Editing GNU Hurd (section)

=== Other microkernels ===
From 2004 onward, various efforts were launched to port the Hurd to more modern microkernels. The [[L4 microkernel family|L4 microkernel]] was the original choice in 2004, but progress slowed to a halt. Nevertheless, during 2005, Hurd developer Neal Walfield finished the initial memory management framework for the L4/Hurd port, and Marcus Brinkmann ported essential parts of [[glibc]]; namely, getting the process startup code working, allowing programs to run, thus allowing the first user programs (trivial ones such as the [[hello world program]]) in C to run.

Since 2005, Brinkmann and Walfield started researching [[EROS (microkernel)|Coyotos]] as a new kernel for HURD.<ref name="shapiro-comment" /><ref name="l4-and-coyotos-mess" /> In 2006, Brinkmann met with Jonathan Shapiro (a primary architect of the Coyotos Operating System) to aid in and discuss the use of the Coyotos kernel for GNU/Hurd. In further discussion HURD developers realised that Coyotos (as well as other similar kernels) are not suitable for HURD.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/history/port_to_another_microkernel.html | title = Porting the Hurd to another microkernel | access-date = 2017-05-06 | publisher = Free Software Foundation | website = GNU Hurd }}</ref>

In 2007, Hurd developers Neal Walfield and Marcus Brinkmann gave a critique of the Hurd architecture, known as "the critique",<ref name="critique-mach" /> and a proposal for how a future system may be designed, known as "the position paper".<ref name="position-paper" /> In 2008, Neal Walfield began working on the Viengoos microkernel as a modern native kernel for HURD. {{as of|2009}}, development on Viengoos is paused due to Walfield lacking time to work on it.<ref name="viengoos" />

In the meantime, others have continued working on the Mach variant of Hurd.<ref name="what-happend-l4-coyotos" />