Once upon a time Bill Studenmund said:
>> Developers we are. And NetBSD is for developers and people who are willing
>> to learn the rules if they'll make their life easier afterwards.
>
> Why? Why are we just developers? Sure, there are a lot of developers (and
> more so on this list), but why should NetBSD be only for developers?

I think Bill has a point.  Keep in mind that some new users may be potential
developers, and may eventually help out with the project.  I think making it
difficult for new users to understand NetBSD versioning will just alienate them, and
might even scare them away.  I like NetBSD's small userbase; it's small but very
bright, but I think more users wouldn't be necessarily a bad thing.  Remember, more
users means more people who are willing to donate hardware/offer support/spread the
word/etc.  And NetBSD can still maintain its hype-free reputation.

I personally didn't understand NetBSD versioning the first time I switched from
OpenBSD.  In OpenBSD they used to have -current and -beta (the equivalent to _RCn I
believe) tags, which made it much easier to understand which was which.  In NetBSD I
didn't really know, for example if 1.4A was newer than 1.4.1 or something like that.

Anyway, just my $0.02