> > > An operating system without good, designed interfaces isn't worth the
> > > paper it's listed on, to researchers and develoepers, regardless of
> > > the number of features it has.
> 
> This is the crux of the issue - NetBSD is a research and development
> platform, FreeBSD is a users platform.  My fear is that NetBSD, by
> adhering strongly to this attitude is condemning itself to always be
> on the trailing edge of useability.

This is a bogus argument, for a couple of reasons:

First, Good design and usability are not mutually exclusive.

Second, there are _lots_ of places in the tree where 'hacks' exist.
That doesn't mean that we're not trying to fix them, though.  8-)

Third, if NetBSD is "less usable" than other systems, i'd say that
it's because, for the most part, the people who are working on
NetBSD have less time or inclination to work on 'usability issues.'
I also feel compelled to note that, though the people who work on
NetBSD try to go out of our way to _help_ people who want to make the
system 'more usable' (for some definition thereof), very few of those
people actually exist.


That being said, if there are people out there who have some good
ideas on how to make the system more 'usable,' and are willing to
actually implement them, send me or 'core' mail.



chris