| Not really. I don't see how Linux being popular & strong today had any bearing on people's willingness to contribute 33 years ago. Writing an operating system is challenging. Not as challenging as a compiler, but certainly more work (so much hardware, so many specifications ugh). In 91-92, people were clamoring for a free, unencumbered 386 Unix. Enter Linux. Every successful (non-commercial) OS undertaking needs and has a hook. Redox? Rust (enough said). Serenity? Live coding and mental health (no knock there). And on the flip side, look at ReactOS. Languishing. Painfully slow 15+ years in development, and people would still rather pay Microsoft or roll the dice running applications under Wine. It's hook just isn't strong enough. Again, not to knock this guy, because just the fact that he wrote his own AML interpreter is super impressive to me (I've floundered around in those same ACPI specs for far, far (far, far) too many sleepless nights), and never put out 1 line of AML code. So mad props. But there's just no hook. C++? Passe. No microkernel / hypervisor / <insert_feature_here>? No capability model? It'll be tough. But I know that OS'ing is a labor of love, even if not a single other person cares. Cheers. |