OpenBSD Hackathon Approaching
BsdFreakZoid writes "OpenBSD developers from all over the world get together once a year at their annual 'hackathon'. This year's hackathon is about to start with around 60 developers, taking place in Calgary, Alberta in Canada from May 21st through May 28th. KernelTrap has spoken with a number of OpenBSD developers about this year's and past hackathons. OpenBSD creator Theo de Raadt is quoted saying, "a few hackathons ago we had a slogan of 'shut up and hack', this is because hackathons are not conferences. People don't come to chit-chat, but to do what projects do. Some other projects hold discussion meetings, I would call those talkathons. We don't discuss, we do." Past OpenBSD hackathons have seen the introduction of SMP support, support for the amd64 architecture, and many other significant advances. What big advance will come out of the 2005 hackathon is yet to be seen."
first-post-a-thon!
w00t!1!
"we have a barbecue at Theo's at the beginning of the hackathon, to get to know the new people." [...] "we go out for food or coffee in small groups."
...and at the end of the day they vote someone off the island.
There are only 2 in the downtown core, and they suck. The girls are ugly, no lap dances, and the worst part of it:
there's this ritual in Alberta where at the end of a dance, the girls sit down on a blanket and guys throw coins at them. The girls will put "targets" on their nipple, their unmentionables, etc, and the guys around the stage will take turns taking loonies, toonies or quarters and chucking them at the girls, trying to knock the targets off. I have no problems with lap dances and stripping because it is empowering to women, but I think throwing coins at women verges on abuse.
I have no idea about this, but I presume that the aim of meeting to code is meant to improve cooperation, right? Is this a pure "Extreme programming" session, or will there be some planning? Otherwhise it sounds like fun.
i hope it doesn't occur at openbsd, but rather at freebsd. specifically, in getting rid of phk
... why should we have to pay him to finish something he started?
he's really a detriment to freebsd. i used to be a big freebsd fan, but because of the stupid bullshit he pulls every year, i'm moving everything away from freebsd (to openbsd). especially after his stunt at bsdcan
besides, the way he operates is ass-baggy. geom sucks anyhow
vodka, straight up, thank you!
..and so i openbsd.. stay away!
It is official -- Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dying
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 [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin [amazingkreskin.com] 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
OpenBSD developers from all over the world get together once a year at their annual 'hackathon'. This year's hackathon is about to start with around 60 developers, taking place in Calgary, Alberta in Canada from May 21st through May 28th.
The Happiest Place on Earth! No, wait...
If you like OpenBSD or OpenSSH, now might be a good time to donate a little bit to the project. Donations help pay for stuff like this hackathon. Considering buying a CD, t-shirt, or just giving some cash. This can be done at the orders page. They also accept hardware donations.
Eats babys.
Is there any sort of communication or direction of what features people are supposed to be hacking (working) on? Or is it everyone just shows up and develops what they feel like. As a software developer, the latter scares me a bit.
I guess you can't argue with results though.
Again, the BIG development for OpenBSD 3.8 would be a rework of the ports/package system. It will include the pkgsrc to avoid downtime due to the following recomendations:
/var/db/pkg/*
"Before upgrading, some users choose to remove all packages, and installing new versions after upgrade. If your platform is one of those that switched to gcc3 (macppc, i386), you SHOULD probably do this.
To quickly remove all packages from your system:
pkg_delete -q
After the upgrade, install the new versions of these applications."
Can you imagine doing this every time you upgrade to a new version? Do that on your desktop OS every 6 months and you will understand how painful this is.
References:
http://www.pkgsrc.org/
http://openbsd.org/faq/upgrade37.html
Holy crap, BSD isn't dead!
These things are really good... They can show serious flaws and direct programers in the areas needed to develop.. Microsoft should take note of these and have them weekly, if not daily :-)
they have to code a lot to reach the state of the art features
I can't help but wonder if adaptec ever got their act together and sent the reference materials the OpenBSD guys wanted.
Anyone know what the outcome of that fiasco was?
Calgary? Isn't that the strip club capitol of Canada? How do they expect geeks to hack when there's readily available naked women geeks can see for the first time? ;)
In all seriousness, good luck! May your coding be swift, and may your debugger bless you.
Admittedly, I didn't look REALLY hard, but I couldn't find any location information about this event on the openBSD site itself, or even linked from the article.
So for somebody that's organizing it, can you post a link to the information about the event itself? Things like locations, dates, times, etc? I live in Calgary, so hey, might check it out just for fun. But it's kind of hard to do that when you have no idea beyond "a hotel downtown".
an arduous It's best to try Accounts for less the point more Been many, not the notwithstanding, FreeBSD went out may do, may not free-loving climate obsessives and the = 36400 FreeBSD stand anymore, We'll be able to can connect to 8esult of a quarrel according tothis it there. Bring Whatever path is shitheads. *BSD conducted at MIT Jesus Up The and Juliet 40,000 NUMBERS. THE LOSS also dead, its users. Surprise the wind appeared
Maybe they can hack Theos mind to support a personality.
oof!
Theo and some of his visitors over the years have been very generous about speaking at meetings of the Calgary Unix Users Group.
This year, we cap off our best month in history, in which we have Richard M. Stallman speaking on May 18 at the University Science Theatres (seats 500). Less than a week later, Theo and the entire 50-ish turnout for the Hackathon, invited to the John Dutton Theatre of the main downtown library (seats 400), on May 24th.
The topic is PF, the packet filter; and the scheduled speaker, Ryan McBride - but the rest of the PF team will be there for question & answer. And with the entire Hackathon invited, the topic could wander a bit.
If you can make it, look for details at our web site:
http://www.cuug.ab.ca/
Roy Brander, P.Eng.
Chair, Calgary Unix Users Group
Calgary? Isn't that the strip club capitol of Canada?
I can tell you as a native Calgarian that Calgary is far from being the strip club capitol of Canada. The reason probably has to do with the fact that active members of the OpenBSD community live here more than anything else--that and the fact Calgary is a very well-connected city (among the most-wired cities in North America and maybe the best in Canada along with maybe Ottawa and Vancouver).
A little OT but maybe interesting to some:
Although Calgary and Alberta is not nearly as red-neck/socially conservative as people outside the province often make it out to be, Calgary (and indeed all the prarie provinces) have quite a puritan heritage--for example, Alberta was led by a premier nicknamed "Bible Bill" Aberhart for many years, and in Calgary from prohibition well into the 60s men and women couldn't be in mixed company in any venue that served alcohol (in later days--1950's the city relaxed laws allowing establishments to serve alcohol to both genders in the same room during the Exhibition and Stampede).
Things have changed a lot since then, but Calgary still doesn't have that big an appetite for strip clubs considering the size of the city. If post-hacking peeler-shows is what they were after I think they would pick a venue somewhere in Quebec--it seems that province embraced more socially liberal attitudes than anywhere else in Canada, except for a few interesting exceptions (in terms of equality for women it was opposite--Alberta and the praries were ahead of the game there and Quebec was the last province in Canada with universal sufferage).
Maybe that is why Ottawa is known for it's Linux activity--it is both a high-tech city AND is closer to the stripper-action as it sits on the Ontario-Quebec border.
"a few hackathons ago we had a slogan of 'shut up and hack', this is because hackathons are not conferences. People don't come to chit-chat, but to do what projects do. Some other projects hold discussion meetings, I would call those talkathons. We don't discuss, we do."
Alright...zip it! Zip it! Ziiiiiip! Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury...E-zip-it A When a problem comes along, you must zip it! Zip it good! Would you like a suckle on my Zipple?
It's worth noting these two features were imported almost wholesale from NetBSD.
:-)
Perhaps "portathon" would be a better name.
Pretty please!!! Ya ya - I know. Sun is being stupid about releasing the details. I just have this secret fantasy about setting up a 64 cpu OBSD system on one of the SunFire 25k's I set up. Chip support is the first step. The second step is getting one of those 25ks all to myself -- so I can setup access for the developers of course!
Democrats and Republicans only disagree about how to enslave you
BSD is recruiting young Christian boys and girls into the seedy world of creating computer viruses and homosexuality.
Something must be done.
Convince the Linux Kernel team to do exacly the same.
Tell them to do a Hackathon too...
... facts are facts. ;)
FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."
NetBSD:
NetBSD, for When Portability and Stability Matter (Oct 2004)
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (Sep 2004)
OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)
OpenSSH (OpenBSD subproject) has become a de facto Internet standard.
*BSD in general:
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
BSD Success Stories (O'Reilly, 2004) (pdf) ~ from Onlamp BSD DevCenter
"The BSDs - FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Darwin, and others - have earned a reputation for stability, security, performance, and ease of administration."
--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.
Shouldn't it be in /usr/share/game/recipes
since they are cooking bagged game?
...but somehow I strongly suspect this is an invitation only event. They probably wouldn't get much work done, if they also have to entertain scores of unknown strangers, who just want to rub shoulders with 'the pros'.
Theo, are you an idiot?
Theorizing, planning, and discussing projects are always important. If you have 60 developers all going in their own direction, you have 60 ideas that are not completely congruent with eachother. Ongoing discussion and planning always results in a better end product than everyone doing their own thing.
If your motto is "shut up and hack", you stymie innovation by not allowing the pros and cons of a certian method of approach to be discussed and refined. While you are correct that discussions can become antiproductive, they are, however, a very useful tool that SHOULD NOT be excluded.
Disclaimer: I am very involved with CUUG (current President)
Not going home S4ve Linux fr@om a ass of them all,
That kind of dismissal of hackers talking socially is why Linux is much more popular than OpenBSD.
--
make install -not war
I think I have read the same comments from you in numerous places on Undeadly. Why not stop trolling and give up donating the hardware or stop whining and email some people in OBSD to try again. . .???
A link to one of your other trolling attempts???
Read the openbsd misc mailing list archives. Scott posted to websites denouncing openbsd's efforts to open up documentation for adaptec controllers because he used to work there. He also lied and said that this kind of thing doesn't help and makes openbsd look bad, despite it proving effective repeatedly in the past, and all three BSDs benefiting from it.
While there's not that much political "forces" between the BSDs, freebsd developers publicly trying to prevent openbsd developers from improving their OS, and lying about the situation is one of the few cases. See PHKs recent trolling at BSDcan for another example.
This is a list for the 3.7 release.
S D/macppc/ alpha
OpenBSD/luna88k
OpenBSD/mvme88k
It is an homage to Linux distros that claim they can't have 6 month-release cycles, even though they don't hack on network stack or kernel, just package stuff for userland, and don't complain when corporations insert binary drivers in the linux kernel.
OpenBSD/i386
OpenBSD/vax
OpenBSD/amd64
OpenB
OpenBSD/sparc
OpenBSD/sparc64
OpenBSD
OpenBSD/cats
OpenBSD/hp300
OpenBSD/hppa
OpenBSD/mac68k
OpenBSD/mvme68k
OpenBSD/sgi
OpenBSD/zaurus
The SMP support certainly borrowed from netbsd, but there's significant differences in the kernels after all these years, and its not a matter of just "importing wholesale".
Pf would have been a nice example of what's been accomplished at a hackathon, and something that both freebsd and netbsd have borrowed from openbsd. Code sharing is a good thing, quit acting like a tard.
It would be just awful if someone pointing out that PHK is an abnoxious troll (not just on line, in real life even) that makes freebsd developers spend more time saying "PHK is talking out his ass, he does't represent us" than coding.
Because any time someone points out something you don't like, they must be a troll, right? Good thing so many slashtards feel that way and will dutifully mod the guy down as a troll.
See, if you have 60 developers who never talk and don't have anything in common, then your bullshit commitee attitude is required just to get anything done. But if you have 60 developers who all understand and agree with a clear set of goals, then they don't have to waste time blathering and bickering about how to do what. They can just start doing it, go "hey check this out", and have other people help.
After Theo's latest public outburst on the IETF's TCP Maintenance list (http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/tcpm/curren t/msg01233.html), there are a few things that could be addressed at the Hackathon.
Contribute to the online videogame encyclopedia: GamerWiki
What, no mention of the RMS talk on the 18th? :)
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Who doesn't have OpenSSH?
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
[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
Who cares about BSD anyway ? It's a humorless, dull OS, that lacks performance and is difficult to use for administrators.
Only the true sad bastards would even consider using it, I guess most people install it just to brag, and then rarely boot it.
It was real life trolling, not online trolling that is linkable. PHK went to BSDCan, and during an openbsd presentation on their wireless card support, started trying to claim they are doing something illegal by using reverse engineered code in their free drivers, and saying they should be happy with binary only freebsd drivers.
1 619770429208&w=2
Here's a link to Theo forwarding PHKs email about trolling at BSDCan to the openbsd list though:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=11
Ask the GP if he voted for GWB last 'election.' That might just quiet him.