Date:        Sat, 18 Mar 2000 13:43:43 -0500 (EST)
    From:        der Mouse  <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
    Message-ID:  <200003181843.NAA18062@Twig.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

  | I don't need that.  But NetBSD seems to think I do.

No, I think you're missing the point.   There's no question by that
some people are going to suffer from almost every change.  You may
be one of the ones who suffer a bit from this one.   That's one of the
prices of any change.

What is thought is that many people need the change (or a change) - not
that everyone does.

Further, it is (IMO) believed that the people who will suffer from the
change are the ones best able to cope - that is, if it is likely to
matter to you the way that the startup scripts are processed, then you're
most likely able to manage, perhaps with some extra effort.  On the other
hand, all those people who never want to look at an rc file, ever,
and couldn't really handle it if they were required to, are the ones that
benefit most from the change - along with those who can cope easily enough,
but simply prefer not to have to.

I know that you don't think that NetBSD ought to pander to the incompetant,
but it isn't really a choice that anyone gets to make - more and more
people are at least trying NetBSD, the simpler it is for them, the less
work it is for the people who maintain the system - as they don't have
to spend as much time helping people cope with the simplest things, and
can spend more time doing more interesting development.

  | They probably aren't.  But I'm quite sure they're more difficult to
  | understand than the old scripts.

Yes, they probably are.   But they need to be understood by less people.
Overall, the people * understanding product has most likely gone down.

I think that NetBSD needs more of this kind of thing - that is, this
kind of approach to getting things improved.   I have seen a bit too
much of "no, we won't take that, it isn't perfect".  That kind of thing
just discourages people, and leads to nothing getting done for a long
time.   It is OK to say "no, we won't take that, that breaks X Y & Z"
or "no, we won't take that, we already have X, which does it better".
But not "I could do better than that, even though I haven't yet".
Let's take the imperfect code, and then use the existance of that as
a motivation to the people who can do better to actually do so.

I am not meaning to suggest here that the rc.d stuff is imperfect
(though it might be) but that NetBSD ought be more willing to import
code without lots of advance discussion, debate, and argument.  Then
people should also be taught to expect their code to be ripped out
again and replaced by something else - all this at least in -current
systems.  If something looks only half done, and hasn't been fixed
at the time a release is due, then rip it out (or discuss ripping it
out) - it can be added back to -current again after the release if
people miss it enough.

kre