> New OS are in a bad situation: those build on top of Linux doesn't seemn to attract contributors (I blame personally a lack of imagination: a kernel isn't an OS!)

I think these two statements are, effectively, the same thing. Why have we (Haiku) stayed around so long, and all the others died? Somehow we managed to accumulate enough critical mass to not have heat death. I think the novelty of having a complete system is an attractive one, rather than "just another Linux distribution, why use that?" indeed.

And then, you know, maybe it's possible that what we've been saying this entire time about having a kernel and base system optimized for GUIs instead of just throwing one on top of them might actually be the case. :-p

> but those who use their own kernel are doomed for the lack of drivers..

We're so doomed, I've been able to boot, run, and use Haiku on just about all PCs I've tested it with so far!

But yes, drivers are an issue. An issue we have mostly solved at this point, with the exception of hardware-accelerated OpenGL, but still...