When I mention NetBSD to people they have no idea what it is.  Why is
this?  There are many reasons, and they're not simple ones, but here
is what I think will help fix it.

(1)  When looking at a possible solution to a problem, for instance
     /etc/rc vs. /etc/init.d/, don't reinvent the wheel.  Pick
     something someone else already does, and use it.  Doing things
     our own way will only hurt us here.

     No, you won't get the perfect solution doing this.  But you will
     get a working solution, and one that others will already
     understand.  If we reinvent the wheel, and it's different, people
     will just choose something they understand.

(2)  We have some things no one else has done right.  We were the
     first free OS with USB support.  We should have been much louder
     about that.  We are, IMHO, the best with ISA PNP support.  We
     need to improve our already good support and make certain people
     know about it.

     In other words, we need to market ourselves.

(3)  We have little to no corporate support.  Even OpenBSD, which has
     one of the most annoying leaders in existence, has managed to get
     companies to give it money.  Why are we not doing this?

     Yes, it requires someone to run out and do real marketing.  And
     in the current world most people would rather fund linux oriented
     projects rather than anything *BSD.

(4)  Get large projects into the light as soon as posssible, rather
     than sitting on them behind closed-doors.

(5)  Make releases _far_ more often.  In fact, make a weekly, if not
     daily, snapshot for at least the i386.  Yes, I could do this as
     well as anyone else could.  In fact, I should.

(6)  Rather than develop the perfect solution that will take time,
     design a workable solution and get it out for _public_ view as
     soon as possible.  Fix it as time permits.

     This is contrary to one basic goal of TNF, so I'm told every time
     I mention it.  However, this single goal is hurting us so much.
     We are after all lacking basic features that other free OSs have
     had for years now.  For instance, SMP on i386 at least.  linux
     has it.  FreeBSD has it.  No, neigher did it fully right, but
     they have it, which attracts developers, which adds warm bodies.
     Which makes it more visible.  Which means things can get funded,
     and then mostly-workable but not perfect solutions can be done
     right.

I've considered switching to other OSs recently, mostly because while
NetBSD has many cool things, the other OSs pick them up quickly, while
we sit behind on many basic things that I really want to use now, not
in several years when closed-door projects finally release code, or
worse work to stop open-door projects to do the work from starting.
And then the closed-door ones never release a thing.

--Michael