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Coverage of the OpenBSD Hackathon
ccparrish writes "'In Calgary until May 20, they belong to an organization known as OpenBSD, a grassroots software movement with historical links to the University of California at Berkeley.'"
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This blurb makes almost no sense. You picked the wrong sentence to copy for the story, ccparrish. Please drink more coffee before submitting a story.
Let me help:
A group of OpenBSD whitehat hackers are getting together in Calgary until May 20th with the goal of creating a free, state-of-the-art operating system that is entirely resilient to hacking, viruses and other cyberattacks.
That one is better but it still doesn't make much sense. Their goal is to improve, not create, the operating system. Of course I could be wrong. Maybe the OpenBSD people are going to rewrite OpenBSD from scratch in a week or two!
Wahoo!
My conference is better than your conference, yaar! Naannaa--booboo
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
This article is a bit fluffy for the slashdot crowd. it is good, however, to have articles thrust into public awareness of alternative operating systems. This article probably didn't have any information that the readers from here didn't already know. It must either be a slow newsday in Canada, or the writer had to lobby his editor pretty hard to get permission to submit this story.
Yup. Every day. That's why I started reading slashdot! ;)
Just so that I can stay slightly on-topic, OpenBSD is cool. I first tried version 3.3 a few days ago, and was impressed with how solid it is. I like their focus on quality control over needless feature addition. Too many packages are currently broken however, my guess is that it has something to do with the pro-police protection exposing bugs in the various ports. I'm sure it'll all be fixed up in the next two releases or so, and I am going to keep my eye on it.
Then the code will be release in three years after being fully audited...
-30-
Gee now they can put the whole city of calgary in a panic because the newspaper reporter doesn't understand that these hackers are programmers, not 31337 5kR1pT k1dd135. And plus if they were going to wipe out a hard drive or e-mail account, I doubt there would be a mouse involved. After seeing that bit I'm sure the guys interviewed for the article are real happy. Anyways, just my two pennies.
Check out my life
Which ports are broken? Which arch? We want them all to work, so please let us know.
Outside the US, so the "Patriot Act" doesn't apply. Canada is a different country, eh.
The arch is i386. biggest issue would be koffice, specifically KSpread. It crashes on startup. mplayer doesn't work at all, it also crashes on starup. Konqeror works fine for the most part, but icons for files will randomly disapear, and only restaring X will "fix" it.
This is all just FYI as the sendbug reports were in fact already sent.
What are you talking about? Lots of people still use and love BSD. I have a BSD box at home and so does my friend Steve. Look at all the places that run bsd on Netcratf. I think you have miscalculated, my friend.
BSD is dead
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It'