On 10/16/2018 2:23 PM, Brett Lymn wrote:
On Mon, Oct 15, 2018 at 06:44:30PM -0700, Don NetBSD wrote:
You're used to dealing with "computers" where you CAN change a piece of
software AFTER release. I deal with devices/appliances where the cost of
upgrading the device far exceeds the cost of the device (and comes at
a huge "reputation cost" in the eyes of the user: "You mean, this device
has been BROKEN all of this time?")
Yes, I figured that was what you were doing but if there is any chance
that your product will be featured in the technology news channels for
having vulnerabilities that allow it to be used by bot herders or crypto
currency miners it would be possibly more embarressing...
IME, that happens when folks embrace some (large) piece of software (e.g.,
a Linux kernel) that they don't completely understand -- because it is never
formally defined, in its entirety, in a way that those deploying it can
grok.
OTOH, when you develop a codebase specifically FOR a particular product, you
avoid the risk of adding "cruft" to cover features and mechanisms that you
aren't using.
I'm looking to combine the best of both worlds -- use NetBSD to give me a
flexible hardware platform that I can morph to suit the needs of proposed
products (e.g., USB peripherals instead of having those same devices "on
board" in a production version) at a prototype/proof-of-concept level;
but the established (and "understood") codebase that we're already supporting
for an eventual product deployment to free us from having to "support"
a NetBSD implementation.
