OpenBSD Journal

OpenBSD: Maintaining the quality mindset

Contributed by dhartmei on from the art-of-motorcycle-maintenance dept.

David Braue writes on ZDNet Australia:

Come October, Theo de Raadt will be joined by five fellow developers for an intense period of takeout food, hikes through the hills in his native Calgary, Canada, beers and long conversations about the future of OpenBSD, the open source operating system for which de Raadt is project head.

Read the entire article, which provides an overview of how the OpenBSD release cycle works, and how it affects the quality of releases.

(Comments are closed)


Comments
  1. By Noryungi (80.11.216.4) n o r y u n g i @ y a h o o . c o m on

    The article says: " ... a new release every six months for the past 10 years". Is OpenBSD really 10 years old already?

    Comments
    1. By johannes (131.130.1.143) on

      According to Google: No. It was forked from NetBSD (which was started in 1993) around the end of 1995.

      Comments
      1. By Daniel Martini (213.6.120.132) on

        Check this post to misc@openbsd.org, if you want to know exactly.

  2. By Anonymous Coward (206.23.219.75) on

    Other byproducts of the effort include a robust PGP implementation ...

    Can anyone shed some light on this?

    Comments
    1. By Otto Moerbeek (213.84.84.111) otto@drijf.net on http://www.drijf.net

      That should probably be BGP, which sounds a bit like it....

    2. By djm@ (203.217.30.86) on

      He probably mis(heard|pronounced( BGP, but a free PGP would be a good idea :)

      Comments
      1. By Anonymous Coward (217.233.50.31) on

        So you do not regard GnuPG as free, or do not know it? www.gnupg.org

        Comments
        1. By MechaDragon X (205.240.34.204) on

          http://www.openbsd.org/policy.html

          GnuPG is GPL. It has restrictions beyond that of the 3-clause BSD license. In terms of the OpenBSD definition, it is not Free.

  3. By Anonymous Coward (63.90.190.232) on

    "Such is life at the helm of OpenBSD, a lower-profile open source cousin to Linux that has matured considerably from its roots at the University of California, Berkeley. Yet while grassroots support of Linux has enjoyed strong brand recognition and the endorsement of governments, companies and major IT vendors alike, OpenBSD continues evolving in relative obscurity – so much so that a recent book on the environment named just 220 known users, even though one reseller de Raadt has spoken with has installed 11,000 OpenBSD servers in the last four years."

    Does anyone else see a problem with that paragraph. We may not have the install base or driver support of linux but I'd hardly make the bold claim that OpenBSD has evolved in relative obscurity or that it is low-profile. Anyone know the book that the 220 known users quote came out of?

    Comments
    1. By grey (207.215.223.2) on

      Indeed, I've sent in a report on it (and the PGP/BGP typo), we'll see if publish errata or just fix things.

  4. By Anonymous Coward (24.107.40.52) on

    I think the reason Theo toils in relative obscurity is that unlike Linus, de Raadt doesn't have a web page that says how to pronounce his name. BTW OpenBSD rules. I love it. Can't live without it. Thank you, Theo, developers, maintainers, supporters on the mailing lists (misc@ and tech@ especially) and moderators on #openbsd on Freenode. If you haven't tried OpenBSD, please do. It's a real treat.

    Comments
    1. By Snaskens (129.241.57.191) on

      Theo, The Rat.

  5. By Anonymous Coward (211.30.147.144) on

    Who cares what they say... BSDs are like the Shaolin Munks. If you discover them, you see a new way of doing things (well, pf actually makes sense to me)...And if many people don't discover it, the better. The last thing you want is those vocal "Linux rules all" crowd in OpenBSD.

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Copyright © - Daniel Hartmeier. All rights reserved. Articles and comments are copyright their respective authors, submission implies license to publish on this web site. Contents of the archive prior to as well as images and HTML templates were copied from the fabulous original deadly.org with Jose's and Jim's kind permission. This journal runs as CGI with httpd(8) on OpenBSD, the source code is BSD licensed. undeadly \Un*dead"ly\, a. Not subject to death; immortal. [Obs.]