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One thing I'm disappointed about is that theres no good off the shelf microkernel that I could find; There's L4 derivatives like L4ka::Pistachio, but theres absolutely no documentation - I don't know how to write my own root servers.
There's now three of us..
While there isn't anything wrong with it, I don't find much appealing about a Unix clone that is able to run Bash, GCC, and perhaps X when I could just run Linux or *BSD itself. It doesn't feel as if I'm experiencing something new as I would when I try out Syllable, MenuetOS, DexOS, or SolarOS.
I think if you want your OS to stand out you need to target a particular niche market. OS's that stand out to me are DexOS (for the console-like OS - I applaud Dex for his vision) and MenuetOS (while not unique user-wise I find it a technical feat). Each had a clear objective they built around. I recommend that you write an objective statement for any project you work on about what the project is going to do and who it is for. The shorter and simpler your statement is, the better. Also, referring back to your statement in the future when you're brain-storming for what to implement in the next version can keep you on track as well as keep you motivated.
While it's not my dream to create the next mainstream OS, I think that everyone here would like recognition for their work, even if it is confined within a small niche within the OSDev community and those you target, and something to aspire to for future OS dev'ers.
As for my own OS, I've been inspired somewhat by DexOS's vision in that it is single purpose and fast, but the way I will go about it is completely different as I will focus on kernel-level JIT'ing safe .Net code in order to provide protection yet not require expensive context switching. My goal is to provide an extremely fast yet safe single-tasking environment (although multi-tasking at the core for servers and drivers, only one application will be visible).