looked into it a little bit, but 
>     saw how many CAD programs there were out there and thought I could not 
>     write one sufficiently better than what's available to make it worth the 
>     amount of time it would require.
> 
> The existing free CAD programs have a license incompatibility with GPLv3,
> so it would be very useful to write a replacement.  However, one of them
> is trying to eliminate its license incompatibility, and that helping
> that project do so would be very useful.