There are plenty of small, toy-level kernels out there for people to cut their teeth on. Linux used to be this way, now it's more grown up. There's nothing wron

There are plenty of small, toy-level kernels out there for people to cut their teeth on. Linux used to be this way, now it's more grown up. There's nothing wrong with that, no reason people have to specifically target the Linux kernel. With Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and lots of other tinkerer platforms out there, the rising generation should have more opportunity than ever to experiment and learn about hardware and make meaningful open-source contributions. While keeping the codebase of any project simple enough that a novice can pick it up with minimal difficulty is a great ideal, the real world generally limits that and forces some ugly/unpleasant complexity into place.