Michael Goetze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > To summarize, our goal is to create a BSD system with a mostly-GNU > userland which complies to Debian Policy (e.g. Packaging Standards, > FHS, etc.). In the universe of our dreams, anyone tired of Linux would > just execute dselect, select a NetBSD/FreeBSD/OpenBSD kernel, unselect > the Linux kernel, fix some dependencies, and have apt do all the work. > Naturally, that universe is still a loooooong way off. For now, we're > just trying to get the Debian base packages ported to NetBSD (that's > the majority choice anyways, due to portability - some people are > working on the FreeBSD equivalent) so that we have a basic Debian/BSD > system from which to launch our other porting efforts.
Hmm... Well, let me note this: the NetBSD project consists of people who are far better at managing a base Unix and its kernel than at handling certain kinds of day to day usability. We've got crappy install tools and such, and we're well aware of it. Closer cooperation with people who've got a significant amount of clue in terms of end user usability would be a great thing. At the same time, however, we have a very large number of very smart systems hackers, and a huge legion of people who've already ported a large chunk of the software you're looking at to NetBSD before and therefore have serious experience doing it. There are a bunch of good people who've been working on pkgsrc forever and are very enthusiastic -- that's why we have about 2000 packages in pkgsrc even though we have a much smaller userbase than Debian. If you were clever enough about how you did this and willing to be a bit flexible about the goals, you might actually be able to get very active cooperation from the NetBSD folks -- VERY active cooperation. That could mean a much better sort of success scenario for all concerned. You'd have to be pretty flexible about how the goals were stated, however. NetBSD people are by and large going to be uninterested in your goals -- they're interested in their own -- but there is no reason that the two can't overlap in interesting ways. This is, of course, only to be expected -- whenever any two people or groups work together each has their own goals, and cooperation is based on recognizing how to work on the overlapping parts and how not to fight about others. I have now looked over a bunch of the older mail in the archive and there seems to be a perception of hostility by the BSD people. Well, in almost every open source community I've worked in, people in general seem to have a lack of needed diplomacy skills, and that goes for the Linux universe as well as the BSD universe. Make no mistake -- you'd need to be a bit more flexible than you're perhaps used to and try pretty hard not to be offended by a minority that got angry easily. However, the benefits might be very large for all concerned. It might be worth discussing. Perry Speaking purely for myself and in no way as part of the NetBSD Project. -- Perry E. Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- NetBSD Development, Support & CDs. http://www.wasabisystems.com/
