(From The Archive, e-mail in 2005 Feb. Re-formatted for re-post.)

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This is perhaps the longest software project that you could possibly have heard of - 15 years of development since inception. Microkernel was hype in those days, but now on every Windows OS already (Microkernel since NT 3.51).  Anyway, glad that they have finally completed the first console application on HURD, just 10 years off schedule... BTW, Linux (except the L4Linux as mentioned in the Slashdot news) is still the older monolithic kernel design.  No matter how much you hate Microsoft, they have their technical edges that shouldn't be misunderstood to be just marketing tactics. Don't degrade yourself to think like a marketing executive - Microsoft succeeds because they know how to treasure their technical asset, and not just marketing strategies.

If talking about visionary (Microsoft is not though - they are pragmatic), that's what before NT of an OS with many advanced features - the NeXTSTEP. A Steve Job's demo archive, back in 1992...  (Perhaps I shouldn't have forgotten Amiga, the first commercial true multi-tasking, and a fast one, PC O/S, when Windows was still 1.0 and behaved like an idiot.  Mac looked better at that time, but still not pre-emptive multi-tasking.)

It took 10 years for Steve to really bring NeXTSTEP to the market, as Mac OS X. The price of being visionary - the market just wasn't ready for it until 10 years later. (Although the technology was ready, the machine was pricey and beyond consumers' acceptance.) Well, at least it's better than most mathematicians - 200 years for Fourier transform to be used in audio processing, 30 years for fractal geometry to be used in video compression...  For those who think that social investment on technology means eBay or PCCW, think again - it's about stuff that you probably cannot see any return before you die, and that's what we are certainly lack of in the Eastern culture.

BTW, for nostalgic reasons, you might be interested to learn how those folks compete in the 80's (Win 1.0 vs. Mac <-21MB download!!):

We must be too conservative and thus cannot escape the corporate jailing...