OpenBSD 4.7 Preorders Are Up

badger.foo writes "The OpenBSD 4.7 pre-orders are up. That means the release is done, sent off to CD production, and snapshots will turn -current again. Order now and you more likely than not will have your CD set, T-shirt or other cool stuff before the official release date. You get the chance to support the most important free software project on the planet, and get your hands on some cool playables and wearables early. The release page is still being filled in, but the changelog has detailed information about the goodies in this release."

Comments

Re:Most important free software project?

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh. OpenSSH... ever heard of it? Redhat, Solaris, Ubuntu, Cisco, Apple, HP, IBM, and everyone else ships it.

But I want it now

[MichaelSmith]

Thats how people think these days. They don't care about having the three CDs in their soft shell case. The T shirt probably won't fit (I have a NetBSD shirt which would fit two of me).

So charge for an ISO download. Get'em out the door. Save money on CD burning, etc.

Re:Most important free software project?

[tzanger]

Just because they created OpenSSH doesn't mean the OS is the most important open source project on the planet.

It is the most important open source project.

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenSSH is just a small part of why OpenBSD is so important.

They're basically the only major operating system project that gives a damn about security. Sure, Linux, for instance, is better than Windows when it comes to security. But that's only because Microsoft has fucked up Windows' security so badly.

The OpenBSD developers, on the other hand, are proactive about security. Their coding practices and extensive code reviews prevent bugs and security problems in the first place.

OpenBSD is what you use when you need a system that's secure, stable, and will work for years without being touched. It's excellent for embedded systems, and is excellent for servers. We have some internal OpenBSD servers that haven't been rebooted in six years.

This utmost care permeates the entire OS. It makes it as close as we can get today to "perfect software". The only other project as close to OpenBSD in terms of quality and security is FreeBSD, which benefits a great deal from the code reviews and effort that the OpenBSD devs put in.

Re:It is the most important open source project.

[DAldredge]

What exactly is wrong with Windows Server security?

Re:It is the most important open source project.

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly is wrong with Windows Server security?

surely you are joking.

im not the parent, but they said

Sure, Linux, for instance, is better than Windows when it comes to security.

have you seen the statistics on the zombified machines that make up the botnet, in regards to what OSs the vast, vast, vast majority of them are running? now ok, one might say thats not a fair method of polling considering the fact that MS has the majority of the marketshare--- but lets try to see things on both sides here, how about the fact that the last several MS OS's didnt require you to set an administrator password when you installed the OS? i mean, really.....

what really troubles me is that with the amount of money that MS has, and the amount of really skilled and knowledgable people they have working for them, they by all far means should be doing a much, much, much better job at releasing secure OSs. im not some total unix zealot here, i usually end up managing windows based networks just because for most end users, its the most practical solution by far --- but i would never put an essential production server up between my network and the net that was running windows to 'secure' it. no way. no way ever. id (MUCH) rather have a >1ghz socket7 based mobo running freebsd 4.x and iptables with kernel options like tcp.blackhole in between my network and the net any day of the week instead of even the flagship MS Server OS and its top end recommended hardware.

MS does well what MS does well, and that is making OSs that even a not all that knowledgable person can, with some time in reading, and alot of trial and error, make work in a way that is easy to understand even to the not so computer literate person--- and this is where any decent *nix distribution fails.

but what MS does not do well is security. not at all.

Re:It is the most important open source project.

[e9th]

OpenBSD, while is very secure, does owe some, if not a lot, of it's security to security through obscurity.

Security through obscurity? What are you talking about? Name a better documented OS or distro.

New (and not so new) users are well-advised to keep the FAQs bookmarked, but the man pages shipped with the distribution are the most comprehensive I've ever seen. Terse, maybe, but complete, and the developers treat errors/omissions seriously.

Maybe you meant security due to small market share? Don't you think that every wannabe cracker out there wants to make a name for himself by rooting a properly configured OpenBSD box?

Re:It is the most important open source project.

[slimjim8094]

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS10-006.mspx

That's a month ago. Took about two minutes of searching - like I said, it was a month ago so I didn't have to look backwards very far.

Remote code execution on Server 2k3 (all versions), Windows 7, and Server 2k8. Of course, this presupposes that Windows has SMB (hint: yes)

Or do you not consider remote code execution a security issue?

Look. I don't despise Microsoft like most people around here - just a lukewarm pain-in-my-assness. But let's not go pretending that they don't have more holes than Swiss cheese. If you do, you're either too ignorant to comment, or being delibrately obtuse.

Re:Is ugrading OpenBSD still kind of a mess?

[bertok]

To follow up on my own post, they have a draft upgrade guide up it looks like (they recommend that it not be used yet though):
http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade47.html

Looks like they include a utility to make life easier when upgrading... looks similar to what Gentoo Linux does when config files are upgraded... new configs are diff'd, and can be interactively merged, etc:
"OpenBSD now includes the sysmerge(8) utility, which helps administrators update configuration files after upgrading their system. Sysmerge(8) compares the current files on your system with the files that would have been installed with a new install, and gives you the option of keeping the old file, installing the new file, or assisting you in the manual merging of the old and new files, using sdiff. For past upgrades, we've presented a list of files that are usually copied over "as-is", and a list of files which should be changed, and a patch file that applies those changes to what might be in those files on your system. You may opt to use sysmerge to make the changes, or you may wish to use the patch file first, and then follow up with a sysmerge session to clean up any loose ends."

So it looks like they're at least making an effort to make it less painful

Are you kidding me? The upgrade process is for the administrator to manually merge the configuration files!?!?

And this is the improved version? Wow. Just... wow.

I can't believe people here whine about how the Windows 'registry' is somehow the root of all evil, even though the vast majority of Windows apps (and Windows itself) handle version upgrades automatically.

It's like I've time travelled back to the 70s.

Re:Subjective summary is subjective

[onefriedrice]

As good as the Linux kernel is, there are viable replacements with arguably better licensing terms. On the other hand, the likes of OpenSSH are so good (and so widely used) that most people couldn't name a single ssh alternative.

Re:Subjective summary is subjective

[MrNaz]

11 words.
The Linux kernel would not be securely accessible remotely without OpenSSH.

Re:Subjective summary is subjective

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think anyone's saying that OpenBSD is useless. But to call it the "most important" project is to invite criticism.

What compiler/toolchain do open source projects use? Gcc & binutils. Now, there's pcc, and the much-more-promising clang, and there is work on replacing binutils. But even if GNU gets replaced by those, you can't deny that GNU was/is instrumental in free software projects.

OpenSSH is used in tons of places, but so is Apache. So is Apache one of the most important projects? Firefox has become pretty popular. Is it one of the most important projects? FreeBSD is much more widely used than OpenBSD. Is it more important? And so on. The fact that OpenBSD has contributed to free software doesn't mean that others haven't, or that OpenBSD is somehow superior.