Sun knows about NetBSD. Jordan specificially sent them in our direction
when they first approached FreeBSD, because we're already on the SPARC
processor family, and we're already 64-bit clean (Alpha), so it should have
been pretty easy for NetBSD to run on UltraSPARC (new trap & pmap module?).
However, Sun was more interested in being able to say that "FreeBSD" runs
on the UltraSPARC.

I conclude that this is a marketing thing: Sun wants to try and make
inroads on the Mom & Pop ISP market, where FreeBSD has a fairly wide
acceptance for both running with good stability & reliability (and easy
install) on the variety of hardware found in the Intel market, and for how
cheap it (and the hardware) are (it could be that Sun finds this
embarassing - they do claim to be an "Internet server" company). So if Sun
begins producing an ATX form factor motherboard with PCI bus slots...

The interesting question then is: will Sun price its hardware to match or
beat the commodity Intel market on a price/performance basis? I bet not -
it would eat their profit margins too much. However, it will be a while
before they figure this out. Note also that Jason said that Sun would
probably quash this if it ever seriously threatened Solaris.

However, in the mean time, let's help - there's information to be gained,
and another platform to go for! (Especially if they do begin to price it
decently - have you seen what Sun hardware goes for in the used market?
Yikes!)

	Erik <fair@clock.org>