Hi.
In my mind the reason why we should use FreeBSD kernel is that it is developed for a long time, and has much more things, that can be helpful for "userland", such as mentioned SMP, and the most important -- hardware support. Also, the number of currently existing ports for FreeBSD is the greatest -- so we would have less troubles compiling packages. Yeah, I know, that nearly all the ports for FreeBSD can be compiled on either one OS of the "three", but I try judge the facts.
well, openpackages.org is to remove the very disadvantage the open/net bsds and
have a unified collection ain't it :) and as I saw last time the package tools maintainers of the *bsd project are listed in that project, I hope they achieve the unification
faster. So , we can expect that disadvantage of netbsd being worked on already.
The issue of platform support is very important, but I think, not on that stage. Remember, some time ago Debian/Linux didn't have such a wide platform support. Let's make the system usable at least on i386 and FreeBSD -- then we can think about the others :)
Well I think making code modular and layered (in dependant and independant parts)
even in kernel, as I in my minimal understanding can put it, is what netbsd ppl are doing all along.
I think, they also replaced the VM subsystem recently, no small a change I guess.
Also, what about voting -- I still think it's good idea to make a poll, and after that start working and give off flaming. Maybe, we can create a web page with a poll system? It would be the simpliest way. Or even ask CmdrTaco to put this poll on Slashdot ;-)
-- Regards, Wartan.
/prasad gadgil (se-mumbai)
"What you do when you don't have to, determines what you will be when you can no longer help it." -Rudyard Kipling
