Slashdot Mirror

http://www.openbsd.org/ might even be a better source yet.

Here you see what happens when only binary blobs are available. At some stage even your old hardware will stop working because the manufacturer will not provide updated binary blobs drivers.

NVIDIA is anti-open source. They will happily peddle some binary blobs for some archs (i386) and some OS, but refuse to give any hardware documentation or even tell the name of their various chipsets.

As long as the Linux/FreeBSD crowd accepts binary blobs in order to get their hardware to work, then NVIDIA will happily continue to only handout binary blobs.

Have a look at the FreeBSD nve (NVIDIA nForce MCP Networking Adapter device driver) driver:

This driver is a reimplementation of the NVIDIA supported Linux nvnet
driver and uses the same closed source API library to access the underly-
ing hardware. There is currently no programming documentation available
for this device, and therefore little is known about the internal archi-
tecture of the MAC engine itself.

And this is just a NIC? What's so secret about that? And this is acceptable?

Have a look at what OpenBSD does: Reverse engineer and offer the first open source driver nfe (NVIDIA nForce MCP Ethernet driver)

[/rant]

OpenBSD accepts donations to help the situation:
http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html

"Ah, they did try to download OpenBSD and burn it but they gave up as they were in an urgent rush and complained to me that there should be an ISO for OpenBSD! Download time was not a factor in the decision, the lack of an ISO was. This really happened last November."

There is an ISO. There was last November too. I guess maybe they are retarded?

"In your opinion they don't. In my opinion they contribute by being users of the system. They have the potential of contributing directly to the project and I offer my respect to them for being users of OpenBSD."

No, in the opinion of Theo et al, the guys who know exactly how many people are downloading, buying cds, and donating. Nothing to do with my opinion at all.

"If OpenBSD (i.e. Theo and crew) need cash to continue operations then they should start up an annual funding drive such as WikiPedia does."

Kinda looks like they did doesn't it? We are discussing it here on the "news for nerds and BSD doesn't exist" site.

"To not have a downloadable or bit toorentable ISO for a free operating system (and to charge money for it) is pure folly. Make it easy and bring on the hordes!"

ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/3.8/i386/cd38.is o

The 'main' URL to do this for a PeeCee system is here (there are plenty of mirrors, too.)

(oops, don't post an empty set of quotes for your href)

You really DO need to look harder! Just go to the to the arch directory of your choice under the OpenBSD download directory e.g. http://downloads.planetmirror.com/pub/openbsd/3.8/ i386 Notice the floopy*.fs files? They are floppy images. Looky here: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#MkInsMedia http://www.pantz.org/os/openbsd/makingaopenbsdcd.s html (and I don't even use BSD... well, does OS X count?)

Right here: ftp://ftp5.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/3.8/i386/fl oppy38.fs ftp://ftp5.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/3.8/i386/fl oppyB38.fs ftp://ftp5.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/3.8/i386/fl oppyC38.fs The first will work in most cases, the B and C version include rarer drivers than the first one. Did you bother looking? At all?

Right here: ftp://ftp5.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/3.8/i386/fl oppy38.fs ftp://ftp5.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/3.8/i386/fl oppyB38.fs ftp://ftp5.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/3.8/i386/fl oppyC38.fs The first will work in most cases, the B and C version include rarer drivers than the first one. Did you bother looking? At all?

Right here: ftp://ftp5.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/3.8/i386/fl oppy38.fs ftp://ftp5.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/3.8/i386/fl oppyB38.fs ftp://ftp5.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/3.8/i386/fl oppyC38.fs The first will work in most cases, the B and C version include rarer drivers than the first one. Did you bother looking? At all?

why should you pay OpenBSD for the CDs when you download everything you need in, I don't know, say 10-15 minutes

The cd pack includes a bunch of stickers. :) Plus, the CDs that you buy are bootable on a few platforms, making installation even more of a breeze. Also, if you don't want to order discs - after you find out that OpenBSD is so very excellent, you can pick up a swanky shirt or just donate some cash to keep the project alive and coding. That way, you get more releases in the future and more great software like OpenSSH, OpenBGPD, CARP, pf, and pretty soon, OpenCVS.

why should you pay OpenBSD for the CDs when you download everything you need in, I don't know, say 10-15 minutes

The cd pack includes a bunch of stickers. :) Plus, the CDs that you buy are bootable on a few platforms, making installation even more of a breeze. Also, if you don't want to order discs - after you find out that OpenBSD is so very excellent, you can pick up a swanky shirt or just donate some cash to keep the project alive and coding. That way, you get more releases in the future and more great software like OpenSSH, OpenBGPD, CARP, pf, and pretty soon, OpenCVS.

why should you pay OpenBSD for the CDs when you download everything you need in, I don't know, say 10-15 minutes

The cd pack includes a bunch of stickers. :) Plus, the CDs that you buy are bootable on a few platforms, making installation even more of a breeze. Also, if you don't want to order discs - after you find out that OpenBSD is so very excellent, you can pick up a swanky shirt or just donate some cash to keep the project alive and coding. That way, you get more releases in the future and more great software like OpenSSH, OpenBGPD, CARP, pf, and pretty soon, OpenCVS.

why should you pay OpenBSD for the CDs when you download everything you need in, I don't know, say 10-15 minutes

The cd pack includes a bunch of stickers. :) Plus, the CDs that you buy are bootable on a few platforms, making installation even more of a breeze. Also, if you don't want to order discs - after you find out that OpenBSD is so very excellent, you can pick up a swanky shirt or just donate some cash to keep the project alive and coding. That way, you get more releases in the future and more great software like OpenSSH, OpenBGPD, CARP, pf, and pretty soon, OpenCVS.

Contrary to popular misconceptions there is more then one BSD license. Anyway, OpenSSH has more then one license, but at least it's crystal clear how much they dislike the GPL.

Or you could a BSD, like OpenBSD, which has support for a huge number of wireless cards out of the box, and one utility, ifconfig, to manage both wired and wireless connections. You can even do ingress and egress filtering using pf (also out of the box) so that you only need to write your rules once for multiple NICs. And, of course, if you've ever liked Gentoo's ports collection, you'll love OpenBSD's.

Or you could a BSD, like OpenBSD, which has support for a huge number of wireless cards out of the box, and one utility, ifconfig, to manage both wired and wireless connections. You can even do ingress and egress filtering using pf (also out of the box) so that you only need to write your rules once for multiple NICs. And, of course, if you've ever liked Gentoo's ports collection, you'll love OpenBSD's.

Or you could a BSD, like OpenBSD, which has support for a huge number of wireless cards out of the box, and one utility, ifconfig, to manage both wired and wireless connections. You can even do ingress and egress filtering using pf (also out of the box) so that you only need to write your rules once for multiple NICs. And, of course, if you've ever liked Gentoo's ports collection, you'll love OpenBSD's.

Uh, http://www.openbsd.org/ftp.html. It's linked to from the front page. The link text is "Getting Releases". Methinks you needed to look a little harder.

Somebody needs to set up a site where we can donate money to the OpenBSD project through PayPal or some other convenient method.

From: http://openbsd.org/donations.html

We can also accept donations via PayPal

Next excuse?

• They are not having problems for hosting the code. Most servers are mirrors hosted by others and not paid by OpenBSD. The primary OpenBSD site is on U of Alberta in Canada and I believe don't pay for it there either.
• The project will not fork itself. If an outside individual or organization wants to fork it, they are free to.
• Changing the license to a less free license will not happen. Ever.
• Having too many BSD variants is not really at issue or an issue at all. OpenBSD is NOT competing with anything. The developers make OpenBSD because it is what they want to do. They are not a commercial company trying to make money and are therefore not trying to beat the competition. The others are actually more beneficial being around than not becuse of borrowed code and ideas.
• As for people begging for funding, that is already happening. You just commented an article doing just that. They also plainly state that if you want to donate money it has to be "no strings attached". You are not allowed to dictate what the money is to be used for. If you don't agree to that term, you might as well as not donate.

What they need help with is funding to continue developing the OS and subsequent projects. The funding goes towards paying for the electricity to keep the servers in TdR's house on and cooled. These servers are for development. The funding also pays for developers to work and to meet up at their "hack-a-thons" which generates huge amounts of new code for the project, including for OpenSSH.

I have used OpenBSD for over 5 years and I donate money and buy CDs as much as possible. BTW, people just buying their CDs is their primary source of income for the project.
Please donate or buy CDs!

http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html

Once again, with feeling:

http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html

I already donated today. Cheque, credit card (my preferred method), and Paypal are all easily listed. I guess having the donations link on the main page (just below project goals) was not obvious enough.

http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html

Once again, with feeling:

http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html

I already donated today. Cheque, credit card (my preferred method), and Paypal are all easily listed. I guess having the donations link on the main page (just below project goals) was not obvious enough.

A site for PayPal donations... you mean like this one?

Somebody needs to set up a site where we can donate money to the OpenBSD project through PayPal or some other convenient method.
http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html

Hopefully someone can pick up the slack and donate to this great project.

You?

Incidentally, I just installed OpenBSD last night for use as a firewall at my office. In appreciation, I donated through PayPal. Other people could, too.

Honestly, I only gave $10 for starters, but if the firewall works well, I will have the clinic send a bit more to the project for the use of their system. Even so, if half the people who read this slashdot posting send $10 through PayPal, they will at least have a start on their fundraising.

Somebody needs to set up a site where we can donate money to the OpenBSD project through PayPal or some other convenient method. This is an important project, and I think that a lot of people in the community realize that, but take for granted that development happens "for free."

http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html

http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html

click paypal

http://openbsd.org/donations.html - quite painless.

Absolutely.. the url is here: http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html

OpenBSD has no wealthy sponsors, nor a business model.

Naturally, the OpenBSD project requires funds to operate, due to electrial costs, Internet line costs and the same hardware upgrades that everyone must experience. For this reason, the project sells CDROMs and T-shirts and posters. Thus, when you buy an OpenBSD CD, whether at a conference, from any sales site, or from our CDROM ordering page, you are helping to increase the chance that OpenBSD will continue to make future releases.

It is also possible to donate funds or hardware, in which case your name ends up on our Donations page.

OpenBSD has no wealthy sponsors, nor a business model.

Naturally, the OpenBSD project requires funds to operate, due to electrial costs, Internet line costs and the same hardware upgrades that everyone must experience. For this reason, the project sells CDROMs and T-shirts and posters. Thus, when you buy an OpenBSD CD, whether at a conference, from any sales site, or from our CDROM ordering page, you are helping to increase the chance that OpenBSD will continue to make future releases.

It is also possible to donate funds or hardware, in which case your name ends up on our Donations page.

OpenBSD has no wealthy sponsors, nor a business model.

Naturally, the OpenBSD project requires funds to operate, due to electrial costs, Internet line costs and the same hardware upgrades that everyone must experience. For this reason, the project sells CDROMs and T-shirts and posters. Thus, when you buy an OpenBSD CD, whether at a conference, from any sales site, or from our CDROM ordering page, you are helping to increase the chance that OpenBSD will continue to make future releases.

It is also possible to donate funds or hardware, in which case your name ends up on our Donations page.

OpenBSD has no wealthy sponsors, nor a business model.

Naturally, the OpenBSD project requires funds to operate, due to electrial costs, Internet line costs and the same hardware upgrades that everyone must experience. For this reason, the project sells CDROMs and T-shirts and posters. Thus, when you buy an OpenBSD CD, whether at a conference, from any sales site, or from our CDROM ordering page, you are helping to increase the chance that OpenBSD will continue to make future releases.

It is also possible to donate funds or hardware, in which case your name ends up on our Donations page.

"Somebody needs to set up a site where we can donate money to the OpenBSD project through PayPal or some other convenient method."

http://www.openbsd.org/orders.html

Brother, improving your security is as easy as ordering a CD: http://www.openbsd.org/orders.html

The CDs that OpenBSD project sells is their main source of revenue and support.

"If your data is likely to be the subject of attack by experts you have no business storing it on most Linux distros or OS X. You want OpenBSD or SELinux, or the like. Anyone who follows security already knows all this though."

Anyone who follows security also knows that OpenBSD isn't the be-all, end-all to computer security. I'm a long time OpenBSD user and probably pushing "fanboy" status, however, I've seen my fair share of local OpenBSD exploits. True, there has been only one *remote* hole in the default install, but, take a look back at the OpenBSD errata pages and you'll quite a few local exploits for OpenBSD--mainly ones dealing with privilege escalation.

Very simply put, there are a two simple reasons as to why I have the only account on my OpenBSD box and don't freely hand out shell accounts to friend/etc:

1) I'm paranoid.
and
2) I'm paranoid.

Although Apple is largely responsible for causing these security flaws, it is hardly something that can be avoided in a modern consumer oriented OS such as Mac OS X. Despite the fact that it inherits a large chunk of its code base from the relatively mature FreeBSD (as well as being descended from NeXTSTEP), Apple have added a vast amount of entirely new code to the system, purely because of the demands of the consumer, and as a result in terms of a general user experience (as in regular user stuff - no flaimbait intended) I believe that Mac OS X has surpassed the experience currently possible with *BSD/Linux.

However, in doing so it has introduced a vast amount of new code:

-Spotlight
-Aqua
-WebKit
-Quicktime
et al.

All of these add in functionality and usability, but lots of new code means lots of room for error. No human can develop 100% bug free code when introducing new ideas with great speed. (As anyone using a cutting edge Linux kernal knows).
Apple could introduce an OpenBSD style audit (Rumour suggests that they don't even use automated checking for buffer overruns!), but the pace of development would suffer and Apple needs to be competitive with the overal rate of development of Windows if it will have any great success in the consumer market.

This is a natural consequence of rapid development.

If we want new features we will get new bugs and, to be honest, I'm surprised that the overall negative impact of such a strategy hasn't been even greater for Apple. But if there is any time to change their strategy, now is the time.

Sally has no choice but to pay for another copy of Windows,

• freebsd
• openbsd
• netbsd
• gnu-darwin
• ReactOS
• SuSe
• Fedora
• Debian
• Gentoo

-- Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 8.2).

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few months, you probably know that the latest version of Windows--called Vista--is due to hit store shelves later this year (in time for the holidays, Microsoft tells us). The successor to Windows XP offers a little something for everyone, from eye-catching graphics and new bundled applications to more-rigorous security. In fact, there is so much in the new operating system that it can be tough to get a handle on it all.

Well, the timing you can't argue with – but the features it's advertising strike me as familiar. "Eye-catching graphics" are already available for other systems, in the form of eg. the X compositing engine and not to mention Enlightenment. Bundled applications I can't help but laugh at, especially considering that most Linux distributions have more than Notepad, Paint, and Media Player – hell, almost all of them come with a free office suite, which Microsoft users usually have to pay several hundred dollars for!

As for more-rigorous security, well, there's the first place I think the article's going wrong. Just by virtue of the fact that the word "more" is in there, you can easily see why so many people suspect Microsoft intentionally cripples the system to force upgrades. Viruses, spyware, and worms galore – and yet I have yet to see that on any Linux distribution I've used. And besides, I refuse to consider anything secure that's anything less than OpenBSD.

I've been noodling around with a recent beta version of Windows Vista (Build 5270) and had a chance to make some observations. While the sleek new look and polished interface caught my eye, it's what's under the covers that impressed me most. Microsoft's done a great job of improving security across the board. Things like Windows and spyware library updates are streamlined, and I definitely appreciate the more robust Backup software.

Again, it's "improving". Which infers that the security was, well, not very good before. And again, I still won't consider even Linux to be secure when compared with OpenBSD. As for the "spyware library updates," I don't think that they would even be necessary if Microsoft didn't make it so easy to get loaded with spyware in the first place.

Backup software is another thing worth mentioning on Linux. While it's not directly related to the article text here, it's worth mentioning one particularly understated feature of UNIX systems – how easy it is to back them up. Whereas with a Microsoft box you have settings scattered all over the hard disk, I can typically back up all my Linux boxes and even transfer the configuration to another system just by tar'ing up three basic directories – /etc, /home, and /var.

OK, let's get on to the next paragraph. Continuing!

Still, there's plenty of unfinished work left to do. Internet Explorer 7 struggled to properly render some Web pages, and I found local network connectivity to be a hit-or-miss affair. And then there's the stuff that isn't even in there yet--like the intriguing Windows Sidebar, which will put real-time weather info, stock quotes, system status, RSS feeds, and other information on the display.

Now, what really puzzles me here is how Internet Explorer is

You're obviously not using pf!

Personally I'm just waiting until my new favorite system – OpenBSD – has to put in a backdoor. "Only one (non-government-mandated) remote hole in the default install, in more than 8 years!"

"If I remember right, that was part of the reason encryption on OpenBSD was done in Canada."

Read about it here: http://www.openbsd.org/crypto.html

From the link:

"The cryptographic software components which we use currently were written in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Germany, Greece, Norway, and Sweden."

"When we create OpenBSD releases or snapshots we build our release binaries in free countries to assure that the sources and binaries we provide to users are free of tainting."

And a summary of Canada's export controls on cryptographic software here: http://www.efc.ca/pages/doc/crypto-export.html

To add to this craziness, the culprits behind these accomplishments, in this case certificate hacking of all things, are brilliant enough to get ultra-high paying jobs and hire a nude secretary. With this new age of cyber-terrorism threats, I gotta side with the pro-hacker mantras claiming that they help the world by exposing threats with mostly benign things like pbrushing a hitler mustache on Bush before the real bad guys, the ones who have similar high levels of expertise [though in bombs], figure out the holes. High five, 31337-speakers.

1. Microsoft releases sloppy software, as usual, with an amazing number of extremely severe vulnerabilities.
   
   (Compare Microsoft Windows XP with OpenBSD, which is equally complicated. Quote from OpenBSD: "Code often gets audited multiple times, and by multiple people with different auditing skills." The OpenBSD team is number one because they want to be.)
   
   
2. Microsoft refuses to fix vulnerabilities, as usual.
   
   
3. Microsoft sells protection called OneCare Live.
   
   
4. Accidentally, or not, Microsoft protection software sometimes disables the software of other companies, demonstrating that customers cannot depend on other companies for protection. So, everyone must buy their protection from Microsoft.
   
   
5. Profit Before: Microsoft now sells a new copy of its operating system software to everyone who buys a new computer, even if the customer stopped using the old computer and bought a new one because the old one was too infected, and thus already owns a license.
   
   Profit Now: A protection racket would be even more profitable. Microsoft would collect money every year for a subscription to its protection updates.

Back in the good old days, we used to just use duct tape and superglue to keep people from messing with our machines! (And I guess OpenBSD doesn't hurt either... ;-)

It is official -- Netcraft confirms: FSF is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered FSF community when IDC confirmed that the FSF's mindshare has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all computer users. Coming on the heels of a recent announcement from Linus Torvalds, which plainly states that the Linux kernel will NOT be moving to GPLv3, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The FSF is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by founder Richard Stallman's hairstyle and rambling GNU/Everything Communist anti-developers'-rights "I'm-right-and-you're-stupid" commentary.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the FSF's future. The hand writing is on the wall: the FSF faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for the FSF because the FSF is dying. Things are looking very bad for the FSF. As many of us are already aware, the FSF continues to lose mindshare. In a recent poll on Slashdot, 97% of computer users preferred Microsoft to the FSF in terms of both ideals and the quality of their flagship products.

The GNU operating system is the most endangered of all the FSF's projects, having lost 93% of its core developers. Unable to convince users to use GNU's own "Hurd" kernel, the FSF has made several desperate attempts to capture mindshare by riding Linux's coattails. The aforementioned sudden (although not unexpected) denouncement of the GPLv3 by Linus Torvalds only serves to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt, the FSF is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

FSF founder RMS states that there are almost 7000 remaining GNU users. How many of those use Emacs? Let's see. Consider the bell-shaped curve of an IQ distribution graph. At best, Emacs users universally score two standard deviations below the mean, which means that they make up approximately 2% of any given sample. Therefore, there are 140 Emacs users left in the world. A recent article showed that GCC usage is declining among truly free operating systems in favor of ICC or even SDCC. There's GNU and Emacs, what else does the FSF produce aside from hot air?

Due to the troubles of the GNU operating system, abysmal adoption rates and so on, the GNU folks gave up on improving their code and instead began to concentrate on marketing their beta-quality OS. Theirs is just another unfinished open source project with a poorly designed interface and a lot of ideological baggage. It's no wonder that more and more businesses are turning to Microsoft.

All major surveys show that the FSF has steadily declined in mindshare. The FSF is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If the FSF is to survive at all it will be among juvenile political dilettante dabblers. The FSF continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. People just don't want to hear their message anymore. For all practical purposes, the FSF is dead.

Fact: The FSF is dying

Unix-based system historically had many security holes, exploits and worms. It's only in later years that this has improved (think early RedHat distro that enabled just about every daemon by default). Have a look at the OpenBSD Security Advisories, and you'll see that even OpenBSD has had many holes.

If you are willing to run Bastille-Linux (hardening script, really, and not only for Linux) why not install OpenBSD? Hardening scripts not supplied by the Linu distro has a tendency to make administration harder and break your installed OS. With OpenBSD you get a hardened OS with ports tested to work with this hardening. If you need accellerated 3D, then OpenBSD does not yet offer this.

That sounds like a great idea! But maybe installing something different would be more cost effective?