> I'd like to humbly suggest that a slightly more important project,
> both from a PR and a reliability/performance point of view, would be
> fixing the VM subsystem once and for all. We all know it needs to be
> done, and no one wants to do it -- largely because it is a
> legitimately Very Big, Very Hard problem. However, so long as it isn't
> fixed, the FreeBSD people can crow that they have a technical
> advantage over us, and, far, far more importantly, things like core
> leaks and inconsistencies in various operations will show up.

Hear Hear!  This is a very important issue I think for many people out
there who want a Great VM Subsystem (TM).  What I think is a shame is
that John Dyson et. al. have put in a lot of hard work with FreeBSD
that is going to be duplicated (albeit in a NetBSD way - whatever that
is).  It would no doubt be of great use to find out John's experiences
so that this huge task can be made easier.  I for one am disappointed
that I have to make a choice between FreeBSD and NetBSD sometimes; I haven't
got the liberty of having enough good machines to run them both and haven't
the time to always compare them.  

> I also volunteer to buy the implementation team for a new VM system a
> bottle of very fine single malt Scotch whiskey (say, The Macallan), or
> the comparable award of their choice. Although such a bottle is
> expensive, I know it isn't worth nearly the amount of time and effort
> that would go into such an effort -- I offer it only as a symbol of
> the appreciation of the community for removing one of the last major
> architectural advantages other operating systems can claim (multiple
> processor support being perhaps the other remaining one.)
> 

Not being a great Scotch drinker, I probably can't appreciate what you've
put up for offer - but a nice gesture, nonetheless.  Any takers ? :)

Tim.

-- 
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! Tim Liddelow                    ! http://www.cst.com.au/~tim      _--_|\
! Software Engineer               !                                /      \
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