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The idea of using [[microkernel/L4]] as a [[microkernel]] for a
[[Hurd_system|hurd]] was initially voiced in the [[Hurd_community|community]]
by Okuji Yoshinori.  He created the [[mailing_lists/l4-hurd]] mailing list in
November 2000.  It does not appear that he got any further than simply
suggesting it as an alternative to [[microkernel/Mach]] and doing some reading.

Neal Walfield started the original Hurd/L4 port while at Karlsruhe in 2002.
He explains:

> My intention was to adapt the Hurd to exploit L4's concepts and intended
> [[design_pattern]]s; it was not to simply provide a Mach
> [[compatibility_layer]] on top of L4.  When I left Karlsruhe, I no longer had
> access to [[microkernel/l4/Pistachio]] as I was unwilling to sign an NDA.
> Although the specification was available, the Karlsruhe group only [released
> their code in May
> 2003](https://lists.ira.uni-karlsruhe.de/pipermail/l4ka/2003-May/000345.html).
> Around this time, Marcus began hacking on Pistachio.  He created a relatively
> complete run-time.  I didn't really become involved again until the second
> half of 2004, after I complete by Bachelors degree.

> Before Marcus and I considered [[microkernel/Coyotos]], we had already
> rejected some parts of the Hurd's design.  The [[resource_management_problems]]
> were what prompted me to look at L4.  Also, some of the problems with
> [[translator]]s were already well-known to us.  (For a more detailed
> description of the problems we have identified, see our [[critique]] in the
> 2007 July's SIGOPS OSR.  We have also written a forward-looking
> [[position_paper]].)

> We visited Jonathan Shapiro at Hopkins in January 2006.  This resulted in a
> number of discussions, some quite influential, and not always in a way which
> aligned our position with that of Jonathan's.  This was particularly true of
> a number of security issues.

A lange number of discussion threads can be found in the archives of the
[[mailing_lists/l4-hurd]] mailing list.

> Hurd-NG, as we originally called it, was an attempt to articulate the system
> that we had come to envision in terms of interfaces and description of the
> system's structure.  The new name was selected, if I recall correctly, as it
> clearly wasn't the Hurd nor the Hurd based on L4.