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Hi! Warning! NetBSD can suck up your life! I've tried to escape, but I can't stop hacking.
I've been associated with NetBSD as a developer since late 1997, and in March 1998 received the port- alpha- maintainer @ netbsd . org appointment.
Perhaps I thought it would look good on my resume or something. The only appointment there already was a note about my serving on NASA's design review board for JPL's Mars Observer camera. Later, the whole spacecraft vanished, but not until the camera snapped a fuzzy picture of the whole planet while still a few days out. (The camera had a fixed focus that would only have worked perfectly from orbit.) It should have been a sign. Obviously, I was already headed for no-good and had apparently been recognized at NetBSD as an addicted hacker beyond any hope of reform. Or, perhaps, as someone with nowhere else to go.
So, the portmasters have the final authority over what kind of code goes into the architecture specific sections of the kernel, but it means we are first in line for the blame. In my specific case, I also get much undeserved credit for the work of Chris Demetriou, from whom I took over, and for the work of Jason Thorpe, who as of February 2000 was coerced ^Wsuckered ^Wconvinced to sign up as ``co-portmaster'', making his unofficial position more official, at least, insofar as anything around here can be said to be official.
My current projects include the usual mix of fixing bugs and panics, improving the device drivers, a tiny amount of work on UBC, and a rototill of our floating point support to improve speed, usability, and to conform to the C99 and IEEE 754 standards. (Or, ISO/IEC 9899 and IEC 60559, if you prefer.) I don't actually think that the floating point standard is a great thing, by the way, but many people who have only a passing familiarity with it often think it is of critical importance, don't ask me why. See my essay list below.
finger ross@ftp.NetBSD.org (restricted access)
ross@NetBSD.org
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