@TheMadPirate @amanda @iska @marine @teratology

> Wan't Hurd the orginal RMS Kernel for GNU ?

HURD was an OS designed to be POSIX-compatible and GNU was the userspace. GNU was always sort of intended to provide a base system, so that any proprietary software could be replaced with the GNU equivalent, and HURD was the attempt to put it all in one place. The kernel was Mach or L4 depending on what year it was. I made some jokes about their failure to deliver a working system once over lunch at work, and my coworker snorted and I found out that the guy eating his food (not a burrito, I forget what it was) was Thomas Bushnell, the guy tasked with adapting and integrating the kernel. The switch was kind of dictated by rms and created a lot of work for Thomas (whose name back then was Michael but he had since joined the Brotherhood of St. Gregory and apparently when you do that, you change your name, and also ", BSG" was added to his name, like it's not a title, his name is "Thomas Bushnell, BSG").

I think he works at Google now, we haven't talked a lot since. There are soldiers (who love their country) and mercenaries (who don't) and Thomas is firmly in the "soldier" camp and I'm all the way in the "mercenary" camp. I love my work but I don't think I have ever loved a job, and he loves Google because he's at Google, and this kind of thing clashes.