On Sun, 1 Feb 1998, Michael Sokolov wrote:

> OK, so you do have VAXen in production, but how about competing with
> Pentiums and SPARCs and giving shell access to thousands of users? It's
> still true that most people on port-vax consider VAXen a retrocomputing
> diversion. 

Yes, myself included, but it is not without great love for the systems.
The respect and fondness of the old junk is really what I tend to believe
the NetBSD/vax port is about. That and the challenge of getting NetBSD
running on yet another architecture, or yet another machine within the
architecture.

> Have you EVER seen anyone make such statements about a Pentium or a
> SPARC? Until your community starts treating VAXen equally seriously with
> Pentiums and SPARCs, and makes NetBSD fit for this, I will continue to
> say that NetBSD is a hobbyist toy absolutely unfit for serious use. 

Why are you on this mailing list again?  I don't know that anyone here is
bent on using NetBSD for serious use like say -- running a company.  What
I see more of is a group of technically competent hobbyists who hate to
see some great old systems orphaned for lack of an operating system.
NetBSD/vax though not perfect is still an excellent OS.  It's also
growing, improving, and legal to use freely.  (A good thing for those who
respect copyright laws even if they disagree with how they're used.)

[snip]

> What I like about 4.3BSD-Tahoe is that it's the last release adhering to
> the tradition of True UNIX(R) that dates all the way back to V6 and V7. 
> It's the last release that has all True UNIX(R) code in place. "Adding" 
> this quality to NetBSD requires reversing all changes between 4.4BSD and
> NetBSD, as well as many changes between 4.3BSD-Tahoe and 4.4BSD. Of
> course it would no longer be NetBSD. 
>
> 4.3BSD-Reno starts in the direction of dehancement (IMHO), introducing
> the evil spirit of POSIX and replacing divine V6/V7 utilities with
> mortal "equivalents". This direction leads to Net/2, 4.4BSD, and
> eventually things like FreeBSD and NetBSD. This direction is in sharp
> contrast with my ideology and I will never follow it. However, there are
> two key features that are not present in releases before 4.3BSD-Reno.
> They are Kerberos and NFS. These features are essential for UNIX
> "clusters", and I definitely need them, but I won't put up with
> POSIXisation dehancements because of them. That's why I plan to play
> pick-and-choose between different versions. 

Hmmmm... Wow, you really need to get laid.  A girlfriend will do wonders
to refocus the overly pure and serious emphasis you place on your
ideologies.  

-brian.
---
Brian "JARAI" Chase | http://world.std.com/~bdc/ | VAXZilla LIVES!!!