>>> I suggest NetBSD Advocates try to get more Linux
>>> users discover NetBSD.

>> Why?

> Like, because they often do not know there is an alternative to Linux?
> Because the media hypes (only) Linux without telling people that there's
> about 30 years of history on Unix with many other systems working equally
> well or better than Linux? Geez.

I guess I was thinking that the NetBSD community seems robust enough to
guarantee further development, so more people are not really needed.  "No
Hype Required" and all that.

As for working "equally well or better" - well, remember when companies like
Amdahl wanted to provide IBM plug-compatible equipment?  Being the *same*
price/performance as IBM wasn't enough - it needed to be *better*.  Equal
is not good enough.

Is NetBSD "better" than linux along some vectors?  You betcha!  From its
consistent, careful, solid, stable, robust approach to OS design to its
single point of distribution to its fantastically friendly and helpful
user community (to mention a few),  NetBSD is a winner!

----

But Truth needs further illumination.

For example, the place where I used to work used to be a solid FreeBSD shop
with the occasional OpenBSD user and me, the NetBSD user.  Then they hired
one young kid whose whole career was on linux, so the powers that be there
allowed him to write his s/w for the quad processor xeon in linux.  At
the same place, another project was using FreeBSD for Java, but needed the
very latest Java features, and were also forced to use linux.
(I know that FreeBSD is rapidly providing native Java support, but it's not
here yet and it won't cause that company's project to move back to FreeBSD.)

lye-nucks tends to (but not always) get featurettes quicker than NetBSD, like
kthreads or mp support or vast amounts of peripheral h/w support, and,
because of the multiple vendors, gets distros targetted at, for example,
newbies or admin types or experts (I am thinking debian here).

----

After talking with lots of local NetBSD users, what I think it comes down to
is project philosophy.  If you like the "bizarre" [1] of lye-nucks, then you
probably aren't going to appreciate beautiful cathedrals.

It's when people begin to see the disadvantages to the "bizarre" development
method that the NetBSD approach begins to have appeal.  (And even then,
dyed-in-the-wool lye-nucks users/hackers will tolerate amazing lossage that
would make a NetBSDer throw up... there's no accounting for taste.)

-Mike


[1] http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/