>It seems that you and other core team members resent the fact that NetBSD is
>sold on CD-ROM.

Not at all.  I, for one, wish _more_ people would put it on CD-ROM,
ASSUMING that if they're going to claim to distribute a 'release' they
distribute all of a release.  What it boils down to is that we really
dislike "marketing bullshit," i.e. claiming to be selling something
you're not.

>You repeatedly mention that the BSDisc NetBSD distribution is
>incomplete, yet you (a) don't specify what is missing, and you (b) don't give
>any information about other CD-ROM-based NetBSD distributions and/or the 
>"proper" way of obtaining a complete NetBSD release for CD-ROM distribution.

i tend to provide answers to (a) only if people ask me directly, and,
re: (b): though i'm aware of at least two efforts 'in progress' to do
other NetBSD CD-ROMs, i should not comment on them publically.

What's missing from the BSDisc distribution that was in the "complete
1.0" distribution? (1) binaries for the pc532, (2) X11 binaries for
the sparc.

If you know what a pc532 is, you'll undoubtedly understand
why it's bloody useful to have the distribution on a SCSI-accessible
media.  (In a nutshell, the pc532 has 8 serial ports, 2 SCSI busses,
and no ethernet.)

X11 for the i386 was included, presumably because "UN*X without X11 is
just about useless" -- yet it wasn't included for the sparc, even
though the sparc is just about as usable as the i386.  In fact, I'm
willing to use NetBSD/i386 without X11, but i'm _NOT_ willing to do so
on the sparc.  Unfortunately, the excuse of "well, sparc users could
just build X11 binaries" does not hold, because i386 users could, too.
Note also that i386 X11 is part of the "1.0-ports" "distribution," not
the 1.0 distribution proper, and so there are really _two_ incomplete
set of files on the CD-ROM.  Note that i would much rather have had
them distribute the pc532 binaries than distribute the i386 X11
binaries -- though in a 'perfect' world, all would have gone out.

I'm annoyed about it, because if you're going to claim to be
distributing NetBSD, then you should distribute the _entire_ thing.

>I am at a loss as to why you take this attitude.   Maybe I'm reading too much
>into your postings ...

i think the above explains it pretty well.

the moral of the story:

If you're distributing something, distribute the whole thing or
make it very clear that you're not.  As it is, a statement that the
BSDisc contains "NetBSD 1.0" is FALSE; it contains a subset of NetBSD 1.0.


cgd