Or in other words: I wonder what if all that time, money and effort went into say AROS[1] and/or emulation. I can imagine still using AmIRC and HippoPlayer if I could run them as any other software on Linux.
Be sure to click through to the details page https://mirari.vitasys.nl/the-first-rebirth/
This is cool; it would be cool to play with a modern, hobbyist 64-bit PowerPC board. I will be keeping an eye on this project!