There are only a small handful number of operating systems dominant in today’s computing world. Systems software has been stagnant for nearly the past two decades. A good example mentioned in the source article mentions the excitement behind the Linux operating system. It’s true that there is much excitement and commitment for Linux, but did you know that Linux is essentially an open source clone of a 40 year old operating system (Unix)? This is just one example mentioned in the article, which in addition to pointing out the stagnation of systems software, it helps to paint a picture of the today’s systems research and also tries to uncover what happened.

Check out the full article: Systems Software Research is Irrelevant (freshmeat.net)