Nice to see an update [LWN.net]

Nice to see an update

Posted Apr 5, 2026 17:43 UTC (Sun) by sam_c (subscriber, #139836)
In reply to: Nice to see an update by rsidd
Parent article: No kidding: Gentoo GNU/Hurd

> If it had been strictly GPL v2, it would have been helpful because it could have borrowed code from the Linux kernel (imagine a Hurd with a driver compatibility layer for Linux drivers).

The Hurd did do this, and still does to an extent, so is not currently purely GPL v*: it is however in the process of migrating to rumpkernel, which allows to run NetBSD drivers in userland.

Importing drivers from Linux (both in gnumach and also in userland via netdde) has proved too complex as Linux moves quickly.

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Nice to see an update

Posted Apr 5, 2026 18:12 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> Importing drivers from Linux (both in gnumach and also in userland via netdde) has proved too complex as Linux moves quickly.

Given that I thought the whole point of a microkernel was to move everything possible (ie drivers etc) into userspace, this is probably the main reason why HURD doesn't use linux drivers (assuming that is true in the first place).

If a driver is compiled as a stand-alone executable, then its licence (which is NOT necessarily GPLv2) will not impact on the HURD licence (or vice versa).

(I gather there's a fair bit of MIT/BSD/v2+ code in linux, depending on the authors' whims. It's just that it's all compatible with pure v2.)

Cheers,
Wol