This is the fruit of the lisence audit OBSD went thru a while back. As many of you remember this was started when Theo elegantly let the world know abotu certain software not being intelectually free... so he simply yanked things out of the official ports tree, and reverse-engineered everything displaced by the vacume. Well now that the dramma is over, it is now safe to relase new features.
I guess Theo really can piss further than anybody else in a pissing match.
I think I'm gong to sue every person I find in the country that has the same first, and last name as me..... I mean, I own my name, therefor I should be able to sue people for having my name. In a larger percentage, I bet I can even prove that I was born before them, thus making my case for prior art. Secondly, I thinkI'll have my name copyright'ed, and trademarked.... this way I can sell my name for a profit, or continue to sue people for using my name on their kids.
I mean, what kind of free thinking people actually think they can use my name....
I just read the Tom's review, and unrfourtunatly it is completly Microsoft WindowsX centric. Unfourtunatly, you have to be very carefull about the KVM switch one buys when running a mixed Unix & Microsoft shop. Yeah yeah... I know the article was intended to be read by the average (tom's home windows user), however... None, of the KVM switches that I have certified in my IT shop is not listed on Tom's review. This is sorta sad considerig I have always trusted Tom's revies in the past.
Back to unix, and linux.... The main problem, not mention in the review, is that when you have one box running windows, and another running x-windows, you can have the problem when swtiching from the windows box to the x-window, and having mouse issues. Now sure, this could be an issue with x-windows. However, I have found that only the good expensive KVM's get around this issue. SO I know it is not a problem with x-windows.
In my testing the #1 losser was the Belkin Omni-port units. These things will all enevitably loss the mouse on your x-windows box. These unit work really good in a microsoft Windows ONLY config.
On the other end of the spectrum is the good Outlook KVM switches. These guys tend to be a bit better for the Unix stuff but not perfect either. I will say that these switches have about 90% less problems with the mouse on x-windows machines.
In conclusion, Somebody needs to do a test like TOms, but with a mixed environment in mind....
walk the walk...
on
Selling BSD
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I agree with the author.... but I would like to share some of the experiences I have on this subject.
First off, I'm a junior level unix admin... The older more polished guys I work with tend to keep me at bay since I'm young. Well, to make this story short, I built-out a few FreeBSd servers to backup the main email servers, webservers, and DNS cache.
In effect I choose to install BSD in only the places that I can leverage all the positve things, and none of the negative itmes. For instance, since our email servers would go down all the time, I added my backup mail server to the mix, and it took over the deliver of email before anybody knew the main server was down.
Since BSD cost nothing except the hardware it is install on, I further compounded the issue with my boss. He loves to play mind games with my budget. When I told him I was using a free Operating system he almost got mad since he didn't have the cost leverage with me. My boss really loves to play mind games, did I mention that? Anyways... I repeted the the above several times, but with different various services, and each time it was a FreeBSD to the rescue situation.....
I can name several situations tha tI had a cheap bsd box installed on sub 1000K hardware, dong the job of a failled enterprise server that cost serveral orders of magniture more cash.
This is the way Open source will penetrate the datacenter... it has to prove itself..
I went to this link, and found the name slashdot's senior mysql guy: Brian Aker (aka krow). Seems slashdot has added code for doing better sql dumps in MySQL. If you recall back a few several hundred/. stories, you might remember that he also hacked out a method to have stored-procedure calls in MySQL. Also take note that when slashdot upgraded to version 2.1 of their infamous slashcode, Brian rewrote the schemas for InnoDB style. I'd say that we slashdot folks will see new toys based on some of this new technology because/. is so entrenched with mysql.
See.......... slashdot really is good for something... =)
To ask for support, you must have to do something up-and beyond most situations? Typically the manual is the best source.... read it like its your new bible, as it really does touch most mainline issues. I even use the manual to teach linux newbies how to do their typical tasks, rather than wishing them luck searching for a good linux-howto style article.
Secondly, the phone support bussiness is not very profitable at this point in time due to the economic situation in the USA. The people qualified to handle the support phones cost more than your average tech support people do, as they need special experience, and trainning.
The best solution for you would be to read the manual, and if you have something really freakish, then you should get a consultant under contract. Typically you can setup phone support service for a fee, however, I duno if your gonna get 24x7. I guess it depends on how much your willing to spend. =)
Take a look here at the freebsd website. There are freebsd consultants floating around, you might say...... you might consider advertising in the mailling lsits for some of the more choice people willing to do the work... you never know.
Why don't we petition MTV to have clay death match Between Bruce Schneier (the guy that wrote Applied Cryptography), and John Ashcroft (The evil goverment guy that wants to take away your rights). I think it would be hilarous, and it would send a msg to Mr john Ashcroft that he has got to be joking about his stupid law proposal.
Heck, didn't they once do David Quresh (the wacko in Waco), and Janet Reno?
Not to be too off topic, I use ssh, and my old 2.6 pgp everyday... so I would be the first to go to jail on key escrow, or the first to send email to my friends in Germany using keys stronger than 2^8 (more like 2^128 at least)..
I'd like to point out to you that we FreeBSD folks do not hate windows, and don't really care to displace it with FreeBSD. So when you say "it's hardly beneficial in our primary struggle to wrench market share away from MS", you must be speaking from a linux centric point of view. The main thing I have to teach people in the linux community is that Linux People tend to be the ones that hate Windows, whereas the FReeBSD folks tend to love unix. Besides, FreeBSD is intended for the server role, not the "replace windows on your desktop" role. If you want to talk about the merits of why we love unix... that is another story...
If John Ashcroft wants to prevent individuals in the USA from having strong crypto.... they why are they also pouring millions of Dollars into the Open source groups helping to blow cryptography wide open.
Secondly, In the wake of the Dimitry drama, will the USA make it a crime for European Crypo developes from travelling to the USA. I mean look at Theo from OpenBSD, he lives in Canada, receives cash from the US goverment, but since he writes, controls, or whatevger he has to do with OpenSSH... he could go to jail in this country.
So then, why is the goverment saying one thing, and doing another.... does it plan to force the same darpa developers to add the back doors? Am I in any risk of Theo stabbing me in the back on OpenSSH? We really need to know.
If the goverment makes crypto systems agaisnt the law, then exactly how do they intend to enforce them? For example, if the goverment wants to listen to me communicate to my friend, and I say "Eick--Orck--Ack--A--a", they will not understand what I say. What I have said is "I love you" (see Jetsons cartoon), and there is no way anyone could know that. However, if the goverment didn't kwon how to decipher that text, I could go to jail.
SO what about people who type in a language from another country, that nobody in the FBI, or NSA undcerstand.... would this be a crypto system with out a back door?
IS it going to be against the law to stand on a soap box and shout giberish for hours... what is that giberish was a secret code, or not...
I would consider creating a new holiday: random day! Where we Americans do our god given right to bable mindlessly, in fact I might crank out a few Zeta functions to spew pure random data.... but wait.. my random number genrator will be illegal.. since a terrorist will have the ability to stand on a soap box and spew randon crud too.
Man... I've been waitting at least two week for this... Originally thsi was supposed to be released at about the time Jordan made the infamous press release about the 5.0. To make things worse they would allow their website to have a bad date on the release page. Making things appears as if they forgot to release the new version, and also forgot to update the website.
Yeah I live in Dalls, and I woke up to see that story in the morning... was sorta werid cuz hearing the line "FBI anti-terror squad raids local ISP." Um'yeah.......... in my pre-congnitive morning trace leads me to imagine all sorta of clock'n'dager situations... Some suspected person who's bothers friends is a terrorist named kiezer Souse anonymously posts commands to a legion of suicide Jihad-freaks. Zing... I'm awake now!! Serriously, that sabout how it went down, at least for me.
nope....... I hardly think they would convice any self-loving developers to change their license. This is why Theo et'all simply don't, and in turn get as much ridicule for not doing so.... However, they did get the people at Xerox to change their license.:)
The funny part about the mail achive is that Theo's words imply they have put some deep thought into removing the qmail port. The funnny part is that he could have at least asked the author of qmail to change his license. Granted Theo doesn't really have time to influence/argure every developer into using a more open stance on modification, redistribution, and a general warm-fuzzy license.
However, if you read this link over on the OpenBSD journal website, you will find that Theo et'all have been working with other authors of software in the ports tree, and have actually got the Xerox people to change their license. This indicates that Theo didn't bother to approch The author of qmail. Also Theo implied in his writings that he doesn't intend to ever let the qmail software back into the ports tree.
This should serve as a warning to all developers that OpenBSD only advocates free software, and to a greater extent will not tolerate any software that claims to be distributed as "free-software". In other words, don't call your software "free", unless it really is free in the true meaning of the word. Free by trial is not free, free by default is what is required.
This issue only server to widen the divid between the BSD style license folks, and the GNU style folks. This is the true battle being waged. It is the people in the grey area thhat are the first victems of Theo's little moral clash. Rather, the people who have a custom license that is neither BSD style, or GNU.
I'll admit that I used to be a punk, with a mowhawk and a very rebel outlook on the world. The true essence of a punk is to have the "fuck it" attitude towards life. In other words, the solution to most problems faced by a punk is quickly solved by the phrase: "fuck it", and the issues is solved, nice and neat. I've detected this essence in Theo's stance on this touchy subject. It is obvious Theo knew this was gonna cause dramma, but he doens't care. He is intelligent enough argue his stance in a way that is difficult to opose.
The bigest issue that these developers have is that Theo simply, and randomly, droppes software from his OS without first consulting the software authors. The authors at first seem upset that Theo is so harsh, and does't give them a chance to change the license, or at least argure that their license does in fact let OpenBSD use it. Either way, Theo does't really care to talk about either subjects since he knows he isn't an idot, and can read the licensed that these developers so carefully write. In effect, if Theo drops your software from his ports tree, your software must not be free in the first place, and too bad it snuck in there to begin with or it wouldn't have been yank'd out. And just because the FreeBSD camp doesn't remove the ports doens't mean anything. The FreeBSD folks do not hold claim of ownership over the ports tree. In other words, the FreeBSD ports tree is not really considered part of FreeBSD proper. The FreeBSD CD-ROM doesn't distribute any packages that have a restrictive license. So when you install FreeBSD, the ports come after the base system has been installed, and the ports tree itself is regarded as not part of the OS. The people who maintain the ports function seperatly from the folks who are core the the OS. Another difference is the fact that FreeBSD will remove a port when and if the developer request it be removed. This is different than OpenBSD's more proactive stance.
In the End, it is this reason why I use OpenBSD, and FreeBSD instead of Finux. I think that Theo is a champion of software-liberty in this very touchy stage of human evolution. I liken him to a Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin of software development. Theo's stance, and attitude is like a constitution of good form, graces in way of enlightend software.
One last point I'd like to make regarding comments I see about Theo's ego. First off, dont' confuse his perfection'ism with his ego. There is a difference in being a perfectionist, and an ego-maniac. Theo does not try to force people to appeance "open" to the begining of software that uses a open license, unlike a certain somebody in the Free Software Foundation. You do not hear developers of free software complain about Theo tring to take-over their projects behind their backs as your favorit person from the FSF recently did with GCC.
Yeah, but public available crypto systems are tough to crack, even for the nsa, or anybody else for that matter.
The NSA gives a damn about crypto. THe NSA does hire the best, and brightest minds from around the country to work on crypto...... but the NSA doesn't have quantum computers, and cannot crack 128 keys in any amount a time that is of usefullness on a cell phone. With the best distributed super computers we humans cannot hope to crack these crypto schema's anytime soon.... we are talking the fasted might be months, to years, and the non-classified super computers would take at least 2 years under the best theoretical condidtions.
Have you read the book applied cryptography.... I suggest it to you.
I belive the public will eventually see the need for more encryption in their everyday lives.... For example, the digital phones introduced a higher level of security compared to the analog phones, and I recall thsi being a selling point for those. Now in thsi day and age, the public will soon find the need to encrypt every form of comunication they participate with. Eventually web servers, for example, will be strong enought to use pure ssl for all communications, once the ability to generated the shear volume of random seed is at the proper level.
What I'm gettign at is that RC4, or RC5, encryption will eventually be a feature on all cell phones as the cost of fabricating the chips to do this fall to reasonable levels. The 802.11 folsk have already done this for my WaveLAN card, and some European comanies have also started selling crypto-phones, crypt-walkie-talkies, and other high-end comm gear. The problem is that the crypto must be a point to point system, never needing to relly on the public key of the tower, bt tower to node crypto is also a good counter-measure on teh part of the phone companies.
Of cource the FBI, and NSA, percieve the use of crypto as only being used for criminal activity. I mean to say that if you have to encrypt your communications, then what exactly do you have to hide? The gotch-a is that if everybody were to use crypto by default, the issues would be moot. The infrastyructure to decypher everyones cell phones would take a cluster of quantume computers or something drastic like that. And the Entire cell phone using public would essentially be considered criminal by the FBI, and NSA, as that is ther presumtion about keeping secrets from them.
As it stands now, cell phone towser trunk all their customers conversations into a massif data-stream in the CO office, and you cannot simply single out the bad apples of the bunch. The very nature of the technology prevents that as to gain some compression advanges in the digital technology.
I seem to remember back when digital cell phones first becauem populare inthe USA, that the FBI authored, and sponsored a bill in congress that would allow them to force digital cell phone providers with the means to descamble the digital signals. You see, digital cell phones are actually difficult to snoop since the signals are digital, unlike the older analog phones. The FBI was mad that they coudlnt' use their radio-shack scanners to snoop your conversations, they actually have to put forth effort int he form of computer systems that took time to descramble the dgital signals, and by then the call was over. Further complicating the issues was the fact that just descambling the signal wasn't really enough because you conversation was embeded amonst hundreds of other conversations.
If memory servers me right, the FBI got what they wanted, and this only amounted to them having to get a warrant, and then the phone company could then be forced to comply with the goverment spooks.
AS I read the article, this provision appears to take that law to the next step. Premtive sniffing ability. The FBI has a huge convinence by this, as when they get a warrent, they simply open their ears, as opposed to the insecure method of askignt he phone company to allow this.
I asume you started AtheOS to learn, and expand your understanding of the Intel OP codes, and the various mechanisms inside the Pentium class chips. Have you begun to hack a version of your kernel to other processors, and/or have you started the process of study on these other processors in the wild? I'm sure the RISC folks would like to have new toys to play with in their war chest. On that note, have you received any hardware donations, and if not would you be willing to accept second hand risc machines for your expanded study?
As a former BeOS tech support person, I have had more than one instance of a power-user complain about memory usage in BeOS. From what I can see of AthOS, it is not much different. The issues here is when the power user assumes that the more memory, the better.... when in fact, the more memory, the longer it takes to boot, if at all. This item has been covered before. However, Can I please have your explanation, as a kernel hacker, as to why this is a problem in both BeOS, and AtheOS. Also, do you have any plans to resolve this via some ace card you have held back. Obviously FreeBSD, or even Linux do not have any such restriction but we are comparing apples to oranges.:)
2 processors seem to work well for me right now.... I guess that crack is getting too me.:)
FreeBSD already scales well on an 8-way box... but I wouldn't trust it beyond eight, even though it is possible to go beyond. The little birds tell me 5.0 will go beyond 32 proc's to a limit of 127.
Have you tried the cvs-current??
BTW - for those who are interested, we are about to release the next version of FreeBSD within a week or so if everything goes as plannned. 4.4-Release
The 5.0 branch should follow in another 4 monthhs.
Me too....... the smp support needs some work beforte it can scale from 32 to 127 processors, and yes... the 5.0 branch is going to deliver on this... at least that is the rumor. The new 2.4 Finux kernel did a nice job of cleaning the ip-stack. Poor Donald B*, his code is all gone.:(, at least for the most part.
Linux has more advertisment to the "new-to-unix" crowd.
Linux also has more anti-windows type folks of any other group, having displaced Macintosh users in this area by a country mile.
I belive that most BSD folks neither hate windows, nor any other Unix..... FOr the most part they just love Unix. Another issues is the BSD community is very much a clique, most noticable in the OpenBSD group's out-spoken leader: Theo.
On a side note.... if anyone wants to Tunes their Freebsd box, I'd advise looking at the man pages for this, or the FreeBSd handbook, as opposed to the link mentioned in this article.
As a person who's first love was Linux, I feel qualified to commment on the reasons to migrate away from Linux. I started with Slackware in 97 from a cd in the back of my html book, basically a cheap way to get apache running without having to own an expensive risc machine. Anyways, I've toiled with linux thru the early hacker/academic days, thru the hype-days from 98 to 99, and still every-now-and-then install it for a friend in need. I've probably install Redhat over 100+ times at the Linux Users Group here in Dallas, and have installed Slackware upwards of 50+ times, Deb/suse/others upwards of 20+ each. Inversly, I've probably installed FreeBSD only a few times since I toned-down my OS-install fever. It gets old, really fast installing linux for the install project. Anyways.... as a seasoned Finux vet, I think that FreeBSD is better in many ways, except the userbase, and application base. There are more Finux users, and more Finux developers by several orders of magnitude compared to all the BSD distro's combined.
What I have noticed from this large group of Finux users is the fact that they are overtly insecure about their feelings of "elite-ness". In other words they tend to feel threatened by people who donn't join their band-wagon.... of finux evangelism. In fact, such a large majority of Finux userrs started using Finux simply because they percieve that Microsoft is a Monopoly, and or in some way they have negative feelings about microsoft. Other time sI find that they had feelings of inadiqatcies in their microsoft envrironment, and seeked an area where they are different.... again thsi goes back into the elitism aspect, and the need thereof to be elite, and/or different. In this wway they can justify putting Microsoft users down, by advertising that they are now Finux users.
The above being said, leads this very specific class of Finux users feelings insecure when they hear about an even more elite group of people, a smaller comunity, of more-often ex-finux users..... using something called BSD. The typical reactio is that they are not with us, therefor against us... type reaction... and the hostility, and missunderstandings ensue.
Most anti-BSD rehtoric posted on Slashdot is from the narrow minded Group of finux users taht simply feel threatened by something they simply don't understand. My Favorite argument to shootdown first is the hords of Finux folks, and windows folks that say Unix is 20 years old! Ha... 20 years ago unix was entirly different, and FreeBSD, compared to some old Unix systems of the 80's is like HUGE in all the different ways. Most of the time people have read this in some website, from an un-educated reporter. In reality, unix has had many huge changes over the years, as have os design and implementation over the years.... a direct result of CS students striving to push the limits. The word micro-kernel comes to mind, yes.. we now have modulare kernels too.... oh my... and don't forget about ever popular virtual memory idea... geeze... Unix sure is darn different that it was 20 years ago.
The fact is, and I can do a google search I find the Linus quote of how he would nto have ever created the Linux kernel if he had know about the Berkly System Dist. He was only aware of the Car-mellon like Minux system. Yup, he has said it, and you can find the quote on google, and past/. articles. Anyways.....
I find taht most of the FreeBSD folsk are people tired of all the Linux hype.... I mean... we have tried all the distro's, played with all the various package systems, recompiled the finux kernel a time or two... doen some programming, etc, etc, etc..... Then, its liek FreeBSd is sitting right there, simple, eligant, beutiful. The first thing that most linux converts claim got them is the FreeBSD ports system. Really it is such a simple idea that we are suprised it hasn't caught on in the Finux world originally. Basically you have a cvs tree of all the software taht has been ported to the FreeBSD OS. To get updated versions of software, it is simple to just cvsup the entire ports collections, and then travel to the the software you want...say apache, and run "make install". Simpel as that... the latest, greated Apache with all the freebsd patches, and optimisatiosn are applied. No toiling with rpms, and the dreaded hunt for dependencies. The porsts systems checks for dependencies, downloading the latest version of Gmake if needed, or whatnot.
Other nice fetures about FreeBSD, and the other bsd's is taht the stability is paramount... a recent comparison of Unixes on sys admin magazine ranked FreeBSD the lowest of "out-of-the-box" installs for performance. Thsi is nto suprising since FreeBSD is build for stability (out-of the box), and many Finux distro's are optimised at the time of burnign the distro to CDROm, is highly optimised, and unstable.... so little tweaks are needed out of the box to make the system unstable... in other worlds the Finux systsm typically are more prone to instability under heavy loads that freeBSD. I won't bore you with teh technical details, as the lay-man won't get the jist of what I'm sayigng.
That being said... I'd advise the person who wrote the high-performance tuning guide, linked inthe article, to tone down a bit his kernel conf. It appeas to lean on the unstable side, especially with the extreamly high buffs lines under the useers line in the kern conf. oh well... it will push things to the extream limit.
Slashdot Mirror
This is the fruit of the lisence audit OBSD went thru a while back. As many of you remember this was started when Theo elegantly let the world know abotu certain software not being intelectually free... so he simply yanked things out of the official ports tree, and reverse-engineered everything displaced by the vacume. Well now that the dramma is over, it is now safe to relase new features.
I guess Theo really can piss further than anybody else in a pissing match.
I think I'm gong to sue every person I find in the country that has the same first, and last name as me..... I mean, I own my name, therefor I should be able to sue people for having my name. In a larger percentage, I bet I can even prove that I was born before them, thus making my case for prior art. Secondly, I thinkI'll have my name copyright'ed, and trademarked.... this way I can sell my name for a profit, or continue to sue people for using my name on their kids.
I mean, what kind of free thinking people actually think they can use my name....
I just read the Tom's review, and unrfourtunatly it is completly Microsoft WindowsX centric. Unfourtunatly, you have to be very carefull about the KVM switch one buys when running a mixed Unix & Microsoft shop. Yeah yeah... I know the article was intended to be read by the average (tom's home windows user), however... None, of the KVM switches that I have certified in my IT shop is not listed on Tom's review. This is sorta sad considerig I have always trusted Tom's revies in the past.
Back to unix, and linux.... The main problem, not mention in the review, is that when you have one box running windows, and another running x-windows, you can have the problem when swtiching from the windows box to the x-window, and having mouse issues. Now sure, this could be an issue with x-windows. However, I have found that only the good expensive KVM's get around this issue. SO I know it is not a problem with x-windows.
In my testing the #1 losser was the Belkin Omni-port units. These things will all enevitably loss the mouse on your x-windows box. These unit work really good in a microsoft Windows ONLY config.
On the other end of the spectrum is the good Outlook KVM switches. These guys tend to be a bit better for the Unix stuff but not perfect either. I will say that these switches have about 90% less problems with the mouse on x-windows machines.
In conclusion, Somebody needs to do a test like TOms, but with a mixed environment in mind....
I agree with the author.... but I would like to share some of the experiences I have on this subject.
First off, I'm a junior level unix admin... The older more polished guys I work with tend to keep me at bay since I'm young. Well, to make this story short, I built-out a few FreeBSd servers to backup the main email servers, webservers, and DNS cache.
In effect I choose to install BSD in only the places that I can leverage all the positve things, and none of the negative itmes. For instance, since our email servers would go down all the time, I added my backup mail server to the mix, and it took over the deliver of email before anybody knew the main server was down.
Since BSD cost nothing except the hardware it is install on, I further compounded the issue with my boss. He loves to play mind games with my budget. When I told him I was using a free Operating system he almost got mad since he didn't have the cost leverage with me. My boss really loves to play mind games, did I mention that? Anyways... I repeted the the above several times, but with different various services, and each time it was a FreeBSD to the rescue situation.....
I can name several situations tha tI had a cheap bsd box installed on sub 1000K hardware, dong the job of a failled enterprise server that cost serveral orders of magniture more cash.
This is the way Open source will penetrate the datacenter... it has to prove itself..
I went to this link, and found the name slashdot's senior mysql guy: Brian Aker (aka krow). Seems slashdot has added code for doing better sql dumps in MySQL. If you recall back a few several hundred /. stories, you might remember that he also hacked out a method to have stored-procedure calls in MySQL. Also take note that when slashdot upgraded to version 2.1 of their infamous slashcode, Brian rewrote the schemas for InnoDB style. I'd say that we slashdot folks will see new toys based on some of this new technology because /. is so entrenched with mysql.
See.......... slashdot really is good for something... =)
To ask for support, you must have to do something up-and beyond most situations? Typically the manual is the best source.... read it like its your new bible, as it really does touch most mainline issues. I even use the manual to teach linux newbies how to do their typical tasks, rather than wishing them luck searching for a good linux-howto style article.
Secondly, the phone support bussiness is not very profitable at this point in time due to the economic situation in the USA. The people qualified to handle the support phones cost more than your average tech support people do, as they need special experience, and trainning.
The best solution for you would be to read the manual, and if you have something really freakish, then you should get a consultant under contract. Typically you can setup phone support service for a fee, however, I duno if your gonna get 24x7. I guess it depends on how much your willing to spend. =)
Take a look here at the freebsd website. There are freebsd consultants floating around, you might say...... you might consider advertising in the mailling lsits for some of the more choice people willing to do the work... you never know.
good luck
Why don't we petition MTV to have clay death match Between Bruce Schneier (the guy that wrote Applied Cryptography), and John Ashcroft (The evil goverment guy that wants to take away your rights). I think it would be hilarous, and it would send a msg to Mr john Ashcroft that he has got to be joking about his stupid law proposal.
Heck, didn't they once do David Quresh (the wacko in Waco), and Janet Reno?
Not to be too off topic, I use ssh, and my old 2.6 pgp everyday... so I would be the first to go to jail on key escrow, or the first to send email to my friends in Germany using keys stronger than 2^8 (more like 2^128 at least)..
Charlie wrote:
(who HATES the BSD license, incidentally - Go GPL!)
Why do you hate the BSD license? Because it is more free than the GPL, or because of some other percieved threat it imposes on the GPL?
Just curious what drives some finux folks to do things negative, like hate. That is an awfully terible way to waste time.
I'd like to point out to you that we FreeBSD folks do not hate windows, and don't really care to displace it with FreeBSD. So when you say "it's hardly beneficial in our primary struggle to wrench market share away from MS", you must be speaking from a linux centric point of view. The main thing I have to teach people in the linux community is that Linux People tend to be the ones that hate Windows, whereas the FReeBSD folks tend to love unix. Besides, FreeBSD is intended for the server role, not the "replace windows on your desktop" role. If you want to talk about the merits of why we love unix... that is another story...
-J
If John Ashcroft wants to prevent individuals in the USA from having strong crypto.... they why are they also pouring millions of Dollars into the Open source groups helping to blow cryptography wide open.
Secondly, In the wake of the Dimitry drama, will the USA make it a crime for European Crypo developes from travelling to the USA. I mean look at Theo from OpenBSD, he lives in Canada, receives cash from the US goverment, but since he writes, controls, or whatevger he has to do with OpenSSH... he could go to jail in this country.
So then, why is the goverment saying one thing, and doing another.... does it plan to force the same darpa developers to add the back doors? Am I in any risk of Theo stabbing me in the back on OpenSSH? We really need to know.
If the goverment makes crypto systems agaisnt the law, then exactly how do they intend to enforce them? For example, if the goverment wants to listen to me communicate to my friend, and I say "Eick--Orck--Ack--A--a", they will not understand what I say. What I have said is "I love you" (see Jetsons cartoon), and there is no way anyone could know that. However, if the goverment didn't kwon how to decipher that text, I could go to jail.
SO what about people who type in a language from another country, that nobody in the FBI, or NSA undcerstand.... would this be a crypto system with out a back door?
IS it going to be against the law to stand on a soap box and shout giberish for hours... what is that giberish was a secret code, or not...
I would consider creating a new holiday: random day! Where we Americans do our god given right to bable mindlessly, in fact I might crank out a few Zeta functions to spew pure random data.... but wait.. my random number genrator will be illegal.. since a terrorist will have the ability to stand on a soap box and spew randon crud too.
Man... I've been waitting at least two week for this... Originally thsi was supposed to be released at about the time Jordan made the infamous press release about the 5.0. To make things worse they would allow their website to have a bad date on the release page. Making things appears as if they forgot to release the new version, and also forgot to update the website.
Yeah I live in Dalls, and I woke up to see that story in the morning... was sorta werid cuz hearing the line "FBI anti-terror squad raids local ISP." Um'yeah.......... in my pre-congnitive morning trace leads me to imagine all sorta of clock'n'dager situations... Some suspected person who's bothers friends is a terrorist named kiezer Souse anonymously posts commands to a legion of suicide Jihad-freaks. Zing... I'm awake now!! Serriously, that sabout how it went down, at least for me.
nope....... I hardly think they would convice any self-loving developers to change their license. This is why Theo et'all simply don't, and in turn get as much ridicule for not doing so.... However, they did get the people at Xerox to change their license. :)
The funny part about the mail achive is that Theo's words imply they have put some deep thought into removing the qmail port. The funnny part is that he could have at least asked the author of qmail to change his license. Granted Theo doesn't really have time to influence/argure every developer into using a more open stance on modification, redistribution, and a general warm-fuzzy license.
However, if you read this link over on the OpenBSD journal website, you will find that Theo et'all have been working with other authors of software in the ports tree, and have actually got the Xerox people to change their license. This indicates that Theo didn't bother to approch The author of qmail. Also Theo implied in his writings that he doesn't intend to ever let the qmail software back into the ports tree.
This should serve as a warning to all developers that OpenBSD only advocates free software, and to a greater extent will not tolerate any software that claims to be distributed as "free-software". In other words, don't call your software "free", unless it really is free in the true meaning of the word. Free by trial is not free, free by default is what is required.
This issue only server to widen the divid between the BSD style license folks, and the GNU style folks. This is the true battle being waged. It is the people in the grey area thhat are the first victems of Theo's little moral clash. Rather, the people who have a custom license that is neither BSD style, or GNU.
I'll admit that I used to be a punk, with a mowhawk and a very rebel outlook on the world. The true essence of a punk is to have the "fuck it" attitude towards life. In other words, the solution to most problems faced by a punk is quickly solved by the phrase: "fuck it", and the issues is solved, nice and neat. I've detected this essence in Theo's stance on this touchy subject. It is obvious Theo knew this was gonna cause dramma, but he doens't care. He is intelligent enough argue his stance in a way that is difficult to opose.
The bigest issue that these developers have is that Theo simply, and randomly, droppes software from his OS without first consulting the software authors. The authors at first seem upset that Theo is so harsh, and does't give them a chance to change the license, or at least argure that their license does in fact let OpenBSD use it. Either way, Theo does't really care to talk about either subjects since he knows he isn't an idot, and can read the licensed that these developers so carefully write. In effect, if Theo drops your software from his ports tree, your software must not be free in the first place, and too bad it snuck in there to begin with or it wouldn't have been yank'd out. And just because the FreeBSD camp doesn't remove the ports doens't mean anything. The FreeBSD folks do not hold claim of ownership over the ports tree. In other words, the FreeBSD ports tree is not really considered part of FreeBSD proper. The FreeBSD CD-ROM doesn't distribute any packages that have a restrictive license. So when you install FreeBSD, the ports come after the base system has been installed, and the ports tree itself is regarded as not part of the OS. The people who maintain the ports function seperatly from the folks who are core the the OS. Another difference is the fact that FreeBSD will remove a port when and if the developer request it be removed. This is different than OpenBSD's more proactive stance.
In the End, it is this reason why I use OpenBSD, and FreeBSD instead of Finux. I think that Theo is a champion of software-liberty in this very touchy stage of human evolution. I liken him to a Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin of software development. Theo's stance, and attitude is like a constitution of good form, graces in way of enlightend software.
One last point I'd like to make regarding comments I see about Theo's ego. First off, dont' confuse his perfection'ism with his ego. There is a difference in being a perfectionist, and an ego-maniac. Theo does not try to force people to appeance "open" to the begining of software that uses a open license, unlike a certain somebody in the Free Software Foundation. You do not hear developers of free software complain about Theo tring to take-over their projects behind their backs as your favorit person from the FSF recently did with GCC.
gosh, me get a first post... yeah right.
Yeah, but public available crypto systems are tough to crack, even for the nsa, or anybody else for that matter.
The NSA gives a damn about crypto. THe NSA does hire the best, and brightest minds from around the country to work on crypto...... but the NSA doesn't have quantum computers, and cannot crack 128 keys in any amount a time that is of usefullness on a cell phone. With the best distributed super computers we humans cannot hope to crack these crypto schema's anytime soon.... we are talking the fasted might be months, to years, and the non-classified super computers would take at least 2 years under the best theoretical condidtions.
Have you read the book applied cryptography.... I suggest it to you.
I belive the public will eventually see the need for more encryption in their everyday lives.... For example, the digital phones introduced a higher level of security compared to the analog phones, and I recall thsi being a selling point for those. Now in thsi day and age, the public will soon find the need to encrypt every form of comunication they participate with. Eventually web servers, for example, will be strong enought to use pure ssl for all communications, once the ability to generated the shear volume of random seed is at the proper level.
What I'm gettign at is that RC4, or RC5, encryption will eventually be a feature on all cell phones as the cost of fabricating the chips to do this fall to reasonable levels. The 802.11 folsk have already done this for my WaveLAN card, and some European comanies have also started selling crypto-phones, crypt-walkie-talkies, and other high-end comm gear. The problem is that the crypto must be a point to point system, never needing to relly on the public key of the tower, bt tower to node crypto is also a good counter-measure on teh part of the phone companies.
Of cource the FBI, and NSA, percieve the use of crypto as only being used for criminal activity. I mean to say that if you have to encrypt your communications, then what exactly do you have to hide? The gotch-a is that if everybody were to use crypto by default, the issues would be moot. The infrastyructure to decypher everyones cell phones would take a cluster of quantume computers or something drastic like that. And the Entire cell phone using public would essentially be considered criminal by the FBI, and NSA, as that is ther presumtion about keeping secrets from them.
As it stands now, cell phone towser trunk all their customers conversations into a massif data-stream in the CO office, and you cannot simply single out the bad apples of the bunch. The very nature of the technology prevents that as to gain some compression advanges in the digital technology.
I seem to remember back when digital cell phones first becauem populare inthe USA, that the FBI authored, and sponsored a bill in congress that would allow them to force digital cell phone providers with the means to descamble the digital signals. You see, digital cell phones are actually difficult to snoop since the signals are digital, unlike the older analog phones. The FBI was mad that they coudlnt' use their radio-shack scanners to snoop your conversations, they actually have to put forth effort int he form of computer systems that took time to descramble the dgital signals, and by then the call was over. Further complicating the issues was the fact that just descambling the signal wasn't really enough because you conversation was embeded amonst hundreds of other conversations.
If memory servers me right, the FBI got what they wanted, and this only amounted to them having to get a warrant, and then the phone company could then be forced to comply with the goverment spooks.
AS I read the article, this provision appears to take that law to the next step. Premtive sniffing ability. The FBI has a huge convinence by this, as when they get a warrent, they simply open their ears, as opposed to the insecure method of askignt he phone company to allow this.
I asume you started AtheOS to learn, and expand your understanding of the Intel OP codes, and the various mechanisms inside the Pentium class chips. Have you begun to hack a version of your kernel to other processors, and/or have you started the process of study on these other processors in the wild? I'm sure the RISC folks would like to have new toys to play with in their war chest. On that note, have you received any hardware donations, and if not would you be willing to accept second hand risc machines for your expanded study?
As a former BeOS tech support person, I have had more than one instance of a power-user complain about memory usage in BeOS. From what I can see of AthOS, it is not much different. The issues here is when the power user assumes that the more memory, the better.... when in fact, the more memory, the longer it takes to boot, if at all. This item has been covered before. However, Can I please have your explanation, as a kernel hacker, as to why this is a problem in both BeOS, and AtheOS. Also, do you have any plans to resolve this via some ace card you have held back. Obviously FreeBSD, or even Linux do not have any such restriction but we are comparing apples to oranges. :)
Thanks in Advance.
Don't be so crude...
:)
2 processors seem to work well for me right now.... I guess that crack is getting too me.
FreeBSD already scales well on an 8-way box... but I wouldn't trust it beyond eight, even though it is possible to go beyond. The little birds tell me 5.0 will go beyond 32 proc's to a limit of 127.
Have you tried the cvs-current??
BTW - for those who are interested, we are about to release the next version of FreeBSD within a week or so if everything goes as plannned. 4.4-Release
The 5.0 branch should follow in another 4 monthhs.
Me too....... the smp support needs some work beforte it can scale from 32 to 127 processors, and yes... the 5.0 branch is going to deliver on this... at least that is the rumor. The new 2.4 Finux kernel did a nice job of cleaning the ip-stack. Poor Donald B*, his code is all gone. :(, at least for the most part.
I would agree with most these comments. :)
Linux has more advertisment to the "new-to-unix" crowd.
Linux also has more anti-windows type folks of any other group, having displaced Macintosh users in this area by a country mile.
I belive that most BSD folks neither hate windows, nor any other Unix..... FOr the most part they just love Unix. Another issues is the BSD community is very much a clique, most noticable in the OpenBSD group's out-spoken leader: Theo.
On a side note.... if anyone wants to Tunes their Freebsd box, I'd advise looking at the man pages for this, or the FreeBSd handbook, as opposed to the link mentioned in this article.
Yup....
/. articles. Anyways.....
As a person who's first love was Linux, I feel qualified to commment on the reasons to migrate away from Linux. I started with Slackware in 97 from a cd in the back of my html book, basically a cheap way to get apache running without having to own an expensive risc machine. Anyways, I've toiled with linux thru the early hacker/academic days, thru the hype-days from 98 to 99, and still every-now-and-then install it for a friend in need. I've probably install Redhat over 100+ times at the Linux Users Group here in Dallas, and have installed Slackware upwards of 50+ times, Deb/suse/others upwards of 20+ each. Inversly, I've probably installed FreeBSD only a few times since I toned-down my OS-install fever. It gets old, really fast installing linux for the install project. Anyways.... as a seasoned Finux vet, I think that FreeBSD is better in many ways, except the userbase, and application base. There are more Finux users, and more Finux developers by several orders of magnitude compared to all the BSD distro's combined.
What I have noticed from this large group of Finux users is the fact that they are overtly insecure about their feelings of "elite-ness". In other words they tend to feel threatened by people who donn't join their band-wagon.... of finux evangelism. In fact, such a large majority of Finux userrs started using Finux simply because they percieve that Microsoft is a Monopoly, and or in some way they have negative feelings about microsoft. Other time sI find that they had feelings of inadiqatcies in their microsoft envrironment, and seeked an area where they are different.... again thsi goes back into the elitism aspect, and the need thereof to be elite, and/or different. In this wway they can justify putting Microsoft users down, by advertising that they are now Finux users.
The above being said, leads this very specific class of Finux users feelings insecure when they hear about an even more elite group of people, a smaller comunity, of more-often ex-finux users..... using something called BSD. The typical reactio is that they are not with us, therefor against us... type reaction... and the hostility, and missunderstandings ensue.
Most anti-BSD rehtoric posted on Slashdot is from the narrow minded Group of finux users taht simply feel threatened by something they simply don't understand. My Favorite argument to shootdown first is the hords of Finux folks, and windows folks that say Unix is 20 years old! Ha... 20 years ago unix was entirly different, and FreeBSD, compared to some old Unix systems of the 80's is like HUGE in all the different ways. Most of the time people have read this in some website, from an un-educated reporter. In reality, unix has had many huge changes over the years, as have os design and implementation over the years.... a direct result of CS students striving to push the limits. The word micro-kernel comes to mind, yes.. we now have modulare kernels too.... oh my... and don't forget about ever popular virtual memory idea... geeze... Unix sure is darn different that it was 20 years ago.
The fact is, and I can do a google search I find the Linus quote of how he would nto have ever created the Linux kernel if he had know about the Berkly System Dist. He was only aware of the Car-mellon like Minux system. Yup, he has said it, and you can find the quote on google, and past
I find taht most of the FreeBSD folsk are people tired of all the Linux hype.... I mean... we have tried all the distro's, played with all the various package systems, recompiled the finux kernel a time or two... doen some programming, etc, etc, etc..... Then, its liek FreeBSd is sitting right there, simple, eligant, beutiful. The first thing that most linux converts claim got them is the FreeBSD ports system. Really it is such a simple idea that we are suprised it hasn't caught on in the Finux world originally. Basically you have a cvs tree of all the software taht has been ported to the FreeBSD OS. To get updated versions of software, it is simple to just cvsup the entire ports collections, and then travel to the the software you want...say apache, and run "make install". Simpel as that... the latest, greated Apache with all the freebsd patches, and optimisatiosn are applied. No toiling with rpms, and the dreaded hunt for dependencies. The porsts systems checks for dependencies, downloading the latest version of Gmake if needed, or whatnot.
Other nice fetures about FreeBSD, and the other bsd's is taht the stability is paramount... a recent comparison of Unixes on sys admin magazine ranked FreeBSD the lowest of "out-of-the-box" installs for performance. Thsi is nto suprising since FreeBSD is build for stability (out-of the box), and many Finux distro's are optimised at the time of burnign the distro to CDROm, is highly optimised, and unstable.... so little tweaks are needed out of the box to make the system unstable... in other worlds the Finux systsm typically are more prone to instability under heavy loads that freeBSD. I won't bore you with teh technical details, as the lay-man won't get the jist of what I'm sayigng.
That being said... I'd advise the person who wrote the high-performance tuning guide, linked inthe article, to tone down a bit his kernel conf. It appeas to lean on the unstable side, especially with the extreamly high buffs lines under the useers line in the kern conf. oh well... it will push things to the extream limit.