This sort of thing wouldn't be competing with Linux. It would be far closer to competing with Nessus (the Blackberry OS) or FIRST Robotic's PIC "OS" or some oth

This sort of thing wouldn't be competing with Linux. It would be far closer to competing with Nessus (the Blackberry OS) or FIRST Robotic's PIC "OS" or some other small embedded systems, instead of being a destktop OS. to horribly abuse Feynman's phrase -- There's plenty of room at the bottom. The embedded market is huge. There's also a whole lot less need to stick with legacy systems; things are throw-away and you don't need to transfer apps between them as much. If you want to create a totally new system, start in embedded.