Re:Why did Apple's Copland fail when so many 90s OS succeed,...
by kbutler on Friday December 07, 2018 @09:55AM
(#18628127)
This was covered extensively over 25 years ago, including the classic comment by Linus that "In fact the /whole/ linux kernel is much smaller than the 386-dependent
things in [the existing microkernel] mach". https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/opensources/book/appa.html
Mach and Hurd were existing microkernels/projects before Linux development began.
Linux dominated because it (partly) worked and was accessible and a community formed around it. Hurd had none of those. It's the canonical proof of Richard Gabriel's prescient "Worse is Better (1991)" http://dreamsongs.com/WIB.html - "The good news is that in 1995 we will have a good operating system and programming language; the bad news is that they will be Unix and C++."
Mach and Hurd were existing microkernels/projects before Linux development began.
Linux dominated because it (partly) worked and was accessible and a community formed around it. Hurd had none of those. It's the canonical proof of Richard Gabriel's prescient "Worse is Better (1991)" http://dreamsongs.com/WIB.html - "The good news is that in 1995 we will have a good operating system and programming language; the bad news is that they will be Unix and C++."