At 12:18 AM 1/19/2001, Greywolf wrote:

>Beg pardon, good sirs, but is this what usually happens on the FreeBSD
>lists, or is this back-and-forth merely an anomaly provided for the
>amusement of the casually-included NetBSD crowd?
>
>When there was a statement made about "hazing", it was made to sound
>as though it covered both NetBSD and FreeBSD.  Observing the ping-pong
>match in progress, I think I can safely say that the newbies in NetBSD
>are treated with much less of a hazing than they are in FreeBSD.  Why
>this is, I'm not sure.

I think that this is because the NetBSD crowd, overall, is far more laid
back than the FreeBSD crowd. When one enters a group of FreeBSDers, there's
a fairly good chance that one will bump up against one big ego or another.
The probability isn't 100%; that's why you'll hear some people say, "I
had no trouble" while others -- including me -- have been roundly excoriated
from Day One. And there's a "pile on" phenomenon; when someone in a key
position decides that a newbie is a threat and flames him or her, others will
join in.

This happens much less often with the NetBSD group, which is focused much 
more on technical excellence and hacking for the sheer joy of it than on 
ego and territoriality. This is the reason for NetBSD's lower profile but
also for its friendliness.

--Brett