> 
> > Just like Linux, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD, the primary
> development platform
> > for NetBSD is the standard PC.
> 
> As others have mentioned, that's not entirely true. 
> There are several
> NetBSD developers who don't even have PCs (I was one
> for several years).

I never said that the PC was the ONLY development
platform used, only that it was the primary platform
used.  If there are 34 developers and 15 to 20 of them
are using PCs, then it would not be inaccurate to say
that the PC was the primary platform used.  The
numbers are hypothetical of course, but are based off
a real and simple fact: PC's are far more common than
all other platforms put together, and they offer the
best performance for the dollar.  NetBSD is designed
to be platform independent.  Code written using a PC
*should* compile and run the same on any of the ports.
 Therefore it makes no difference whether the coder
that added a particular feature to the kernel was
using a PC or Sparcstation, and PCs are a lot more
common than Sparcs.  I'd be willing to bet that many
people are using PC's to do work on the ports to other
platforms.  The availability of cross compilers and
the massive speed difference between even a PII-233
and a Quadra 800 or an Amiga 3000 provides good reason
to do your coding and compiling on the PC and actual
testing of that code on the Quadra or Amiga.  If
someone's actually using a Quadra 800 to develop
NetBSD, then they're taking some extra long coffee
breaks waiting for things to compile.  I've recompiled
the 1.4.3 kernel on a Quadra 700 with 20 megs of
memory, it took all day.  My Linux kernel compile on
my PII-333 with 128 megs takes maybe fifteen minutes. 
There are of course other platforms out there that
which would do just as good a job as a development
box.  Faster PowerPC based macs or Alpha systems for
example, but unless I was actually working on the port
of NetBSD for these systems, I wouldn't run out and
buy one.  

Lee Reynolds


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