> You say that there is 'too much water under the bridge'.  If the response
> is lukewarm, I would say that not enough water has gone under the bridge
> yet, otherwise we could release NetBSD 1.2, you could release FreeBSD
> version whatever, and we could all fall back, regroup and release
> Berklix 1.0 or whatever.  The fact that there remain egos and other
> impediments to the joining of the two camps would indicate that things
> haven't mellowed out enough yet.

I don't think that it's a matter so much of ego, though at least one
or two "show stopper" issues between individuals in both camps
probably still exist, so much as a matter of logistics.  For one
thing, what would you *call* the new merged group?  Clearly not NetBSD
or FreeBSD as that would engender the needless perception that one
group had "capitulated" to the other.  OpenBSD is already taken, thus
proving once again that it's possible to suppress the gag reflex
whenever the word "open" is joined with something if you're offered
enough incentive (usually it's money, though in Theo's case I suppose
it was spite), and that leaves the list of naming choices rather
diminished.  Not a major issue, I'll agree, but still a fairly sticky
political one and probably guaranteed to take longer to sort out than
all the other issues put together.  Walnut Creek CDROM, long FreeBSD's
principle sponsor, probably would also not be entirely happy at the
prospect of replacing the name "FreeBSD" on its line of posters,
T-shirts, coffee cups and other advertising media.  It could be done,
but it would be a real pain.  Likewise the domain registrations and
anywhere else that `netbsd.org' or `freebsd.org' appeared would have
to be changed.  Ugh!

Then, assuming that you've somehow gotten over the naming problems,
you're left with release engineering.  Who does it?  I've watched the
NetBSD group do its releases over the last couple of years and, quite
frankly, I would NOT (not not not) want the job of trying to
coordinate all those various platforms.  To *not* coordinate them, or
not make them available on CDROM, would also be totally unacceptable
to about 90% of the current FreeBSD project members since we're great
fans of both coordinated releases and of having reliably produced
CDROM distributions.  The more cynical out there might say that I like
CDROMs because their production lets me get paid for doing this
full-time (which it does), but they'd be wrong.

When I approached Walnut Creek CDROM over 2 years ago with the goal of
getting a CD made, it was because I wanted to be able to make FreeBSD
available to those without network connections (and there are still
many - living in various parts of Europe for close to a decade sure
taught me that), and to have some sort of "flagship" release that I
could show to the less technical crowd.  Saying "get it off the net"
might work for the techies among us, but it doesn't cut a lot of ice
with the suits or your random passer-by at a trade show.  Being able
to give away literally thousands of CDs to the academic and research
communities over the years has definitely helped, as it's also helped
me in making various presentations.  People say "So, what is this
Free B-S-D?" and I hand them a CD, at which point they brighten up and
say "OH!  A CD!  Great!  Fred, go install this somewhere!" [Fred runs
off] and I'm able to finish the rest of my pitch without having
to listen to mutters in the back row of "Net?  did he say to get
it off `the net'?  What the heck does he mean by that?"

So needless to say, I and many others in the FreeBSD camp would be
very unhappy to have *any* version of a product with our names go out
with an inferior installation or lack of proper distribution channels.
That includes CDs as well as the Internet.  I don't know how the
NetBSD folks feel about that, but that'd be one of the adjustments
we'd all need to make.

Finally, there would have to be some concensus as to just what the
heck we're all doing here.  Are we still all doing this for fun, or
are we taking it more seriously now?  I'm not saying that either
attitude is "better" (both have their pros and cons), but I am saying
that without a reasonably united opinion on this in the "merged" camp,
there would be a lot of friction.


Basically, the idea of a merger is definitely one with merit but to
say "merge" raises more questions than it answers, and there are many
conceivable scenarios where a merger would end up being the worst
possible move either camp could make.  Like mating elephants, it is
possible to get a really good results but you need to know EXACTLY
what you're doing or suffer dire consequences!

					Jordan