Subject: BSD == NIH
To: None <current-users@netbsd.org>
From: Jay Maynard <jmaynard@texas.net>
List: current-users
Date: 03/16/1999 10:36:34
The current discussion about how root must use csh because this is BSD is an
example of the worst case of NIH syndrome I've ever seen. "If you want SysV,
you know where to find it." Are all ideas that come from SysV necessarily
evil?

I find it fascinating that folks can complain about not having much int he
way of mind share for NetBSD in one breath and then defend doing things
differently fromt he rest of the world just because SysV does it the other
way in the next. There is, at least to me, a causal relationship here. The
world expects root to run sh out of the box, at least in part because when
you *do* log in to root, you *must* have as high a possibility of winning as
you can get.

Putting people down for wanting to follow a different standard from you just
because they don't share the same historical bigotry is guaranteed to run
off customers. I *don't* know where to find SysV (or Linux) for a
DECstation, or a VAX, or several other architectures that are supported in
NetBSD and nowhere else. Should I take a sledgehammer to all those machines
because I object to The One True Berzerkeley Way in some things? (csh is a
major one: I find it flakier than Battle Creek in a blizzard, and am working
to stamp out every last vestige of csh as a scripting language at my current
job.)

Like it or not, the rest of the world is moving in a different direction
from that historically set out by BSD. I'm not saying that you should "sell
out" - if that term has any meaning at all in the current context - but
simply don't slam others for wanting to do things more in concert with other
systems from other vendors.