Wait, what? OMeta uses libcairo and X11?! Where did you see that? The only thing I saw it use is a host programming language (Javascript or Python or Ruby…). You may want to count those lines instead. Anyway, remember that they also claim a full language stack in less than 2000 lines. Including a variant of OMeta. Even Lua is 5 times as big. Not counting GCC.

I know it's unbelievable. But other personal experiences make me think they're probably right. I have written equivalent OCaml and C++ code where the C++ version were 5 times larger (both where optimized for clarity). In my day job, I routinely divide substantial portions of C++ code by 2 through light refactoring.

VPRI's miracle doesn't only come from the awesomeness of their ideas. It also comes from the awfulness of current systems. A full desktop in 20.000 lines may not be so small, if you consider that current ones are way too big.

Addendum: I omitted a rather important detail: while the STEPS project aims to build a full desktop system, along with networking, publishing, messaging, and programming capabilities, it makes no attempt be compatible with anything (except the hardware on which it has to run). It doesn't do HTTP nor HTML, for instance.