Regarding [VMS "compat" mode]

Not only would be "useful" but a number of companies would be willing to 
pay several hundred thousand dollars for such a system if it included 
maintenance (someone to fix problems as they arise). Instead a lot of these 
companies are being forced to re-implement some of their processes from 
scratch. (which they dislike immensely)

However, its not even close to being feasible. Three things that I can't 
see anyway around:
         1) VMS's shared library mapping technique wouldn't
            work under NetBSD.
         2) The trap handlers are all different (VMS's appear
            to be based on RSX like interrupts with fixed pools)
         3) The I/O system is based on a multi-threaded asynchronous
            I/O model (the QIO) which could not be emulated in the
            current I/O layer.
I will be interesting to see if the VMS/Itanic project ever sees the light 
of day (actually it will be interesting to see if the Itanic becomes more 
than a marketing curiosity :-)

--Chuck