On Mon, 5 Sep 2011, Jean-Yves Migeon wrote:
Not everybody can afford to run -current.
That disturbs me. NetBSD puts lots of effort to avoid regressions and keep -current in a working state, reasonably. The kernel provides binary compat modes for versions that are 10 years older or more. Running current also helps testing.
Sure. But unless you've already been running -current and testing whether it breaks you have no way of knowing that.
There are plenty of us mere users out here that won't run anything but releases. That's kind of what people do with most kinds of software, after all. (I'm on the netbsd-5 branch myself, and assuming no major disasters, have no plans on running -current.)
Just because someone is a less sophisticated user than you doesn't mean they're "whining" or "threatening" when something they need isn't working for them. (That kind of language is not going to help getting more people to test things either.)
NetBSD is just no longer the right tool for the job for Lasse. Sad; but it is not the center of the universe, and it's not that surprising someone would choose another tool either.
While I can understand that some cannot afford to run -current for whatever reason, don't expect the situation to improve by itself without some of your help. This is a volunteer driven project.
A volunteer driven project, yes. But also one that has several fairly similar alternatives that perform more or less the same function, and occasionally do *some* things better. (Flash, Java...) What you are saying is just not true - the situation can, in some cases, be improved simply by switching to one of those alternatives. No volunteering needed!
*That* is what should disturb you (and other developers) if you want that help, not the fact that most people won't go out of their way to stay on the bleeding edge.
As for what can be done to show off what this project is good at, well, that's where the advocacy comes in. It's certainly not all hopeless, and I have some loose ideas to make it easier to try NetBSD. But that's another thread.
MAgnus