OpenBSD Foundation Announced

OpenBDSfan writes "KernelTrap is reporting on the creation of the OpenBSD Foundation, a Canadian not-for-profit corporation intended to support OpenBSD and related projects, including OpenSSH, OpenBGPD, OpenNTPD, and OpenCVS. The announcement explains, "the OpenBSD Foundation will initially concentrate on facilitating larger donations of equipment, funds, documentation and resources. Small scale donations should continue to be submitted through the existing mechanisms.""

Comments

Accounced?

[Shambhu]

s/check-it-out dept./spell-check-it dept./

OpenCVS?

[QuantumG]

Yep, cause this license ain't free enough and, besides, we don't want anything that is better than CVS.

You're a codin' machine Theo, but I wish you could learn to play well with others.

Re:OpenCVS?

[Corporate Troll]

Complex == insecure to them. Which, to me, implies that secure == poverty.

No, you have your negation wrong.... If Complex == Insecure then !Complex = !Insecure, and thus Simple = Secure. The funny thing is: you cannot argue with that: simple is easier to audit and thus easier to audit. It really is that simple (Dah-dum!). Simple doesn't equate poverty, or a Lotus Elise is a poor-mans-car. (Having no radio, AC, etc...) Sorry for the "bad car analogy"(tm).

You also forget the target demographic for OpenBSD: this is not for your Desktop, nor even for your high-load server. You can use it for that, but the niche in which it lives is firewall, NAT, transparent bridging. Places where security matters more than anything else. Sure, a bit more complex to set up, you need to work more, but this is not your moms OS.

Re:OpenCVS?

[RAMMS EIN]

Actually, I believe there was a good reason to create OpenCVS. Lots of sites still use CVS, but development GNU CVS is a mess and has become effectively unmaintained (leaving several vulnerabilities open). OpenCVS is intended for those sites who, for whatever reason, wish to continue using CVS, but also want some degree of security.

Re:OpenCVS?

[Noryungi]

Just read up a little bit about OpenBSD, and you'll notice they are not afraid of complexity. Examples that come to mind are pf, OpenBGPD, W^X, etc.

Besides, choosing a stable and secure algorithm is not a bad idea. See this post for a valid example.

Finally, I can't help but notice that Subversion is available as an OpenBSD package, so quit your yakking already.

Sheesh, anti-OpenBSD trolls these days.

Re:OpenCVS?

[Corporate Troll]

simple is easier to audit and thus easier to audit.

Should be: simple is easier to audit and thus easier to secure.

Re:OpenCVS?

[nacturation]

No, you have your negation wrong.... If Complex == Insecure then !Complex = !Insecure, and thus Simple = Secure. Technically you should say the following, where "->" is the symbol for "implies":

If Complex -> Insecure, then:
!Insecure -> !Complex; and
Secure -> Simple

Otherwise your method of reasoning would go like this:

Square = Four-sided-figure
!Square = !Four-sided-figure

. . . which doesn't make sense because then you could say "and thus, a non-square rectangle isn't a four-sided figure".

Good old Wikipedia has the details.

Re:OpenCVS?

[Ohreally_factor]

It works either way. And if you're auditing it twice, that might be more secure.

Re:OpenCVS?

[zyche]

What people seems to forget is that even if CVS usage is replaced with something else (like for example SVN) it doesn't make all the old CVS repositories go away. So, 20 years into the future (when we have flying cars which runs on water) you sit there (on your levitating chair) and wants to extract some files from an old CVS repo you found in the company's archive. No problem, except that GNU CVS isn't available on SuperDuper Windows Extra Deluxe 2027, due to the fact that code base and build system is such a mess that no one manages to make packages for Cygwin anymore (that and the fact that Microsoft (Operating Systems Division) does not any longer permit that GPLed software is used on its products.

Ok, I'm exaggerating, but the point is that there is no fault in having a clean and maintainable code base for the future - even if it's only used for handling legacy projects.

Besides, who are we to tell these people how to use their spare time? If anyone want to re-implement Unix in Brainf*ck, then let them.

Re:OpenCVS?

[Corporate Troll]

Logical terminology! So We Meet Again, My old Arch Nemesis. ;-)

That's for clearing that up, you are of course 100% right.

Re:OpenCVS?

[Corporate Troll]

Yes? Which is based on FreeBSD and not OpenBSD. FreeBSD which is also used by many people on the desktop (I did a while ago, but that laptop died, unrelated to FreeBSD of course ;-) ). They are really only related by their name and their license. OpenBSD is a fork of NetBSD, which came from 386BSD which also forked into FreeBSD. Let's say OpenBSD and PC-BSD are something like cousins.

Re:OpenCVS?

[QuietLagoon]

the license for CVS is perfectly fine

Perhaps for your purposes. However, the CVS license it not consistent with the goals and philosophies of OpenBSD. So they created OpenCVS with a license that is appropriate.

the main source of theo thinking SVN isn't secure, is because that control freak didn't write it himself.

Do you have a link pointing to his quote on that?

openssl and openssh are 2 packages responsible for huge security holes over the years, both of which are his babies.

OpenSSL is not Theo's "baby".

OpenSSH's security, while not perfect, has been excellent. Your unsubstantiated attribution of "huge security holes" to it seems to be intended as little more than a troll, since you did not provide any citations.

Re:OpenCVS?

[TheRaven64]

OpenBSD has a long history with CVS. It was the first open source project to run a public CVS server; previously all open source projects had run a private CVS server that only a few people could access, and published snapshots as tarballs.

They have a lot of revision history in their CVS repository, and feel it's important to maintain this due to the way in which their auditing process works. They might switch to something else at some point, but for now CVS is the best way they have of ensuring compatibility with CVS.

Currently, they use GNU CVS, but there have been a number of security problems with it in the recent past. Part of this comes from the fact that, when it was written, GNU projects used the private-CVS-public-snapshots development model, so only trusted people got access to the CVS server anyway. After fixing a few security holes in GNU CVS, the team decided that the code was in such a state that doing a full audit and getting it up to the standard required by OpenBSD would be more effort than writing a replacement, so they decided to replace it instead. So far, they have OpenRCS, which is a drop-in replacement for GNU RCS (on which CVS is built). Now they are working on the CVS component, and seem to be making good progress.

It's really not hard to understand. Considering the code quality of the rest of OpenBSD, I'd be more inclined to use their version than the GNU one if I needed CVS. Take a look at the recent BIND vulnerability that affected every platform except OpenBSD for an example.

Re:OpenCVS?

[TheRaven64]

The reason OpenBSD didn't do this is that the CVS-to-SVN migration tool does (did?) not properly migrate all of the history information. I suspect this is a very hard problem, given the semantic differences between CVS and SVN. If it's solved, then there becomes much less of a need for OpenCVS, but until then some people would rather use a maintained and audited version of CVS than an unmaintained insecure one.

Re:OpenCVS?

[Noryungi]

the main source of theo thinking SVN isn't secure, is because that control freak didn't write it himself. which is ironic because openssl and openssh are 2 packages responsible for huge security holes over the years, both of which are his babies.

Except, of course, you have no fscking idea what you are talking about, since OpenSSL is not developed, or related to, OpenBSD and Theo de Raadt in any way.

As far as OpenSSH security holes are concerned, please excuse me while I laugh. Most of these vulnerabilities are either denial of service, or someone who messed up with their OpenSSH implementation. A lot of people think they can improve on a perfectly good product by adding security holes in it.

As far as OpenCVS is concerned, they explain their rationale quite clearly:

The OpenCVS project was started after discussions regarding the latest GNU CVS vulnerabilities that came out. Although CVS is widely used, its development has been mostly stagnant in the last years and many security issues have popped up, both in the implementation and in the mechanisms.

Now, let me ask you: what part of "development has been mostly stagnant in the last years and many security issues have popped up" don't you understand?

Allow me to finish by adding this: read up a little bit before you start trolling. But that would be a waste of a perfectly good troll, right? Sheesh. Go back under your bridge, little troll.

Re:OpenCVS?

[MrNaz]

Given that OpenBSD is a fork of a fork of the parent of FreeBSD, it's more like OpenBSD is FreeBSD's nit picking, purist pain in the ass nephew while FreeBSD is the sagely, less idealistic uncle. I guess that makes NetBSD is the slut Aunty for running on everyone's hardware.

Re:OpenCVS?

[Antique Geekmeister]

I've worked with CVS. It's limitations are why OpenBSD exists: Theo de Raadt was kicked off of the CVS commit list for NetBSD, with excellent cause, andn this left him unable to gracefully publish his own fork for others to review or integrate.

Almost every other major source control system would have allowed him to maintain his own fork and publish it, keeping his software synced with or development integrated with the main source tree: Bitkeeper, git, Subversion, Perforce, etc. CVS fails this task pretty seriously.

Interesting

[ilovegeorgebush]

I wonder what Theo will say about all this? 9 times out of 10 he tends to scorn things, so I wonder if he'll embrace this with open arms, or just shun it like he does most things.

Either way i'm happy. At least there's even more support for open source software and anything non-windows related.

Re:Interesting

[NicM]

> I wonder what Theo will say about all this? 9 times out of 10 he tends to scorn things,
> so I wonder if he'll embrace this with open arms, or just shun it like he does most things.

This is an official OpenBSD effort, all of the directors are OpenBSD developers. I'm sure
Theo was pretty central to setting it up, he is unlikely to shun it.

Re:Interesting

[Noryungi]

Given the fact that it was stated by Bob Beck, a member of the OpenBSD programming teams, I think he will be OK with it.

Besides, the OpenBSD Foundation stated very clearly that it will focus on large donations (of funds, hardware, etc) and that small donations should be sent directly to OpenBSD through the usual channels. RTFA and all that.

I do think Theo will be A-OK with that.

NOT a mispelling.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

'Accounced' is an openBSD style announcement - one that can be held accountable

Re:WTF

[Antarius]

I was accounced once. It's on my permanent record.

Another time I accounced my neighbours dog for barking while I was trying to sleep. I used a teaspoon. It was fun.

Accounced

[LittleImp]

Slashdot is according to Google already the Nr. 2 Source for accouncing!

OpenBSD Logo

[Santana]

I'm sure there are enough OpenBSD stories to open an OpenBSD section with the respective OpenBSD logo Puffy instead of FreeBSD's Beastie

Do it, do it, do it!

[Azuma Hazuki]

I don't use OpenBSD at home (as mentioned, its niche is in firewalls and routers), but I think it's one of the most underrated and well-designed OSes in the history of modern computing. Theo de Raadt, abrasive as he is, is something like a thinner, paranoid RMS who showers once in a while, and I say that with only the best intentions. Like RMS, he may be hard to get along with, but he's nearly always right. Theo, if you're reading this, good luck!