GNU Hurd 0.5, GNU Mach 1.4, GNU MIG 1.4 Released 206
jrepin writes "Which day could be better suited for publishing a set of Hurd package releases than the GNU project's 30th birthday? These new releases bundle bug fixes and enhancements done since the last releases more than a decade ago; really too many (both years and improvements) to list them individually, The GNU Hurd is the GNU project's replacement for the Unix kernel. It is a collection of servers that run on the Mach microkernel to implement file systems, network protocols, file access control, and other features that are implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels (such as Linux)."
Relevance? (Score:3, Insightful)
What exactly is relevant about Hurd now? The OS landscape has changed and people have moved on. This is really a non-story, aside from the humor value.
Re:Proposal: (Score:1, Insightful)
Who would want free BSD software relicensed under a shittier unfree license?
Re:Proposal: (Score:5, Insightful)
Mac users?
Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 (Score:3, Insightful)
The people in charge of that are so out of touch they should be committed in a mental hospital. It wasn't that long ago they finally supported partitions bigger than 2GB, yes two GigaBytes. Think about that fact while you also learn that RMS uses an old terminal or some such nonsense along with a script to gather Google searches and email the text to him. He lacks a graphical interface.
Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Understatement of the year (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Microkernel (Score:2, Insightful)
What does GNU Hurd have that Minix 3 does not? They are both microkernels except Minix 3 looks more mature.
GNU Hurd uses a sane license. Minix 3 uses a BSD license, which is unfree.
That's hilarious. (I don't mean just the bit where, like so many FSF fanboys, but not RMS, you can't grasp the difference between "Free" and "Copyleft"; I mean the argument as a whole.)
So HURD's only benefit (that you can think of) is that if some evil company wants to take a microkernel-based UNIX-like, make their changes, and distribute the result without source... they'll be forced to go with Minix 3 (the one that GP says "looks more mature", which you don't seem to dispute) instead of HURD (which you can't or won't explain any technical benefit of)? Yeah, I think they'll just go with Minix 3, same as they would no matter how you licensed HURD.
Re:When you do this as a hobby (Score:5, Insightful)
things tend to go slow. Real slow. If you want things now, now, now, pay the man/men. It is free, as in someone-else-will-do-it, so you get what you, that's right, didn't pay for.
Fortunately, eventually people found this hobby project [google.com] worth paying for, although I think it proved its worth before the big money started pouring in.
There are, of course, some [freebsd.org] other [netbsd.org] hobby [openbsd.org] projects [dragonflybsd.org] that also manage to support a little more hardware than the Hurd does without huge amounts of money poured into them.
Re: Proposal: (Score:2, Insightful)
I license my code under a BSD license, maybe my thought process can help elucidate why someone would do this:
My code does what it says it does. If someone relicenses it, people can always get my source instead. If someone improves it beyond what I did and people want that persons software instead, he's obviously added value to it and I feel he's within his moral rights to license that code anyway he wishes. He did something with it that I was unable, unwilling or too obtuse to do myself and I'm more then happy to see that because it means better software on the long run.
If you're familiar with RMS's essay on 'open source' people versus 'free software' people, I'm firmly in the open source camp. Its a development model that produces better software, not a moral crusade.
Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 (Score:4, Insightful)
The people in charge of that are so out of touch they should be committed in a mental hospital.
Well, aren't you so high and mighty and important shitting on someone else's personal project.
That's all hurd is: it's a small hobby project by a very small number of programmers.
It's not for you, it's for them. Being "in touch" with you is not a requirement.
Oh and by the way, I've no idea what your hobbies are, but I'm sure they suck and you're crap and should be in a mental hospital.
Think about that fact while you also learn that RMS uses an old terminal or some such nonsense along with a script to gather Google searches and email the text to him. He lacks a graphical interface.
Firstly, I already knew that.
Secondly, so what? That's his choice. You know he does that on GNU/Linux, right?
On a MIPS laptop which doesn't even run hurd? You know that too, right?