If you want an application to be portable, you don't necessarily create an abstraction layer like a microkernel so much as you program intelligently.

I started Linux as a desktop operating system. And it's the only area where Linux hasn't completely taken over. That just annoys the hell out of me.

I am not out to destroy Microsoft, that would be a completely unintended side effect.

We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds.

I am pragmatic. That which works, works, and theory can go screw itself. However, my pragmatism also extends to maintainability, which is why I also want it done well.

Let's put it this way: if you need to ask a lawyer whether what you do is "right" or not, you are morally corrupt. Let's not go there. We don't base our morality on law.

While we ended up having several core maintainers use BitKeeper - it was free to use for open source projects - it never got ubiquitous. So it helped kernel development, but there were still pain points.