This headline was pretty much true 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago...
Don't get me wrong, I think Hurd is interesting, but I seriously doubt it's going to have a big impact on anything as it reflects the software engineering philosophies of the 1980s.
It is barely distinguishable from the first slide featured in the Phoronix article from today: https://www.phoronix.net/image.php?id=2026&image=gnu_hurd_1 It seems like there has been progress on other fronts, so I'm not sure why Phoronix ran a headline focused on very old news.
> reflects the software engineering philosophies of the 1980s.
It has a microkernel architecture. That's already an improvement over the "modern" monolithic kernels we are stuck with today. Given Big Tech's interest in hardening security and sandboxing you'd think this would get more attention.
While I laughed at the headline, it also fondly reminds me of reading Slashdot in the late 90s-early 00s, back before the Internet and programming and computers had all gone to shit.
Good luck guys. At least working on this for decades is less damaging to the world than anything people do at Google and Facebook.
This headline was pretty much true 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago...
Don't get me wrong, I think Hurd is interesting, but I seriously doubt it's going to have a big impact on anything as it reflects the software engineering philosophies of the 1980s.
The "75% of Debian archive builds" claim is exactly the same 7 years ago. In fact, look at this slide from the 2019 presentation: https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/roadmap_for_t... (page 8)
It is barely distinguishable from the first slide featured in the Phoronix article from today: https://www.phoronix.net/image.php?id=2026&image=gnu_hurd_1 It seems like there has been progress on other fronts, so I'm not sure why Phoronix ran a headline focused on very old news.
Interestingly, the 2018 version of the slide claims "80% of Debian archive builds"; I wonder what caused the regression. https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/microkernel_h... (page 26)
> so I'm not sure why Phoronix ran a headline focused on very old news.
It's just coverage of FOSDEM 2026 and I guess they assumed that the FOSDEM slides would show notable changes rather than the state of play.
> reflects the software engineering philosophies of the 1980s.
It has a microkernel architecture. That's already an improvement over the "modern" monolithic kernels we are stuck with today. Given Big Tech's interest in hardening security and sandboxing you'd think this would get more attention.
Another example of if llms are so good. Why isn't a gap like this closed very quickly?
GNU projects and LLM contribs mix like water and oil.
Link to the actual presentation:
https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/7FZXHF-updates_on_gnu...
Hurd is long past ever being anything but a pet project of RMS and his familiars.
Please let me know what it is "there". Then I'll start caring. Until then ...
While I laughed at the headline, it also fondly reminds me of reading Slashdot in the late 90s-early 00s, back before the Internet and programming and computers had all gone to shit.
Good luck guys. At least working on this for decades is less damaging to the world than anything people do at Google and Facebook.
Hah! It's been almost there for over a decade...
"Hurd Isn't Soup"
Hurd Uses Repurposed Debian