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New NetBSD Core Team Announced

Dan writes "NetBSD's Alistair Crooks, on behalf of the Board of Directors, The NetBSD Foundation, announces the appointment of a new NetBSD core team. He says that after a long period of discussion and debate, they have decided to keep the core team at the same size as the original (5 members), with what they believe is a good balance of knowledge, skill, inspiration and enthusiasm."

33 comments

  1. FP? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    FP!! Damn, I'm a loser!!

    1. Re:FP? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But in Soviet Russa, losers are you!

      Wait, that doesn't make sense. Nevermind.

  2. Itojun... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I couldn't help but notice, that while acknowledging Itojun as the most active developer in NetBSD, they also dropped him from core.

    Itojun is a long-standing OpenBSD developer (esp. KAME related stuff) and a brave, brave sole for navigating the NetBSD/OpenBSD political waters for the time he has been serving on NetBSD core. There is still a huge amount of hostility between these two camps. I hope he wasn't axed from NetBSD core for petty reasons ... but this is my first suspicion.

    Can anybody refute this theory? Or has childishness again won the day BSD-land?

    1. Re:Itojun... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Putting a halt to any progress or development in the name of political reasons is the way things work for *BSD. The pointless rules, petty bickering, and senseless arguments are what led long-time FreeBSD developers Mike Smith and Jordan Hubbard to suddenly part ways with that project. It's no longer about producing a better operating system, or even about doing something that's enjoyable for all involved. It's about rules and political games, and it's killing *BSD.

      This sort of thing is exactly what's preventing *BSD from being taken more seriously as a viable operating system. Instead of implementing new features and adding support for more of the latest hardware, time is instead being wasted on arguing over unimportant things.

      The fact is that each of the three major *BSD operating systems adds something unique to the *BSD community. The projects traditionally have borrowed from each other and cooperated to make the experience better for all. It's too bad that recently, egos and grudges have got in the way.

      This sort of dispute is becoming more and more common among the various *BSD operating systems. The *BSD community has already lost many good developers and if the trend continues, many more are sure to be on their way out. We may never be sure why Itojun was left off the new NetBSD core team, or exactly what promted Smith and Hubbard to part ways with FreeBSD, but there is one thing we can be sure of. These petty disputes are a big factor in the death of *BSD and each developer lost due to them is just another step closer to the inevitable death of *BSD.

    2. Re:Itojun... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Can anybody refute this theory?
      Well, that's not exactly the scientific way to approach theories is it?

      It's possible that itojun didn't want to be on a basically management team, maybe he wanted to devote his energy to developing. Who knows. It doesn't really help anyone to start talking about conspiracy theories, though, does it?

    3. Re:Itojun... by vesamies · · Score: 1

      I also would like itojun to have more say about how NetBSD is developed. I agree with many points he is making. He would like to port PF (OpenBSD packer filter) to NetBSD, for some reason it is not yet included. Same goes for resolver library from ISC. About bsdauth, don't know what is better, PAM or bsdauth... And I too hate NetBSD NIH attitude!!! But I also think NetBSD is the best and I hope the NIH attitude stops.

    4. Re:Itojun... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess the reason is that Itojun is too busy.
      In exaggerated terms, he is always riding on an airplane :-)

  3. The Core by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    If it is dead, you are supposed to bury it deep. What is deeper that the Earth's Core? Is Jolene Blaylock on this core team?

  4. See the new team (Socre:2, Informative) by cerskine · · Score: -1

    I've exclusively gained access to the first official team picture! Check it out at my website

    1. Re:See the new team (Socre:2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Silly /dork luser.

      That is a link to the VA Research staff.

      You know...the group who chased after Linux as VA Linux.

      Both groups are dead these days.

  5. Troll-in-one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    To spare this section of all the trolls (yeah right!), I have incorporated every *BSD troll into this one message. Thank you.

    The *BSD Wailing Song

    What's left for me to see
    In my ship I sailed so far
    What can the answer be
    Don't know what the questions are.
    And after all I've done
    Still I cannot feel the sun
    Tell me save me
    In the end our lost souls must repent.
    I must know it is for certain
    Can it be the final curtain
    As long as the wind will blow
    I'll be searching high and low.
    Who knows what's really true
    They say the end is so near
    Why are we all so cruel
    We just fill ourselves with fear.
    And heaven and hell will turn
    All that we love shall burn
    Hear me trust me
    In the end our lost sould must repent.
    I must know it is for certain
    Can it be the final curtain
    As long as the wind will blow
    I'll be searching high and low
    Final curtain
    Final curtain
    • flask of ripe urine
      pressed to bsd lips
      bsd drink up

    I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you BSD fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a BSD box (a PIII 800 w/512 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this BSD box, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

    In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Emacs Lite is straining to keep up as I type this.

    I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various BSD machines, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a BSD box that has run faster than its Windows counterpart, despite the BSD machines faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 800 mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that BSD is a "superior" machine.

    BSD addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a BSD over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

    It is common knowledge that *BSD is dying. Almost everyone knows that ever hapless *BSD is mired in an irrecoverable and mortifying tangle of fatal trouble. It is perhaps anybody's guess as to which *BSD is the worst off of an admittedly suffering *BSD community. The numbers continue to decline for *BSD but FreeBSD may be hurting the most. Look at the numbers. The erosion of user base for FreeBSD continues in a head spinning downward spiral.

    OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of BSD 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 marketing 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 hobbyist dilettante dabblers. In truth, for all practical purposes *BSD is already dead. It is a dead man walking.

    Fact: *BSD is dying

    It doesn't matter, no matter how many time you try to recesitate *BSD, it's just doesn't ma

    1. Re:Troll-in-one by addaon · · Score: 1

      Mod parent up as insightful. I'm too lazy to read the whole thing, so it wasn't interesting; it surely wasn't funny. Nor is it offtopic and, not having been rated yet, it is neither underrated nor overrated. And it's not trolling, it's metatrolling... besides, with that much text, there has to be /something/ insightful in there.

      --

      I've had this sig for three days.
  6. What We Can Learn From BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    What We Can Learn From BSD
    By Chinese Karma Whore, Version 1.0

    Everyone knows about BSD's failure and imminent demise. As we pore over the history of BSD, we'll uncover a story of fatal mistakes, poor priorities, and personal rivalry, and we'll learn what mistakes to avoid so as to save Linux from a similarly grisly fate.

    Let's not be overly morbid and give BSD credit for its early successes. In the 1970s, Ken Thompson and Bill Joy both made significant contributions to the computing world on the BSD platform. In the 80s, DARPA saw BSD as the premiere open platform, and, after initial successes with the 4.1BSD product, gave the BSD company a 2 year contract.

    These early triumphs would soon be forgotten in a series of internal conflicts that would mar BSD's progress. In 1992, AT&T filed suit against Berkeley Software, claiming that proprietary code agreements had been haphazardly violated. In the same year, BSD filed countersuit, reciprocating bad intentions and fueling internal rivalry. While AT&T and Berkeley Software lawyers battled in court, lead developers of various BSD distributions quarreled on Usenet. In 1995, Theo de Raadt, one of the founders of the NetBSD project, formed his own rival distribution, OpenBSD, as the result of a quarrel that he documents on his website. Mr. de Raadt's stubborn arrogance was later seen in his clash with Darren Reed, which resulted in the expulsion of IPF from the OpenBSD distribution.

    As personal rivalries took precedence over a quality product, BSD's codebase became worse and worse. As we all know, incompatibilities between each BSD distribution make code sharing an arduous task. Research conducted at MIT found BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing." Even BSD's acclaimed TCP/IP stack has lagged behind, according to this study.

    Problems with BSD's codebase were compounded by fundamental flaws in the BSD design approach. As argued by Eric Raymond in his watershed essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, rapid, decentralized development models are inherently superior to slow, centralized ones in software development. BSD developers never heeded Mr. Raymond's lesson and insisted that centralized models lead to 'cleaner code.' Don't believe their hype - BSD's development model has significantly impaired its progress. Any achievements that BSD managed to make were nullified by the BSD license, which allows corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating the goodwill of open-source. Fortunately, Linux is not prone to this exploitation, as it is licensed under the GPL.

    The failure of BSD culminated in the resignation of Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith from the FreeBSD core team. They both believed that FreeBSD had long lost its earlier vitality. Like an empire in decline, BSD had become bureaucratic and stagnant. As Linux gains market share and as BSD sinks deeper into the mire of decay, their parting addresses will resound as fitting eulogies to BSD's demise.

  7. *BSD and AIDS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    This just in: homosexuality among *BSD users has skyrocketed. The cause is yet to be determined, however most sources indicate that it has something to do with *BSD users comforting each other in an strictly unusual way, to be quite a frank about it, gay sex.

    On Monday *BSD was giving a sad prognosis, it was dying. It probably won't have much longer to live. So when news broke out hell broke loose. Jimmy an avid *BSD user had this to say:

    "When I heard this news I was utterly devastated, so I went to my friend Darl, who is also a *BSD user. He didn't yet know of the unfortunate, and he didn't take it well. He broke down in tears, this is the second blow to him in a week, he found out that he contracted AIDS from a Black homosexual prostitute on the street one day. I said to Darl, 'well you know something *BSD is dying, and well . . . I'm going to die with it.'

    I pulled down my pants and bent over, Darl took care of the rest. I don't know if I have yet to get AIDS, but we have gay anal sex everyday, without any lubricant for maximum ripage. The *BSD mailing list I joined reports the same thing happening among the other *BSD users. We are all planning on having one massive gay orgy on Saturday, so if you want to go out and be with *BSD up in heaven, come join us."

    Well you've heard it folks from a true *BSD user. They have all turned gay because of these unfortunate happenings.
    1. Re:*BSD and AIDS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As a *BSD user, I must say I'm depressed.

      1st I miss out on hertosexual sex.
      Now I find out I'm missing out on gay(lesbian) sex.

      Oh woe is me! Guess it is back to my Hitachi Magic wand and sybain. (hint:not the Venus)

    2. Re:*BSD and AIDS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You appear to be female. I'm male, a *BSD user, and I'm lonely. Can I meet you? Kthx.

  8. You forgot... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    THE DEAD OPERATING SYSTEM SKETCH

    Cast:
    Mr. Praline: John Cleese
    Shop Owner: Michael Palin

    A customer enters an operating system shop.

    Mr. Praline: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint. (The owner does not respond.)
    Mr. Praline: 'Ello, Miss?
    Owner: What do you mean "miss"?
    Mr. Praline: I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!
    Owner: We're closin' for lunch.
    Mr. Praline: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this operating system what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.
    Owner: Oh yes, the, uh, *BSD...What's,uh...What's wrong with it?
    Mr. Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it!
    Owner: No, no, it's uh,...it's resting.
    Mr. Praline: Look, matey, I know a dead operating system when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
    Owner: No no it's not dead, it's, it's restin'! Remarkable OS, *BSD, idn'it, ay? Beautiful kernel!
    Mr. Praline: The kernel don't enter into it. It's stone dead.
    Owner: Nononono, no, no! It's resting!
    Mr. Praline: All right then, if it's restin', I'll wake it up! (bashes at the keyboard) 'Ello, Mister *BSD! I've got a lovely fresh kernel update for you if you show...

    (owner hits the keys)

    Owner: There, it spewed some debug output to the command line!
    Mr. Praline: No, it didn't, that was you hitting the keys!
    Owner: I never!!
    Mr. Praline: Yes, you did!
    Owner: I never, never did anything...
    Mr. Praline: (yelling and typing into the console repeatedly) 'ELLO COMMAND PROMPT!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o'clock cron job!

    (Rips out hard drive from computer case and thumps it on the counter. Shoves it back inside the case and reboots the system - blank screen.)

    Mr. Praline: Now that's what I call a dead operating system.
    Owner: No, no.....No, it's stunned!
    Mr. Praline: STUNNED?!?
    Owner: Yeah! You stunned it, just as it was finishing an I/O task! *BSD stuns easily, major.
    Mr. Praline: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That operating system is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not 'alf an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of responsiveness was due to it bein' in the process of recompiling itself after a particularly comprehensive code update.
    Owner: Well, it's...it's, ah...probably pining for some dilettante dabbling.
    Mr. Praline: PININ' for some DILETTANTE DABBLING?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that? Look, why did it fall flat on its back the moment I started Emacs?
    Owner: *BSD prefers swapping everything out to the hard drive! Remarkable variant, id'nit, squire? Lovely kernel!
    Mr. Praline: Look, I took the liberty of examining the system when I got it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been printing any text at all to the screen was because of all the WORRYING COMPILER WARNINGS encountered while it was being rebuilt.

    (pause)

    Owner: Well, o'course it was spitting out those warnings! If I hadn't updated the kernel with an unstable development build, you might have had your FTP server compromised [slashdot.org], and VOOM! Bye bye to your business.
    Mr. Praline: "Server"?!? Mate, this OS wouldn't "serve" if you put four million volts through it! It's bleedin' demised!
    Owner: No no! It's pining!
    Mr. Praline: It's not pinin'! It's passed on! This OS is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! [lemis.com] It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! The numbers continue to

  9. BSD & Bob Hope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    It is with a heavy heart that we must report that Bob "I'm still dead" Hope has gone on to join the "B" team. As you all may know, BSD has been part of the "B" team for quite some time.

    The Year of Our Lord 2003 has been a particularly bad year for the "B"s,

    • Bob Hope
    • Buddy Ebsen
    • Buddy Hackett
    • Barry White
    • BSD
    This honored list of dead is but a small token of adieu from the many fans of the deceased.
    These dead were truly some American Icons. They will be missed.
  10. Cock! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Cock, cock, cock! Cocks in your eyes, cocks in your ears, cocks in both your nostrils! Cock in your mouth, and thirty-seven cocks in your ass! COCK! Cock, cock, cock! Cocks in your eyes, cocks in your ears, cocks in both your nostrils! Cock in your mouth, and thirty-seven cocks in your ass! COCK!

    -- The WIPO Avenger

  11. Wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nope, its definitely the NetBSD core team.

  12. fuck you troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    mod this fucking cut n paste troll down somebody

    I swear if I ever win the lotto I'm gonna give a huge chunk of cash to the Free/NetBSD foundations just to piss off you pimply-faced juvenile delinquent fucktards from /.

    GAFL already

    1. Re:fuck you troll by bsd_usr · · Score: 1

      I'd do the same damn thing. Give them like 5 million bucks or something.

    2. Re:fuck you troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It wouldn't bother us trolls. None of us give a shit what happens to *BSD. We don't care if it dies or not. We just talk about it dying to piss off zealots like you who will bite.

      YHBT! YHL! FOAD!

  13. The shortlist who is in the team... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1) Satan - we need a powerful leader
    2) The Grim Reaper - Actually joined years ago
    3) Hitler - Knows what to do with corpses
    4) Anyone from the cast of Six Feet Under
    5) G. W. Bush - We don't want this OS to suceed

  14. Foundations and *BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    "I'm gonna give a huge chunk of cash to the Free/NetBSD foundations"

    Let's see:

    "Free/NetBSD Foundation"

    "McArthur Foundation"

    "Ford Foundation"

    That fits, you know. All of these foundations are named after the deceased.

  15. we'll leave the light on by harkabeeparolyn · · Score: 2, Funny

    After Darl finishes bending you Linux freaks over, we BSDers will be waiting with the cold compresses and Preparation H.

    1. Re:we'll leave the light on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope. You'll be paying $699-per-CPU for the continued right to use *BSD. Everyone knows that BSD infringes on just as much SCO code, if not more, than linux, and is infused by the same pro-theft, anti-property culture as Linux. The only safe choice is Windows XP.

    2. Re:we'll leave the light on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everyone knows that BSD infringes on just as much SCO code,

      Who is this mis-informed person called Everyone? Because the facts are a settlement was reached with USL (USL ended up in SCO's hands).

      Please explain how a settlement is 'infringement'?

      infused by the same pro-theft, anti-property culture as Linux.

      I can understand how you'd come up with such a view about GNU/Linux based on the 'software should not be property' POV of the GPL.

      The only safe choice is Windows XP.

      Now you are just trolling.

  16. YHBT. YHL. HAND. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    1. Re:YHBT. YHL. HAND. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The vaccum that is your head is leaking.

  17. yhbt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yhbt

    1. Re:yhbt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      CLEVER, BUT WRONG.

  18. a lesson well learned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What We Can Learn From BSD
    By Chinese Karma Whore, Version 1.0

    Everyone knows about BSD's failure and imminent demise. As we pore over the history of BSD, we'll uncover a story of fatal mistakes, poor priorities, and personal rivalry, and we'll learn what mistakes to avoid so as to save Linux from a similarly grisly fate.

    Let's not be overly morbid and give BSD credit for its early successes. In the 1970s, Ken Thompson and Bill Joy both made significant contributions to the computing world on the BSD platform. In the 80s, DARPA saw BSD as the premiere open platform, and, after initial successes with the 4.1BSD product, gave the BSD company a 2 year contract.

    These early triumphs would soon be forgotten in a series of internal conflicts that would mar BSD's progress. In 1992, AT&T filed suit against Berkeley Software, claiming that proprietary code agreements had been haphazardly violated. In the same year, BSD filed countersuit, reciprocating bad intentions and fueling internal rivalry. While AT&T and Berkeley Software lawyers battled in court, lead developers of various BSD distributions quarreled on Usenet. In 1995, Theo de Raadt, one of the founders of the NetBSD project, formed his own rival distribution, OpenBSD, as the result of a quarrel that he documents on his website. Mr. de Raadt's stubborn arrogance was later seen in his clash with Darren Reed, which resulted in the expulsion of IPF from the OpenBSD distribution.

    As personal rivalries took precedence over a quality product, BSD's codebase became worse and worse. As we all know, incompatibilities between each BSD distribution make code sharing an arduous task. Research conducted at MIT found BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing." Even BSD's acclaimed TCP/IP stack has lagged behind, according to this study.

    Problems with BSD's codebase were compounded by fundamental flaws in the BSD design approach. As argued by Eric Raymond in his watershed essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, rapid, decentralized development models are inherently superior to slow, centralized ones in software development. BSD developers never heeded Mr. Raymond's lesson and insisted that centralized models lead to 'cleaner code.' Don't believe their hype - BSD's development model has significantly impaired its progress. Any achievements that BSD managed to make were nullified by the BSD license, which allows corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating the benevolent goodwill of open-source. Fortunately, Linux is not prone to this exploitation, as it is licensed under the GPL.

    The failure of BSD culminated in the resignation of Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith from the FreeBSD core team. They both believed that FreeBSD had long lost its earlier vitality. Like an empire in decline, BSD had become bureaucratic and stagnant. As Linux gains market share and as BSD sinks deeper into the mire of decay, their parting addresses will resound as fitting eulogies to BSD's demise.