this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
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Even now with more eyes on GNU, Herd still isn't a serious kernel. BSD has more users and support than GNU Herd.
I thank the GNU community for making wonderful tools and making libre software possible, but it doesn't exactly deserve top billing.
Linux without GNU can live, with BusyBox or Android. GNU without Linux would have never taken off. Though I'm curious if in another timeline without GNU, Linux might not have taken off, as GNU had all the tools but no kernel.
Well we have Linux as the kernel now, and with linux-libre and FreeBSD there's no real need for another kernel. So no reason for anyone to invest in it. I do think Hurd is kind of interesting conceptually, and it's at a point where you can actually run it now.
And yeah, without GNU, I'm not convinced Linus would've bothered with Linux. GNU was off the ground long before Linux was production ready.
Linus didn't write Linux for GNU, though, he wrote it as a response to Minix which, if memory serves, was written by one of his professors and took a hard minimalist approach for teaching purposes and Linus wanted to make something actually practical.
Hell, it had to be adapted to work with GNU (or GNU adapted to work with Linux, I don't remember which) so, if GNU's absence meant Linus didn't write his kernel, it would have been a very indirect result
There was no need to develope Hurd after linus torvals came out with Linux. It's more important to develop drivers.