Garrett D'Amore wrote:
> For these reasons, I really, really don't think we should be making it
> any easier to use kvm grovelers at all.  Anyone sophisticated enough to
> be hacking on kvm grovelers *should* be able to figure out how to make
> sysctl work.  If they aren't, then they *probably* shouldn't be hacking
> on kvm grovelers because of point #2 above.

I think you've made your reasoning clear, but the person it's not
considering is a sysadmin user of NetBSD.  A sysadmin might even be
the sort of a person who would love to contribute to NetBSD by coming
back next month and doing complete rewrites of savecore, netstat, and
systat, adding a bunch of new nodes to sysctl, all for the beauty of
the thing.  He might not, however, want to do that the same week he is
expected to get a system up and running.

I understand that your opposition to providing a simple way for existing
grovelers to be made to work is aimed at discouraging a specific
population of people: the ones who might be tempted to write even more
new grovelers.  But I think we should be careful not to discourage also
another population of people: those who would like to install NetBSD
and find a practical way of making it work.  If they hear us saying that
a problem they experience because there are grovelers in the current
system can best or only be resolved by their own effort to rewrite the
grovelers, that adds a bit to their perceived cost of choosing NetBSD.

-Chap