Light years ahead in what sense? I think it's an anachronism from a theoretical standpoint. I'd like to see more people run with newer ideas from Plan 9 / Inferno / Hurd / all the other operating systems that aren't a monolithic 1970s design.
Usability for pretty much any of the purposes for which one uses a computer operating system other than exploring theoretical ideas about how to architect a computer operating system.
> I'd like to see more people run with newer ideas from Plan 9 / Inferno / Hurd / all the other operating systems that aren't a monolithic 1970s design.
So would I. That doesn't make any Hurd more ready for any other use other than exploring newer OS ideas that Linux is.
Or even the most ready for such uses (or even the exploring OS architecture use) of the "Plan 9 / Inferno / Hurd" set.
In the sense of being a working kernel you can use as the center of an operating system. I like to see people run with other ideas too. But hurd didn't have that idea, and they aren't running with it. They are stumbling around blindly. Ironically, minix is now light years ahead of hurd, and it is also a microkernel.
Also, plan 9 doesn't explore much of anything in the kernel. It is a plain old boring monolithic kernel. The exploration in plan 9 was in the userland.
I used linux back then too, and I don't recall anything of the sort. IBM was still fighting against linux up until around the time of the redhat IPO. Looking back I can't find anyone referencing any IBM contributions that early.
