Hurd-ng is an effort to build a new operating system that preserves
the main design goals of the Hurd while fixing some of the Hurd's
shortcomings.  There is not yet an official roadmap or a concrete
specification; indeed, much of the work is research oriented.

These pages try to summarize the major discussions and ideas.

* [[History]]

# Why ngHurd

This section explains the motivations behind the new design:

* [[IssuesWithMach]]
* [[IssuesWithL4Pistachio]]
* [[LimitationsOfOriginalHurdDesign]]


# Work already done

A [position
paper](http://walfield.org/papers/20070104-walfield-access-decomposition-policy-refinement.pdf)
by Marcus Brinkmann and Neal H. Walfield can be found.

A draft specification of the Hurd-NG interfaces has been, but is no longer,
available.

A [[critique]] of the original Hurd is available.

# Subjects

## Design processus

* [[DesignGoals]]
* [[RequirementsForUser]]
* [[DesignPrinciples]]
* [[Philosophy]]


## Concepts

* [[CapabilityBasedMicrokernel]]
* [[FirstClassReceiveBuffer]]
* [[PowerBox]]
* [[WhatIsACapability]]
* [[WhatIsAConstructor]]
* [[WhatIsASpacebank]]
* [[TrivialConfinementVsConstructorVsFork]]
* [[CopyVsRevocableCopyVsMap]]
* [[SetuidVsConstructor]]
* [[HurdishApplicationsForPersistence]]
* [[WhatsInAGroup]]
* [[ThePolycastInterface]]
* [[PermissionBits]]
* [[CancellationForwarding]]


## Problems to solve

* [[HowMuchConfinementDoWeWant]]
* [[SharedLibraries]]
* [[PathMax]]


## Implementation

* [[ChoiceOfMicrokernel]]
* [[HurdInterafaces]]
* [[PosixLayer]]
* [[SystemStructure]]


## Use Cases

_please move me somewhere better! [[SamMason]]_

* [[UseCaseUserFileSystem]]
* [[UseCasePrivateKeys]]


## Organization

Summaries should obey the following structure:

* if there is a consensus, it is clearly described
* if controversial points remain, there are also described after the consenus
* if no choice has been clearly made, all valid positions are descrbied
* withdrawed and invalid positions (prooved wrong, unrealistic, contradictory
  to some design principle, etc.) should be described only very briefly, and
  developed in a separate article

Each time a point seems to be overly long with respect to the rest of the
article, it should be summarized in place and developed in a separate article.