I'm not saying multiple processes are a hack, just relying on fork/exec to clean up memory. Safeguarding against memory fragmentation is imho a solved problem -

I'm not saying multiple processes are a hack, just relying on fork/exec to clean up memory. Safeguarding against memory fragmentation is imho a solved problem - or at least solvable if you apply known methods. Other than that I think you are right. Unless IncludeOS can prove that it can offer something akin to the same level of convenience as current Linux-based systems have I think it'll be hard for the OS to get traction. The upside would be stronger isolation and a system that would be a lot harder to break into. The absence of system calls makes most attacks very, very inconvenient and the absence of self-modification functionality is strengthening it further.