der Mouse  <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> writes:
> I see NetBSD as turning into - or trying to turn into - yet another OS
> catering to the point-and-drool crowd.  *Just* yet another such, even.
> That is incompatible with satisfying me or the niche I see myself as
> belonging to.
> [ ... ]
> Sure it is.  There's no reason core couldn't decide that anyone who
> *needed* (as opposed to wanted) sysinst was not part of their target
> "market", same as they now don't consider people who want to run
> MSWindows programs part of their target market and thus don't fault
> their OS for not satisfying them.
> [ ... ]
> Underlying this is the assumption that NetBSD has to support (either
> with software or with handholding) everyone who tries to use it,
> regardless of who those "everyone" are.  [ ... ]

I can do installs by hand.  I can compile just about every package out
there by hand, hacking it to make it work if need be.  I can hack rc
scripts and install hooks by hand.  I've got the clue, I can devote
brain cells to it.

However, I don't _want_ to.  I suspect many others are in the boat.


If you want to be in a niche where you spend a whole lot of time
maintaining systems, and less doing real work or enjoying other parts
of life because of it, great, you can do everythin by hand and hell
you can rewrite rc or whatever you want.

But that doesn't mean that, for instance, it's wrong for others to not
want to do it.


If i can have packages install themselves for me, that's more time i
can spend doing something else.  SIGN ME UP.  In the bad old days,
installing the software I wanted and needed too way too much of my
time.

If i can have software set up rc scripts for itself, asking me only to
supply configuration information, wonderful!

If i can type a few numbers into sysinst and not have to remember the
right magic, i'll definitely keep other stuff in my head.


Yes, sure, changes like these may help new users, or may help the
system gain popularity with people much UNIX experience.

That doesn't mean that's the only way to interpret their motivations
or results.



And, on the other side of this, there are the people who aren't the
low-level systems hackers:

If NetBSD is actually a great and useful and stable and secure, etc.,
system -- i.e. a worthwhile system to use -- people should _want_ to
use it, to help them get them done with their work, whatever it may
be.  data processing, computation, visualization, networking,
whatever.  There are a lot of things that are better done on UNIX.

You might want them to have to learn to be Great UNIX Gurus to use it.
But why should they spend their valuable time, err, i should say
_waste_ their valuable time, doing something absolutely useless and
unrelated to what they want to be doing?  There is no necessary
inherent cost in using NetBSD over another system; it's just software,
and difficulties with it can be fixed if there's a will.


Why should your will and the will of a few others keep the system from
progressing in ways that, in a nutshell, make peoples' lives better?



cgd
-- 
Chris Demetriou - cgd@netbsd.org - http://www.netbsd.org/People/Pages/cgd.html
Disclaimer: Not speaking for NetBSD, just expressing my own opinion.