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NetBSD Project Calls for Donations
A reader writes:"Thor Lancelot Simon from the NetBSD project recently made a post to the netbsd-advocacy mailing list, outlining the project's desperate need for monetary donations from its users and supporters to help improve NetBSD for everyone. Please read Thor's post here and think seriously about helping out this excellent open source project. Even the smallest donation counts, if enough people pitch in."
OpenBSD provides just as good a minimalist, clean and reliable system
Quite right - I love OpenBSD as much as the next guy, and use it for my router/firewall box. I'd consider NetBSD more suitable for a desktop or desktopesque box, though. It boots faster, for one thing, and pkgsrc tends to keep more up to date with its software than OpenBSD ports and packages. I see that the Firefox package in OpenBSD 3.7 is 1.0.1, which is before an awful lot of nasty security fixes where made (well, it says 1.0.1.p1 - for all I know that p1 means the OpenBSD guys patched it to fix said problems, I dunno). And, of course, if you're in a situation where performance is perhaps more important than absolute security, NetBSD is probably a better choice than OpenBSD, but doesn't have all the usual drawbacks associated with going to Linux.
PkgSrc alone is worth a small donation. With it, you can compile the same apps for many different operating systems, including Solaris, *BSD, Linux, and Irix. While not as extensive as some of the Port systems, the fact that it is so standardized across the board is a decent exchange.
Much as I love OpenBSD, that's not strictly true. The NetBSD init system, for example, is a thing of beauty, and it's both cleaner and more functional than the traditional equivalent found in OpenBSD. There's a lot of innovation happening in NetBSD, and it's worth keeping an eye on.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Exactly the reason I think it's important people donate (I certainly will be). I think the NetBSD project is at a very exciting time in its life, where it is making the sort of solid progress that could help it become less obscure than it is now. After the excellent 2.0 release, it would be a shame if financial troubles slowed things down now.
- Hubert
You can send a check or do a bank transfer. Just contact the finance email address listed in the link. Trust me, they will happily accept your donation.