At 10:31 PM -0500 2001/1/18, Pedro F. Giffuni wrote:

>  Having three BSD camps has been great...did you notice that NetBSD's
>  development spurred when OpenBSD was created?? Maybe it's the time for
>  a unified "Free" BSD, maybe not.

	What I see that is actually happening is that each project is 
taking code and concepts from the other two projects (and re-working 
them as needed), as they have needs and interests that permit/require 
them to do so.  So, as FreeBSD becomes more portable, it takes stuff 
from NetBSD and then does some re-working.  As NetBSD becomes more 
powerful (e.g., adding SMP), they take code from FreeBSD and then do 
some re-working.  As either FreeBSD or NetBSD become more secure, 
they rummage around through the OpenBSD code to see what can be 
re-used.

	So, over time, these three projects are continuing to 
cross-pollinate with each other, and ultimately some time in the 
distant future, you may very well see the resulting hybrid get so 
close, and after a number of the original players have either retired 
or changed their more radical views over the years, you may actually 
see a point where the core people agree that it no longer makes sense 
to keep the projects separate, and there is essentially a vote taken 
(and won) to agree to fully merge what little is left.


	However, I don't see this happening on a fast time table.  I 
think we're probably talking about another ten to twenty years, at 
least.

--
   These are my opinions -- not to be taken as official Skynet policy
======================================================================
Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles@skynet.be>