Re: 3.4 CDs

[Tobias Weingartner <weingart@tepid.org>]

On Tuesday, September 16, Brett Lymn wrote:
> 
> Actually - Peter was doing work that was going to put OpenBSD into the
> hands of more people:  <http://www.zenadsl6186.zen.co.uk/>

Great... first I hear of it.  Nice to know someone is doing work.
What exactly is it?  I see a lot of M.O.O.T. things on that page,
but not much else...  Not to knock it, just saying what I'm seeing.


> This is built on top of OpenBSD.  His work may actually bring more
> people in contact with OpenBSD... if he decides to keep using it,
> given the attitude he has just received then I would not blame him if
> he did not.

Ok... and?  I don't follow your logic.  I'm trying, but what does that
have to do with his comments?


> > Troll...
> 
> Uh riiiiiight.  I must say that misc@open has to be about the rudest
> mailing list I have ever been on.  Every day I am astounded at the
> attitude displayed by the participants - new users are pointed at this
> list to get their questions answered, a lot of the time all the get is
> abused.  I know that most of the OpenBSD developers are nice people
> but there is an undercurrent of (lets be polite) not-nice that really
> makes me wonder how the majority put up with it - particularly the
> the people who work on the ports collection who were publically
> attacked by the project leader.  Not Nice.

Nice was not part of the deal.  At least not in my case.  Don't know the
case about anybody else.  I was not attacking anybody... what I was
saying is true.  Putting something like this on misc@ or any other obsd
list is amounting to being a troll.  Search the archives, see for yourself.

And where exactly was I being rude?


> Go ahead flame me.  Confirm my belief.  Either that or you may
> politely point out that I am misguided... if you can.

I'm trying, but I'm not going to do the searching and research for you.
Please search the archives, and find out for yourself what sort of response
has been given to the release schedules in the past.


Here is my take on the whole thing (the only reason I'm actuall replying
to the list with this).  There are any number of reasons to have a release
every 6 months.  I'm sure Theo has his own.  Here are the reasons that I
see OpenBSD doing a release every 6 months.  These are the reasons I use
OpenBSD.

1) Security is not static.  Static security means you're dead.  New ways
of attacking software systems are thought up and brought into the world
on a daily basis.  A release every 6 months gives the people wanting to
attack OpenBSD a moving target.  Almost everyone will agree that a moving
target tends to be harder to hit.

2) Releases are predictable.  As much as a moving target is harder to hit,
management is reasonable, given that the releases are predictable, and are
of a quality that far surpases anything else I have ever seen.  I have
production machines running -current.  Rarely do I have a problem with the
upgrade process.  I have more (way more) machines running the latest
release or -stable.  I have even less problems with those machines.  The
fact that the releases are every 6 months lets me plan my upgrades to the
machines I administer.

3) Planned obsolescence.  Yeah, it's a good thing.  I'm a lazy fuck, and
if I did not have someone telling me that I need to upgrade, I'd have a
machine running good old SunOS 4.0.1 still.  Why?  Because it works.  But
the first skript kiddie to come along would own me.  Every 6-12 months,
I rebuild my configuration for the production box.  This makes me examine
the cruft (not to old by that time), and throw out old things, and replace
hacks with released software (when possible).  It's a way to prevent the
bit-rot.  This is a good thing.

4) Last but certainly not least.  Every release so far has had significant
developments that made it different and better from the last one.  Some of
them were large things (like pf), others smaller.  But they all warranted
a release.  Contrary to many sceptics, OpenBSD is alive and moving forward.


Anyways, off my soapbox I go...

--Toby.