Subject: Re: A holiday thanks to all...
To: None <netbsd-users@NetBSD.ORG>
From: D. J. Vanecek <listread@bedford.net>
List: current-users
Date: 12/24/1997 13:08:13
> With the holiday season and all, I'd like to express my thanks to the NetBSD
> community for sticking with the project and contributing as much as you all
> have.
> 
> Thanks to your effort, I can run a completely free operating system on an
> US$80, used, Sun SPARCstation 2 that is capable of recompiling itself
> completely in under five hours.  I can run an X-Windows server, and client
> applications, on a 386DX-33 with just 6MB RAM and 20MB disk cobbled
> completely from unused spare parts in a back room of a computer repair shop.
> I can make impressive use of the 24-bit GVP Spectrum video card housed in my
> Amiga 3000.  And I can serve up tens of thousands of web hits daily from a
> 486DX-40 with a plain IDE hard drive, and still use it for mail, including
> remailers of all the NetBSD mailing lists, and news reading.
> 
> This is part of what NetBSD is about--finding the little bits of computing
> power that the commercial market has long left behind, and finding ways to
> utilize it efficiently, fully, and securely.  Thanks to NetBSD, the powerful
> computing force I personally use has cost me less than US$1000, hardware
> and software included. 
> 
> >From portmasters, to developers, to users, to that random casual user that
> only runs NetBSD occasionally yet talks very well of it at the MarketPro
> computer shows here in Orlando (<g>), thank you all, and have a happy
> holiday season. 
> 

Ditto. This sounds eerily familiar.

And let me add a little 'left-handed' thanks to the M$ community,
who are our best recruiters, and who convinced  people to sell me my
'unusable' $50 pmaxes with 'obsolete' 19" screens,  for the 'hopelessly
slow' 386DX33 that serves files at 3MHz, the dumpster 386SX's now used
for special purpose hacking, the 'ridiculously small' 200MB SCSI disks
sold for the postage to ship them.

Lest the developers think they are developing for 'junk', let me say
that the reason that NetBSD is the junk OS of choice is because it works
SO WELL. I hear it does OK on Pentium II and PowerPC's, too :)

And a big New Year's kiss for the Regents of the University of California,
the X Consortium and the FSF. OK, for Linus & Crew, too...

Dave