> At the very least, the "point-and-drool" crowd has money.  Money ->
> donations -> more resources for development.

True.  And if that's what you care about...why don't you just go work
for Sun, or SGI, or DEC, or any of those people who's selling a
"solution"?  Hell, even Microsoft; there's even more money (and
therefore resources for development) there.

Trouble is, let that drive your choices and what you end up developing
is whatever sells.  I want to develop what I think is good, what I
enjoy working on and with.

>> I also fear that this will lead to binary-only packages, which is
>> one thing I do _not_ want.
> Oh, god forbid binary packages.  [...]

Yeah, again, I said something slightly different from what I meant.
Binary packages per se don't bother me; I just ignore the silly things.
What I really don't want is to see something like SGI's inst: it uses a
complicated and undocumented package format, is dogmatically inflexible
about where it installs things, keeps records in an undocumented format
in an undocumented place...and it is the only supported way.

> Why, if we had those, they might actually include a set of real
> applications!  Horror of horrors, then those point-and-drool people
> could get ... REAL WORK done on NetBSD!  We can't allow that!

Again, this doesn't bother me per se.  What bothers me is the
possibility that the point-and-drool people doing real work will end up
being the market NetBSD aims for.  No thanks.  If I want that, I know
where to find it.

> I for one would be quite willing to support and buy binary packages
> (provided they were, in fact, professional quality).

Thinking back over the binary packages I've seen (yes, I have worked
with them - at work) and the source packages I've seen, and I compare
the high end of the quality spectrum for the binary packages with the
low end of the quality spectrum for the source packages...I'll take the
source package.

I compare the money...and I'll take the source package.

I compare the support...and I'll take the source package.

Every time.

					der Mouse

			       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
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