On Sat, 09 May 1998 00:04:48 +0100 
 "Neil A. Carson" <neil@causality.com> wrote:

 > Why do you insist on copying these messages to public lists? But as you
 > wish to, then I shall do so anyway (even though I only read
 > netbsd-announce now).

Well, your reply to my original message was CC'd to this list... if you
didn't want this discussion to happen here, well... you probably shouldn't
have done that :-)

 > My complaint was essentially that your message had a needlessly strong
 > and disrespectful tone which was uncalled for. This is also the opinion

Sure, my statement was blunt and strong, certainly.  However, I do not
feel it was in any way disrespectful; I certainly meant no disrespect (and
I think you know me better than that... just a couple of weeks ago we
were chatting over pints of beer, like we'd done a few times before, and
hope it would have been obvious from those encounters that I'm a fairly
friendly and easy going guy, and that I respect you as a person).

 > of other list-readers I have spoken to. If my comment was wrong, you
 > could have simply said 'not quite, actually...' rather than taking the
 > 'who to you think you are, saying xxx' high-horse tone. I have never
 > claimed direct involvement with the NetBSD project---everyone who reads
 > the list knows I am not a developer---and it was thus obvious I was not
 > acting as a NetBSD spokesperson [1].

Yes, some people know that you are not a "NetBSD developer" in the sense
that you do not have write access to the NetBSD CVS repository.  However,
I'm sure everyone here _does_ know that you are a "RiscBSD developer",
and have been very involved with NetBSD/arm32 since day one.  Given your
position, I can easily see how someone might not really see the difference
and assume that statements you make about NetBSD policy might be right from
the horse's mouth (so to speak :-).

 > Part of the problem may be I'm just not used to the etiquette used by
 > certain developers. However, now I know that in the future similarly
 > disrespectful / upsetting / offensive may be coming my way, I'd sooner
 > just not put up with them hence leaving the mailing list/s.
 > 
 > If the NetBSD project is to succeed, as the 'seen leader' of the project
 > (work performed by you, for which I have the utmost of respect) you need
 > to be more sensible and open when dealing with 'normal people,' such
 > that you don't needlessly offend / upset / disrespect them especially
 > when it's not called for. Of course in the end it just does the OS as a

All I can say here is that my record speaks for itself.  I feel as if I
have been very fair and respectful (and even friendly when I'm not operating
on 2 hours of sleep working against an ever-approaching deadline :-) with
every reasonable person I've encountered in my years of involvement with
NetBSD (and I certainly consider you a reasonable person).

 > whole more damage than good. It was almost that you took my message
 > somehow 'personally' which was rather silly, especially as it was *not*
 > in the slightest bit being critical of NetBSD, nor did it bring up John
 > Dyson (so I don't know why on Earth you even mentioned him)

The reason I brought up John was because he is the person who fixes
Mach VM bugs in FreeBSD.  It was purely in reference to the "X server
memory leak" discussion on tech-kern you previously referred to.  The
point I was trying to make was that the reason NetBSD had not made the
same "fix" to the Mach VM was because it wasn't worth the time spent,
and that the person who is FreeBSD's canonical VM maintainer actually
spend what could be considerable time getting the fix to work (it was
meant as an estimate of how much effort would be involved in making a
similar change to NetBSD).

It isn't worth the time spent because of the existence of UVM.  If it
had been a more critical problem, then time spent fixing it would be
worth it, in all likelihood.

That was my whole point (in rebuttal of your seemingly blanket statement
that NetBSD no longer fixes Mach VM bugs).

 > I can understand not being nice to people if there's a real reason, but
 > don't think there was a real reason back there. People have agreed your
 > comments were unnecessarily strong though one erroneous statement you
 > were correcting _of_course_ should have been corrected. If I struck a
 > chord with you by mentioning 'FreeBSD' in a message, then I apologise
 > now and will take note not to mention FreeBSD on a public list in future
 > though to be frank it's rather petty if that really is the case [2].

That is not the case at all... FreeBSD and other operating systems are
mentioned all the time on NetBSD mailing lists.  I was, however, taking
issue at your statement that the fix for the problem being described could
be found in FreeBSD (and the implicit statement that it was clearly broken
in NetBSD, to which there is evidence to refute that statement).

 > [1] If I make an assertion such as 'income tax has risen by two percent
 > _again_' it doesn't mean that I am speaking on behalf of the British

I am aware of that.  However, you're also not in a position where your
statements could easily be confused as official statements of the British
government.  (We're ignoring the fact that any statement about a tax increase
is almost always true :-)

Anyhow, I'm sorry if you are really this upset over my statements.

Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center                            Home: +1 408 866 1912
NAS: M/S 258-5                                       Work: +1 650 604 0935
Moffett Field, CA 94035                             Pager: +1 650 428 6939