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."

Comments

Re:PkgSrc

[The Nine]

PkgSrc is much more extensive than OpenBSD's ports, and not quite as extensive as FreeBSD's - but, frankly, you'll find most of what you'll ever need in there. And you're right, the portability aspect is wonderful.

Re:PkgSrc

[rpbailey1642]

Just FYI:

Gentoo(Linux, not BSD):
19384 ebuilds, 9440 Packages, Last Updated At 12:21:45 GMT

PkgSrc (NetBSD+):
Over 5400 packages

FreeBSD Freshports:
10897

I was unable to find stats for OpenBSD, but I last recall it was in the 2000 range.

Anywho, my point being, it contains about 1/2 of the packages that Gentoo has (and, let's be honest, a lot of the stuff in Gentoo is fluffy crap) and runs on platforms that it is dead-impossible to find decent apps for, like AIX.

Hit up corporate users

[DesScorp]

Our new office's copier uses NetBSD as it's OS. I'm pretty sure the company hasn't dropped a dime in the foundation's pocket. I'm a supporter of the BSD license, but if companies are using the OS, and not pitching in even a pittance voluntarily, perhaps a gentle reminder of how much expense it would cost to move to a new OS is order? Perhaps another reminder of how if they went to say, ohhhh, Linux, that they'd have GPL issues to deal with? Yeah...that sounds like it's worth a check for a couple of grand to me...