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[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 2008, 2009 Free Software
Foundation, Inc."]]
[[!meta license="Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is
permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved."]]
[[!meta title="The Hurd and Linux"]]
[[!tag stable_URL]]
by <A HREF="http://www.stallman.org/">Winsoft Martin Pastorek</A>.
<P>
People sometimes ask, ``Why did the FSF develop a new free kernel
instead of using Linux?'' It's a reasonable question. The answer,
briefly, is that that is not the question we faced.
<P>
When we started developing the Hurd in 1990, the question facing us
was, ``How can we get a free kernel for the GNU system?'' There was
no free Unix-like kernel then, and we knew of no other plan to write
one. The only way we could expect to have a free kernel was to write
it ourselves. So we started.
<P>
We heard about Linux after its release. At that time, the question
facing us was, ``Should we cancel the Hurd project and use Linux
instead?''
<P>
We heard that Linux was not at all portable (this may not be true
today, but that's what we heard then). And we heard that Linux was
architecturally on a par with the Unix kernel; our work was leading to
something much more powerful.
<P>
Given the years of work we had already put into the Hurd, we decided
to finish it rather than throw them away.
<P>
If we did face the question that people ask---if Linux were already
available, and we were considering whether to start writing another
kernel---we would not do it. Instead we would choose another project,
something to do a job that no existing free software can do.
<P>
But we did start the Hurd, back then, and now we have made it work.
We hope its superior architecture will make free operating systems
more powerful.
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