Subject: Re: Whats the point of this porting effort?
To: Lee Reynolds <leebreynolds@yahoo.com>
From: Allen Briggs <briggs@wasabisystems.com>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 03/09/2001 08:44:35
> What is the point of the 68k port of NetBSD?  Is it
> entirely academic?

Do you mean, what's the point of continuing to maintain it?
The mac68k port has been around since 1992/1993 or so, and the hp300
much longer (that was, I think, the primary development platform for
a while at UCB).

> This wouldn't be so bad if the code base for NetBSD was becoming
> more efficient as time went by

This is a current, on-going debate.  Keeping the slower platforms
around and maintained actually keeps this argument alive.  If things
go in that adversely affect performance, then it's most noticable on
the older, slower systems.

> Just like Linux, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD, the primary development platform
> for NetBSD is the standard PC.

As others have mentioned, that's not entirely true.  There are several
NetBSD developers who don't even have PCs (I was one for several years).

> So now I'm wondering what the point is anymore.

I think some folks have already answered this.
You'll also probably note that there are far, far more active users
than active developers right now...  ;-)

-allen

-- 
 Allen Briggs                     briggs@wasabisystems.com
 http://www.wasabisystems.com/    Quality NetBSD CDs, Sales, Support, Service