I couldn't have put it better myself. Vis-a-vie network performance, my goal for DragonFly is to have 'good' performance. But I think it is a complete waste of time to try to squeeze every last erg out of the network subsystem like FreeBSD has. We aren't trying to compete with Cisco, and nobody in their right mind would take a turnkey BSD or linux-based system over a Cisco (or other piece of high-end networking gear) to route multi-gigabits/sec of traffic. I still think we can get close to FreeBSD's rated performance, eventually, but I am not willing to create a mess of hacks and crazy configuration options to turn DragonFly into the ultimate ether switch when I can purchase one off the shelf for a few hundred bucks.
I think the last time I tried to use a general purpose UNIX OS as an actual 'router' was in 1994. We used two BSDi boxes (and later FreeBSD boxes) to route the two T1's that BEST Internet had when we had just started up. It was a horror, frankly. Hardware bugs in the ethernet cards and even in the T1 card required a lot of hacking to work around, and trying to run BGP with gated was even worse. Back then 'real' networking hardware was bulky and expensive. Today, though, there is no excuse. It's cheap (and even cheaper on E-Bay), and far more reliable then a general purpose PC. If someone is trying to route multi-gigabits worth of traffic then the infrastructure is clearly important enough to warrent purchasing dedicated networking gear. If someone isn't trying to go all out, then a general purpose OS might be adequate, if still not as reliable. So all I can say to Mr Thom in that regard is: Stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and just buy the appropriate gear for your network infrastructure needs. -Matt