OpenBSD Journal

OpenBSD mentioned in a Forbes article

Contributed by grey on from the even wider notoriety dept.

Thanks to an anonymous contributor who writes:

The current issue (Nov. 1) of Forbes has an article in it that mentions OpenBSD as being the basis of a product line for a startup called LokTek based in Florida. I thought it was pretty cool that you can find OpenBSD mentioned even in places like Forbes now. There is an online version of the article... free after registration, blah.
The mention is on page 2 of the online version:
http://www.forbes.com/home/forbes/2004/1101/064_2.html

Our readers can find a working login for the article at bugmenot.

(Comments are closed)


Comments
  1. By Nate (65.93.24.118) on

    I am sure that I am not the only one that finds this being a product silly. They didn't really try to make the web interface anything special, nor the PF readouts, it's just a cheap interface to the basic parts of the system. A poor looking product from the appearance.

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward (4.233.127.65) on

      Screenshots: http://www.air-lok.com/screenshots/

    2. By Jim O (69.57.207.1) on

      I think you are the only one to find this silly. Where is your blood, sweat, and tears to make a product/company? It's easy to critize when you have not tried on your own.

      Comments
      1. By Nate (65.93.24.118) on

        The readouts are not different from the straight text done by the system itself. You may as well not have the web interface at all, it is not anything that you couldn't do yourself with a little php and html know how. But it is not something I think really worth making considering the quality. Perhaps if they dumb down the readouts and such to make it easier on people that don't actually understand that it would be worth making, but as it is here this stuff is pretty much a WGUI for people that don't need one.

  2. By bob (80.138.144.26) on

    look on the printing version of the article, for save the adds...
    http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2004/1101/064_print.html

    best bob

  3. By Jim O (69.57.207.1) on

    I think this is great. sounds like a great product and a good use for OpenBSD. Exposure is what the company needs and being in Forbes will help that. I've never tried to tie together all the functions that LokTech has (I've not had the need) but I'm sure it's not trivial.

    To anyone who would knock someone else down because "it's just a web interface on top of X"... you are forgetting how most people want things to work... give them a visual guide, clear instructions, simplicity, and "it just works". That's going to sell a product. If you think that it's easy to do this type of thing, where is your product? Where is your company?

    Yes, there is some flamebait in this post, but hopefully it will bring some discussion.

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward (69.197.92.181) on

      You are overestimating the demand. Most people don't make a company around a shitty web interface because they aren't that dumb. Very few people buy the ones already out there, and nobody is asking for more options. They want "real" firewalls, with big names behind them. A web interface screams ameteur, and who's going to trust the security of their company to a product like that?

      Comments
      1. By Bruce (24.86.198.124) on

        I don't see anything wrong with a web interface on a product like this. Much better for remote management than the inevitable WinXP-only configuration program.

        I would consider buying one if my company had a use for it, even though I'm perfectly comfortable with the command line. The way I see it, I could configure it properly myself, and then my non-UNIX co-workers could be trained on how to make small changes in my absence.

        I do agree, however, that some of those configuration screens could use a little more thought. I notice that the screen shots someone linked to were done on Safari on OS X, so perhaps he ought to look at how Apple simplifies network configuration for non-expert users. Written setup documentation would also be helpful, and at least one of the screens has a 'read first, configure later' warning on it. Hopefully the docs are decent.

        Anyway, more products based on OpenBSD is a good thing, I think. I don't understand the degree of derision in some of these posts, and I really don't see the need for all the course language. It's not like someone is forcing you to buy it.

      2. By RC (4.16.255.34) on

        > A web interface screams ameteur

        That must be why Cisco includes a web interface with practically all of their products... They must be amatures!

  4. By ernie (68.84.58.45) on

    In the article it mentions they are using dual processor AMDs ... how? AFAIK openbsd is still single proc only, although I know work is going to supporting SMP, it can't be THAT far along that its trusted in a production environment... could it?

    Comments
    1. By Nate (65.93.24.118) on

      Uh, welcome to 3.6, where AMD64 and I386 both have SMP support. The code is there to download as a 3.6Beta release, I think that is what they are using.

      Comments
      1. By Anonymous Coward (68.84.58.45) on

        Right, beta. So they're selling a product based on beta code. And beta OS code no less. Sign me up for this product!

        Comments
        1. By Krunch (217.136.164.79) on

          AFAIK 3.6 is stable and available from CVS for some times now.

        2. By Wim (194.78.167.231) wim@kd85.com on http://kd85.com/

          Hmm I have been running 3.6 release for almost a month now on i386 and Sparc64,
          works better than 3.5 ;-)

          OpenBSD 3.6 (muk) #0: Sat Oct 2 03:38:32 CEST 2004
          build@muk.kd85.com:/usr/obj/muk

        3. By Anonymous Cheese (4.232.198.86) on

          Don't be scared; OpenBSD -current tends to be perfectly safe for production environments.

        4. By Anonymous Coward (128.252.229.164) on

          I think I rarely used GD ("general deployment") code on any of my routers over the last few years. Too many features/bugfixes that were in the LD ("limited deployment") releases, which I saw as being beta.

          And IIRC, PIX code has always been LD.

          How about someone testing the thing and doing a somewhat scientific analysis, instead of everyone spouting off useless bits of "knowledge"?

    2. By Anonymous Coward (24.239.53.74) on

      I have a dual-processor MAC 9600/250 and OBSD flops on supporting the second processor.

      Comments
      1. By uncitizen (67.37.28.9) on

        Three problems with that:

        1: Mac SMP is awaiting hardware to get going/finished/tested/

        2: The 9600 is an old world machine that isn't even offically supported

        3: MAC is an acronym for media access control. Mac is short for Macintosh, as in the computer made by Apple.

        Sorry for the pissy mood.

    3. By Anonymous Coward (207.182.248.105) on

      OpenBSD 3.6 (GENERIC) #2: Thu Oct 7 11:07:54 EDT 2004
      root@airlok.localdomain:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC

  5. By knomevol (64.48.234.124) on

    forbes, eh? if it were a stock, i'd buy.

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