GNU Hurd 0.6 Released Brings Clean-Ups & Fixes

[ArneBab]

I tried it once. I dont get that they dont get more serious. Is there to less money to earn or whats the problem. I get that desktop is difficult but for servers it should not be that difficult to get there more serious.

Currently there is no money to earn at all (so all Hurd devs work in their spare time).

For servers, even a drop of 5% in performance costs millions (and to get to more than 90% of the performance of Linux requires lots of hard work), so it needs a compelling application which only works on the Hurd. And to develop that and bring it to market, someone needs to invest heavily into making it real.

In short: It?s hard to get into the high-end market, so it?s hard to get money.

What I don?t understand is why there are no hosters who offer managed hurd-on-kvm with SSH access for interested hackers. That wouldn?t be a huge market, but it would be a niche. And for a managed server with SSH access, missing USB and sound aren?t a problem. It could even be profitable for a hoster, given the existing interest in the Hurd. The technical advantages article is one of the most accessed on my site, so it is clear that there is interest. And if it isn?t profitable right away, it could be a strategical asset: Bind future customers.

[ArneBab]

The Hurd developers took the article pretty positive: “02:57:07< antrik> ArneBab: I think the "doesn't offer any compelling new features" was specifically about the new release. which, quite frankly, seems a pretty fair asessment of what is written in the official announcement...
of course there are stability and performance improvements, which are probably quite noticable -- but the original release announcement doesn't clearly say this either. so without insider knowledge, how was anyone supposed to know that?
I wouldn't say this article is very negative. I'd consider it mostly neutral.”

[TiberiusDuval]

I tried it once. I dont get that they dont get more serious. Is there to less money to earn or whats the problem. I get that desktop is difficult but for servers it should not be that difficult to get there more serious.

It should not be that hard to get it to freebsd level, there are more GPL developers than bsd guys but they all work on linux it seems to 99.9999%.

are there only people that want to work on the mainstream os dominates all (except the small gallican village called desktop for a few more years)

How Hurd project is managed. There may be pretty small number of FreeBSD developers when compared to GPL teams, but project is strictly managed and have established standards. Mob of 10 000 does not overcome disciplined force of 1000....

[ArneBab]

How Hurd project is managed. There may be pretty small number of FreeBSD developers when compared to GPL teams, but project is strictly managed and have established standards. Mob of 10 000 does not overcome disciplined force of 1000....

There are about 6 people who know each other and communicate via chat and email.

With a handful of people there is no need for elaborate management (that would only bring more overhead).

If you want to improve the force of the Hurd, just join and code - or talk to a friend who doesn?t yet contribute to the Hurd and convince him or her to join and code.

If you find any area which is lacking, improve it. It isn?t neglected because nobody cares: It is neglected because nobody took it as current main project.