What is to become of NetBSD?

[uteck]

I was just reading this (http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2006/08/30/0016.html) mail list post by Charles Hannum about the current state and future direction of NetBSD. He paints a gloomy picture of the OS, is it as bad as he makes it out to be?

[danieldk]

I am a NetBSD developer, but I don't speak for the project here: as far as I am concerned there is some truth concerning the claim that there is some stagnation. But things are nowhere as bleak as Charles Hannum states. The Foundation and core are functioning pretty well. On the technical side, things could be better. But to do that we need more companies investing in NetBSD, and more experienced developers. But to have both, NetBSD needs to get better, so it is partly a chicken and egg problem.

I think that one of the reasons relatively few companies and users are attracted, is that we haven't dispelled the "FreeBSD for speed, OpenBSD for security, and NetBSD for that old VAX" mantra enough. It is misleading. NetBSD is fast and secure. Some security techniques are unparalleled, even by OpenBSD (e.g. see veriexec and cgd). And on many fronts (except on SMP machines) it can keep up with Linux and FreeBSD well, when it comes to speed. Besides that it has a very clean, well-documented base system. Et voila, it potentially is a good system for a large market. We just haven't been able to bring the word out.