Microsoft Research: A fork() in the road

Here's a
research paper from Andrew Baumann, Jonathan Appavoo, Orran Krieger, and
Timothy Roscoe, published on the Microsoft Research site, arguing that the
fork()
system call is a fundamental design mistake. 'As the designers and
implementers of operating systems, we should acknowledge that fork’s
continued existence as a first-class OS primitive holds back systems
research, and deprecate it. As educators, we should teach fork as a
historical artifact, and not the first process creation mechanism students
encounter.' The discussion of better alternatives is limited,
though.