FWIW - I don't think it would be that hard to port VMA or ExaSOCK to run on top of DPDK, certainly less effort than making a whole new category of operating system!
But ... selling the hardware is where those companies make their money, so there's not much of a business case for making your free and open-source software run on other people's (cheap) NICs.
But ... selling the hardware is where those companies make their money, so there's not much of a business case for making your free and open-source software run on other people's (cheap) NICs.