One could argue that it should have never lived.

This comment seems correct. No commits in years [0], but more telling is issue #441 [1]:

> Q: Is nodeOS an abandonned project?

> A: Unluckily, sort of. I've tried sometimes to retake it, but work has absorved me so much that don't have time to engage on long-term side projects, and size of NodeOS itself give me a lot of respect. Obviously this has not been the only problem, I failed to communicate and delegate some work to the community, although they were willing to do so. If only I could get some extra motivation to retake it, like some funds or something, or at least to focus myself on the project and get over to my fears... :-/

So, it seems that it's stalled and with some love it might be able to be resurrected. But even the issue report is over 1 year old.

[0] https://github.com/NodeOS/NodeOS

[1] https://github.com/NodeOS/NodeOS/issues/441

edit: formatting