Re: Starting new project "OpenBSD Bastille" - was Create a canned "Firewall Build"

[Dave Taira <bodhi@hagakure.org>]

On Thu, 21 Feb 2002, Angus Scott-Fleming wrote:

> Some businesses run without insurance because the
> cost is too high (or with minimal insurance),

And they really have no one to blame when something happens and
costs which would have been covered by insurance instead come
out of pocket.

> A properly-done 'canned' OpenBSD-Firewall would make the cost
> of getting secure so much less that many more people would
> become secure.  If it's done independently from the OpenBSD
> project, then any revenues generated (e.g. by CD sales of the
> firewall) would not come back here.  But if the OpenBSD CD set
> included one CD that was OpenBSD-Firewall, or a setup script
> option path on the current set, I suspect many more would be
> willing to contribute to OpenBSD.

So if someone else works at in, invests time and money into it,
finds a market for it, they'll reap the returns? And that's a bad
thing? Sure, the more OpenBSD offers, the more people may be
interested in it, and the more people may buy CD sets. But someone
still has to do the work, and do it *well*.

> I've subscribed to the obsdwall list, will continue further
> discussions over there.  But I really think it's a mistake not
> to include a default firewall-setup script in the CDs ....

Arguably, the default install *is* a firewall setup. Not bare-bones,
but probably suitable for the majority of cases.

A frequent meme on the misc list is "OpenBSD should do/have/import
<foo>". The part that almost never gets addressed is "who's going to
do the actual *work*". The obsdwall list is a step in actually
addressing that, and that's where this should go. Those who are
interested in participating should subscribe to that list.
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| Dave Taira <bodhi@hagakure.org>                2002.02.21/13:06:19 PST |
| Morlock for Hire                                                       |
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| And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?"             |
| They replied, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground  |
| of our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very    |
| selfhood revealed."                                                    |
| And Jesus replied, "What?"                                             |
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