Re: L4-hurd Digest, Vol 6, Issue 12

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

On Thu, May 22, 2003 at 10:51:31AM +0200, Niels Möller wrote:
> For the Hurd, the primary reason for using a micro-kernel is that it
> makes it possible to move most of the features traditionally
> implemented in the kernel to user space servers, and to allow ordinary
> users to replace some or (almost) all of these servers. See
> http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd-paper.html.

And I think one of the primary reasons for moving most of the features
to user space is that it makes it possible to build a much more
flexible and configurable operating system: it allows the user to
customize its system (by changing or adding OS services) at runtime.

Security may be another good motivation for moving things to user space
(the more features are outside of the kernel, the less a faulty
behaviour of one of them may impact the system as a whole).

Cheers,
Ludovic.