I'm working on a design for a next-gen OS, and I already have some things that are in the article, like starting a blank process to be mutated before start [1], file descriptors as handles/capabilities, and such.
But there are some other things I don't have that I like.
For the bootstrap problem, I realized something that the author did: the better interface is generally more powerful:
> When requests and responses are paired 1-1, the asynchronous APIs offer perhaps performance improvements but no expressive power. When they are not 1-1, however, things get more interesting.
Then I realized that if an OS is designed right, it will generally have more expressive interfaces, and those expressive interfaces can then be used to implement the APIs from other operating systems.
So I intend to make a microkernel that implements the APIs for the popular operating systems. Then I will make a userspace driver shim that implements the Linux driver API.
Boom! Instant OS and driver availability. Done right, Linux drivers will work, and software from the major operating systems will work.
And then I will encourage people to use the better APIs when on my OS until everybody is on my OS.
Embrace, extend, extinguish, but in a good way! :)
Will it work? Oh, heavens no. But as some comments have said, experimentation is a good thing.