My experience is not limited to the e1000(4) driver. The device tree driver subsystem is based on hardware model from the early 90s, the mbuf API is plagued with code duplication. Nobody want to touch this because the old guard is pretty much locking these interface. Everybody praise the Lord PHK, but his actual code in the tree is really sub-standard... The way to change things is to do what Adrian Chadd has been doing, sneaking in, and changing stuff behind's people back.

The way to contribute to BSD is easy, you have to be big to have enough influence (including monetary wise) to get stuff in. When you are a small nobody, you end up being treated as such.

Comparatively, I've had Linus look up at some issue I used to have with Linux USB stack (which were likely local interconnect issue). A world of difference.

edit: while I think about it, most large changes in FreeBSD are discussed in private. Public discussion on patch and technical discussion is frowned upon. At the end of the day, the dev submit at 10kloc patch that is unrewiewable, and it gets in with rather poor amount of discussion. The only public discussion held is pretty much bikeshedding. There is way more interesting technical conversation happening in a day on the LKML than will happen in a year on FreeBSD ml.