"It’s not random mutation until something clicks"
Um, yes, yes, it is.
Natural evolution is most definitely driven by random mutation (and random mixing - note the key is the word "random" - once terrestrial life was lucky enough to evolve sex; which it did by random mutation!) and whenever "something clicks" and helps progeny survive, that carries on and a little bit of evolution occurs.[1]
> it’s if and how organisms can change to match a changing environment
(skipping over the point that it is a species that changes and evolves, not individual organisms):
OR how a species can survive and reproduce even better in a static environment (if there are sufficient resources available that the improved survival of this species doesn't itself cause such an impact that its own profligacy becomes the "changing environment").
> Rust has itself evolved in response to those selection pressures
Has it? Rust seems pretty focussed on one thing, getting rid of one class of programming error. That is one pressure, and hardly a new one. That just seems to be a way to shoehorn in a reference to Rust that is disconnected from anything else in the piece: it is mentioned, lauded and promptly forgotten again.
> cyanobacteria ... fixing security
Oxygen is toxic to pre-cyanobacterial forms; ok, yes, it was - a few anaerobes hid away and survived, a few others evolved "back" to that state, but on the whole they have gone and we rule. So far, so good. Now "fixing security is toxic" - um, what is the metaphor supposed to be here? Is oxygen supposed to be the "fixing security" (so toxic to the bottom line that it doesn't get done) or "bad security" (which lets everything be broken and killed)? And, what, we are hoping for something to appear that can thrive in the presence of bad security and even turn it to its advantage, like we do oxygen? Like, say, cybercriminals? Not sure we really want those to propagate.
> Doing another that runs on different hardware would also be important
Oh, you mean like the Linux kernel does?
Ok, the comparison to Darwinian evolution is as bollocks as it always is when some twit tries to talk about software, so we'll ignore it, as per usual. Does the article have anything to say other than that? Hmm
> our overview of three microkernels ... All of the microkernels here have different focuses
All of WHAT microkernels? WHERE are they, because they certainly are not here, within TFA! Come on, name them; what are we supposed to be comparing? Did you forget to make "overview" into a hyperlink? Can we only understand what you are wittering on about if we stop, read all of the "more context" links and then come back and try again? 'Cos that ain't how you structure a usable article! Especially as the context URLs I see don't describe three microkernels.
In the end, the article just sort of peters out. We are left with an overall impresion of "open source good, hyped blockchain and AI bad", "microkernel something but also Linux somehow that something", but nothing new or interesting. Like, maybe, some novel idea the author thinks may help steer the apparently enormous amounts of money some people have on hand from hyped AI to doing something long-term useful but dull (and probably a bit socialist to boot, which rarely attracts the big bucks).
So one goes back to the title and tries to figure out the meaning in that, in light of the article - um, Linux could out-evolve bad behaviours, but, um, TFA kept referring to micro-kernels as the saviour, but Linux is famously not a micro-kernel, so - which way is it you want us to go?
[1] and if anyone tries to say that is "micro-evolution" they will get such an earful! Damn stupid idea, trying to separate "micro-evolution" and "macro-evolution", the only people that helps are Creationists and anyone else who can't deal with big numbers.
