Re: A proposed Roadmap

[Richard Stallman]

    Problems 2 through 7 are solved in my proposed road map by releasing an
    initial version of the GNU OS that uses a 100% Linux kernel.

    Phase 1: Linux kernel + Linux drivers

Name aside, how would this differ from an existing free GNU/Linux
system such as gNewSense?

I think Olaf Buddenhagen is basically right on this:

    The GNU system would be totally irrelevant as just yet another GNU/Linux
    distribution, and the Hurd would be marginalised even more -- a perfect
    loss-loss situation.


Sprink wrote:

    It wouldn't be just another GNU/Linux distro, it would be a distribution
    aimed at developing the hurd and the GNU OS. That would be its main goal.
    People like me, and many others, who want to support the hurd, would choose
    to run this distribution, test it, talk about it, submit bugs, keep it
    active, and people who don't plan to use the hurd in the future, would not.

That idea makes sense, in a general way.  If making a GNU/Linux distro
could be a testbed for developing and perfecting some parts of the GNU
system, that would make sense.

The ideas we have for packaging and installation in the GNU system
depend on Hurd features, so I am not sure whether it is feasible to
develop them at all using Linux.

However, it may be the case that we could solve some other
problems thru development of a modified version of gNewSense,
as Olaf suggested.  What problem could we solve this way?

But I think that Debian GNU/Hurd is a better platform
for working on making various apps Hurd-compatible
(for instance, fixing PATH_MAX problems).

    Phase 2: GNU microkernel (single server) + Linux + Linux drivers

Since writing the GNU microkernel is what's holding up progress on
Hurd NG, it seems that this would require waiting until that is done.
Once it is done, this would require adapting Linux to run on that
microkernel, which is work we would afterwards throw away.

In other words, if we are going from phase 1 to phase 3, phase 2 is a
big detour.

So I think we should skip phase 2.

    Phase 3: GNU microkernel (multiple server) + GNU Hurd Servers + Linux
    drivers

    Phase 4: GNU microkernel + GNU Hurd + GNU drivers

We don't need to make it our goal to replace all the drivers.  Marcus
says that, in the microkernel design he has in mind, the drivers run
in user mode.  Perhaps this requires replacing the drivers, but I hope
we would be able to continue to use Linux drivers, just to reduce the
work involved.