> But some components have gotten to be big enough that they're entire projects in themselves, usually cross-platform and not integrated with any one OS's devel

> But some components have gotten to be big enough that they're entire projects in themselves, usually cross-platform and not integrated with any one OS's development. Some of these are adopted into the BSD core respositories and customized so they form part of the integrated offering, but a number are just left in ports and run mostly unmodified. I think this is pretty much what OP was trying to say, but his choice of words didn't make it obvious. The major difference between *BSD (OpenBSD is particularly picky about this) and Linux is that the "base" system is supposed to be fully-functional and well-integrated, from kernel to userspace, whereas Linux is "just" the kernel. There are good uses to both models. I found the latter to be very useful in embedded systems, where you often need that kind of flexibility. I found the latter to be, frankly, a lot more useful on the desktop. To this day, I have to consult my notes every time I need to set up wireless on a Linux box without wicd or NetworkManager. The fact that a system with OpenBSD's reputation actually gets to do that easier is a good testimony to the merits of well-integrated userspace tools.