1. FreeNAS is not “moving to Linux” – yes there’s a new project coreNAS that will. But I hope anyone who decides to change underlying platforms to use Linux is doing so for more reasons than just the sensor framework. Anyway coreNAS will be one of dozens of Linux NAS projects. We use FreeNAS specifically to leverage FreeBSD storage technologies (gjournal, iscsi, zfs) and have learned enough through customization that we will just stick with FreeBSD if FreeNAS ever goes away (and right now it is not).
2. PHK is not just “some elitist committer”, sheesh. If PHK has concerns about impact on the kernel we should stop and listen – his vote gives him the ability to make people stop and listen. He might be a bit Danish in his directness but not everyone can be the diplomat a la RWatson. PHK was given his vote for a reason so there’s no reason for acrimony. Whats more he is not the only person who has problems with the OpenBSD sensor framework. It’s not 100% loved amongst OpenBSD devs and users (using it for RAID is going to be a problem).
3. It’s great that constantine and alex did this work. If it is truly “non-disruptive” and can be separated from the kernel then why not just maintain it as a port/patch. Lots of ports of things that never make it into the kernel live on and do all kinds of stuff like building custom kernel modules and user space tools for managing themselves. If the sensors framework can’t do that then perhaps it is too disruptive to include by default.
I bet if you maintain a patch on CURRENT targetting 9.0 and lots of people will try it.
4. it might not seem like it but it’s still early days … 🙂