Herb Peyerl wrote:
> 
> I'm wondering what that accomplish other than give you a warm cozy feeling
> over knowing that at some point in time, some arbitrary number of people
> decided to announce to the world that they once had a machine running
> NetBSD. It might also tell you that NetBSD once ran on a certain hardware
> combination but since NetBSD is a moving target, it doesn't guarantee that
> at any one time, NetBSD-current will be able to run on that hardware 
> combination.
> 
> In no way does it tell you that the machines in the database still run
> NetBSD.  

Perhaps all that is needed is someone to "adopt" a particular system, and
run -current on it.  Then they maintain an entry on the webpage listing
all the various hardware bits, and which versions are known working.
After 1.3 is released, is it safe to assume that given platform that worked
with 1.3 will still work with 1.3 even if -current is 6 months newer.
This way, prospective users can look for specific systems in the database,
and can tell if 1.x is supported, *and* if -current is running. 
Whoever the particular system is assigned to, would update the entry at
some specified interval.
As an example, I could adopt this:
	Dell Dimension XPS Pro200n
	64MB
	Buslogic 956C
	Micropolis 3243W
	SMC Etherpower 10/100 PCI
	#9 Motion 771
	...

Known to run:
	NetBSD 1.2	(perhaps some gotchas)
	NetBSD 1.2.1	(ditto)
	NetBSD -current (as of 970924)

Then, perhaps weekly, I could update the entry verifying that it runs
the latest -current.  Or maybe only after significant changes were made
to the code.

So rather than just saying "at some point this system ran some version of
netbsd", someone would actively maintain the entries.  And, potential
new users would have someone they could contact that had a similar system.

I could maintain these systems:
	Dell Dimension XPS Pro200n
	Dell Latitude XPI P120ST notebook
	Clone: Tyan Tomcat I with P133
	Clone: NICE SuperEISA with 486DX2/66
	Sun SparcStation 10 Model 30
	Sun SparcStation LX 

Though weekly updates might be a bit hard.. :)

-Andrew
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Andrew Gillham                            | This space left blank
gillham@whirlpool.com                     | inadvertently.
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