[Qwertious]

"Linux has always been interesting because it's portable, not because it's easy or streamlined or standardized."

Pretty sure Tanenbaum would disagree. That said, I do agree that portability really is important. For that matter, I'd really like a decent FOSS microkernel.

[ben_bai]

Since you mentioned Tanenbaum. What about Minix 3, It's basically a new/modern Microkernel with the NetBSD userland.