Date:        Sat, 10 Mar 2001 02:53:10 -0500 (EST)
    From:        der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
    Message-ID:  <200103100753.CAA06364@Twig.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

  | But this I find..disappointing.  You are not the sole arbiter of "the
  | BSD way".

I will reply to exactly one of these messages ... No, I am not any
kind of arbiter.

What's more, if not enough people think it will be useful, and
appropriate, then it won't get done.

But if there are to be arguments against it, they ought to at least
be reasonable ones - even if just "I don't see the need, I don't like it".

But the "it isn't BSD any more" is laughable - BSD was all about trying
out new innovations.   When that was happening all the unix purists
were around saying "that isn't the unix way".   Whether correct or not,
the "pure" unix vanished years ago, what is left now is BSD variants
and SysV variants.   That tends to suggest that for most people, what
was a "pure" unix just didn't do what they needed it to do.

Now you're quite welcome to keep running NetBSD 1.5 forever if you
want to, and then none of the nasty changes will ever affect you again.
You could even run 1.4, or 1.3, or something older.   You could even
fork off DeadBSD from some point in the NetBSD tree where you think
it was still pure enough to run.

I kind of suspect that over time the "pure BSD" (whatever you think that
is) will die out as well, or be reduced to such a small enclave of users
that no-one notices any more.

Like it or not, people's expectations and demands keep changing, as
processors, graphics, discs, etc, are all capable of doing more,
people expect them to actually do more, and if all that is available
is the same as 10 years ago, then no-one is going to be interested.

kre