An idea from the 'Crossing the Chasm' book is to find a niche where whatever characteristics of the product you're working on can win. You are not going to win going head to head with the entrenched competitors.
What does that look like for Hurd?
What does that look like for Hurd?
It's a project that's being built by and for people that care about it.
You might as well ask "How can my local pick-up basketball team find a niche to make money, like NBA players do? Can we all wear more colorful jerseys so TV stations cover us?" No, that's silly, the point of the pick-up basketball team isn't to make money, it isn't to beat a competitor, like the NBA, for sports coverage, it's to hang out with friends and have fun.
That's what many free software projects are like. And if enough people come to hang out and have fun, it might organically become bigger and better, but if you start making it the point of it, it ruins it. If you tell the pick-up basketball people "No, you can't join, you're not photogenic enough", you won't have friends soon. If you start telling hurd developers "We need to take on MS, stop working on that thing you care about, no one else cares about it", the project will die.
* Linux is the de facto kernel used on most servers, has great support and is the third pick after the mainstream kernels for a good reason. It's also usually someone's first introduction to Unix-based systems these days, so there's loads and loads of documentation available (even if the quality of that documentation runs the gamut from "acceptable" to "who wrote this").
* BSDs are rock solid and a great pick if you're targeting reliability. Knowledge on a BSD changes little with the years and that's a big bonus.
* Plan9 is interesting because it provides a unique approach to system design by taking the "everything is a file" approach to its logical limit. That doesn't make the system itself the most useful in the world but it is an excellent system to study and borrow good ideas from.
The main reasons I can see to use Hurd are... ideological opposition to Linux and being a microkernel. While the latter has interesting implications, the usual GNU problem of "we don't try to support any hardware unless it ideologically conforms" really gets in the way of wanting to use it and that's definitely a broader GNU problem but it's a much larger for problem for something as crucial as a kernel.
Also not helping things is that to my understanding, Hurd kind of has a start-stop nature to its development - that is, the project is on life support unless someone starts dissing it, so it picks up back for a few months to show how it's totally alive. Very much more of a spite driven project these days than a legitimate option.
[1] https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd/documentation/transla...
A lot of Hurds continued development is just predicated on "we don't want to admit Linux became a success" rather than any serious principles or ethics. Again, just look at the whole start-stop nature of its development.
I don't disagree that a lot of tech professionals could spare at least some basic regards for the ethics surrounding the software they create, but you're not gonna find that at the GNU project.
Then just say I don't like that Hurd is part of the GNU Project because I dont like what the latter does. In my opinion, it is very hard to deny that GNU Project / FSF take principles and ethics of software development very seriously. Some people even call them dogmatic for it.
Is Hurd there? I mean, you obviously don't frame 'success' with an open source system in financial terms, but I would argue that developing a critical development mass is pretty important. Without that, the project will wither and die.
Open source is sort of an "attention economy", so the currency isn't dollars, but developer interest.
Fooling around with something for the joy of learning is a motivator, but I don't know that it's enough to sustain a project, long term.
And Hurd very much is a 'product' in the economic sense, whether it's open source, not for profit, or whatever.
Okay, then tell us why we should care about it when more popular operating systems fit our needs better anyways.
Man, y'all are gonna be so mad when you find out some people work on OSS projects for fun or ideological reasons.
Again, a sentiment that needs repeating far too often here, not everything is about, or for, you.
Not everyone here is a joyless sack of shit yet.
If "fun" and "idological reasons" are the reason there is a community around the project, then that is in fact the answer to the question, if a little vague.
For people still not understanding, it would be nice to have an explanation of what people find fun about it, especially as a user and not a developer, and what ideological reason exactly are driving it.
I find the desire to work on a 30 year old operating system that still lacks USB support much more confusing.
I don't use Hurd, but I do get it. I feel it's quite simple.
Just because it isn't there yet doesn't mean one wouldn't want to hack on it from time to time
Valuing my time doesn't make me a capitalist.
Linux started this way. If Linux reaches a point where it doesn't fill the needs of its users/developers better, they will pivot to another alternative, and Hurd is one of those future alternatives. See it as future insurance.
I mean, any unique features HURD has, Linux can easily copy, like with FUSE.
The safety benefits are kind of dubious, in that we're not in the 90s anymore, restarting Windows 3 times a day. Modern kernels are very stable as it is, so more stability is barely noticeable.
And we have containers and virtualization.
Linux, (not big and professional like gnu), is not going to win but could find a niche somewhere. Hm, ok.
Linux has a large, large established user base at this point. If you want to attract people to a different platform, you need a compelling reason.
For people just looking to look/experiment/learn/play, 'something new' that's more easily understood because it's small might be enough, but that's unlikely to be a large user base.
Which market segment does linux not totally dominate nowadays? Phones, big servers, embedded devices, HPC... Maybe you could argue desktops? Maybe? Still a very signficant player there however you dice it.
Going back to Linus' original email announcement then apply your framework and you don't predict linux competing anywhere let alone dominating everywhere. How could anyone? Smash Sun, IBM, HP all of them. No chance. None.
The future, it's really hard to predict except in hindsight.
On the IoT space it seems like not everyone is keen in having to deal with GPL and Linux, hence the myriad of FOSS MIT/Apache licensed OSSes that now exist.
Zephyr, NuttX, Mbed, Amazon RTOS, Redox, Tock...
And then there still the commercial alternatives.
The license is there for a reason, and its working.
As for "competitors", that's pretty cool :)