The future of NetBSD

[soralx at cydem.org]

> > > If you didn't instruct it to play a movie, why it does that?
> > > You did: by putting the disc in.
> > Bad logic. Putting the disc in != requesting (or wanting) to play a movie.

> Indeed, no.  And putting a CD-ROM in doesn't mean I want to mount it
> or read it.  And putting in a memory stick doesn't mean I want to read it
> either.  But, well over 99% of the time, these things are what I want to do.

May be, but it still does not mean that what you want will be done right,
seen below[0] for possible scenarios.

> If I want to do something else with the DVD, well, I close the movie player
> and do something else.  But 99% of the time, I'm grateful for the time
> it saves me.

Switch to a vitual screen with console and type `mplayer dvd://` -- what's
so time consuming about that?

> Also, if I'm the type who only ever inserts DVDs to rip them or do other
> nefarious things, I can always set up the system to *not* open the movie
> player automatically.

Here is why I care to disagree. Spending time to configure the base system
for your needs is understandable ("right" defaults can't be agreed upon by
all), but why waste time to configure (turn off) all the bells and whistles?
I like FreeBSD as it is now, and I'd hate to see it turn into an OS that
thinks it knows all (not unlike some extremely popular OS out there. Ahem).
Fortunately, I know this won't happen. I may not mind much if the desktop
environment tries to play DVDs by itself, for instance, but if there are
more things like that, I'd just use another OS, because clearly the goals
of such system are incompatible with mine. Who the hell cares about me,
yes, but I suppose it's fair to say that my goals are similar to those of
BSD, and, as such, are representative of many other people.

It's a no way to judge how user-frindly an OS is by whether it is able to
do fancy things you described or not. FBSD is 'lacking' this functionality
not because it's hard to implement, but because it's not very useful. If
it was to be done properly, then you'd need to install some logic unit
with serious AI. Until that time, it's best to have the machine just do
things that it's good at: follow commands.

> But then most BSD users see things differently.  How does the system
> know that I *want* /dev/ad1s2c mounted as /usr/local?  I may sometimes
> want it mounted as /opt instead.

It's a convention. Conventions are no standards, but they are still useful.
Nothing stops you from mounting it wherever you wish.

[0]
What if you:
are already watching a movie?
- have more than 1 dvd-rom and insert 2 disks at the same time, will it
  automagically play the first part? Will it play the second part after?
  Will it pause for 15 minutes before playing second dvd, so you can go
  make some tea?
- inserted dvd to launch video without sound (to see what's on it), say,
  because you are listening to music?
- forget that speaker volume is very high, and put in a dvd just to remove
  it from bench so it doesn't collect dust, and view it later (and it's
  3 o'clock)?
- don't even want to mount the cd, but just want to check the media
  manufacturer, to see how long the media will last? And then test
  every CD from the collection? (yeah, turning off DVD auto-play is
  really useful here)

Do you always want the movie to start full-screen?

The OS can never know what to do in all circumstances. It should do just what
you tell it to -- no less and no more. Imagine if there was a desktop environ
that had it's own ideas on the above and assumed that, for instance, you want
to see all movies fullscreen, always with sound, play from cd0, pause 15 min,
play from cd1, etc. Do you think it would be convenient to use?


Break out your flame-proof suits, gentlemen (and ladies too, of course). :)
For those who really feel like flaming, I have a flame extinguisher handy
(it's heavy and looks like a baseball bat!) ;)


[SorAlx]  ridin' VN1500-B2