I have been thinking about this and I think it would be a little sad
to have to leave m0n0's roots of FreeBSD for another OS because of
degradation in performance and direction of the FreeBSD 5x/6x+ series.
Hopefully the performance issues will be resolved with 5.4 that is
about to come out and having to move m0n0 to another OS will become
moot. PfSense seems to be peppy enough in my usage (p2p, gaming) using
5.4 RC's.

BUT if we have to move and we want to stick with IPFilter, what about
Solaris10/OpenSolaris. IPfilter 4.x is now standard/included and
Solaris seems to be gaining much ground and will gain more momentum
for drivers once Opensolaris is officially released (this summer?). My
usage of it is night and day better compared to past Solaris releases.
The only thing I wonder about is the footprint and if it can be
stripped down enough for the platforms m0n0 ultimately develop for
(Soekris, etc). A minimal install of Sol10 still pushes 700mb, but Sun
still has unelectable packages in that selection. Maybe Opensolaris
will be more customizable. But Sol10 has proven VERY stable and
speedier all around.

Or another possible good direction would be DragonFlyBSD? Especially
since it is in essence a continuation of FreeBSD 4x series albeit with
their own concepts. CARP and ALTQ will be added soon enough. Smaller
kernels. Embedded platforms on their minds, etc. PfSense might end up
on DragonFly too with due time with "pf" being included now with DF
and Scott being an active supporter.

But then again going GragonFly route might end up with two much too
similar projects (pfsense/m0n0).


-- 
Best regards,
 Scott                          mailto:tcslv at cox dot net