here's my two cents.

i want to develop under a reasonably stable OS that installs easily,
has support for common peripherals, runs on multiple platforms, and
has an excellent development environment.  i don't want to pay very
much money for this OS if i can help it.

my available choices are BSDI, {Free,Open,Net}BSD and Linux.
BSDI is OK, but now costs more than i want to spend.  the *BSD
crowd is fragmenting due to what appears to be extremely petty
squabbling.  Linux seems to be gaining popularity at the expense
of the *BSD crowd, is widely available, and now apparently has
been ported to the Alpha.

and then there's always the Hurd.  don't laugh, memory's getting
cheaper every second.

if the various *BSD factions would rather be "right" than cooperate,
*BSD is history.  Linux will consume the programmer-oriented OS market,
Windoze gets the luser share, and Sun/Dec/...  keep the workstations,
at least for now.  *BSD becomes a footnote in technological commentary
describing the effect of schizmogenesis amongst software developers.

so shake hands and make up people, cause i for one don't care about
who said what to who at the '91 USENIX (or where-ever the hell it was)
that caused all the bad blood.  united you stand, divided you're catfood.