Jason,

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).

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

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
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)

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].

I didn't hand-wave the problem at all, either---I said 'try with UVM' or
'look what's happening different in FreeBSD' as being two good ways to
proceed. Indeed you followed my first suggestion and thus traced the
problem further. So excuse me for being counter-constructive---I
presently have no means to pursue the problem further but suggested two
possible courses of action to those that may.

I hope you will agree with my sentiments.

        Kindest regards,

        Neil

[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
government! Nor does it mean that I believe I am doing so or trying to
do so. Nor does it mean that what I am saying is necessarily correct.
Nor does it mean people aren't able to correct me without being
unnecessarily rude.

[2] I use presently NetBSD, FreeBSD, and shortly Linux as well, and am
not an obsessive advocate of any one: All have disadvantages and all
have advantages. Gosh, I've just noticed my sig mentions NetBSD but no
other OS.

-- 
Neil A. Carson   Business development, Causality and Chalice Technology
Causality:       WWW: http://www.causality.com email: neil@causality.com
Chalice Tech:    WWW: http://www.chaltech.com  email: neil@chaltech.com
Office contact:  Tel/Fax: +44 (0)181 930 7408  Mobile: +44 (0)370 593183
SA110+1100, 21285/PCI, ARM, 3D, RTOSs, NetBSD, Image Processing, NC OSs