“In this latest interview, Theo examines the past five years of OpenBSD development. He also discusses the OpenBSD 3.9 theme song, ‘Blob!’, detailing what blobs are, why OpenBSD avoids them, and how OpenBSD developers work to reverse engineer them. Looking to the development process, Theo talks about recent and future ‘mini-hackathons’, small and focused OpenBSD development gatherings. Finally, Theo also discusses the OpenBSD project’s funding issues, and the response to requests for funding from users of the project’s OpenSSH software.”
I liked this interview, but it didn’t ask some of the main questions that I wanted answered for 3.9.
I’m curious as to what changes they’ve made in regards to SMP and their new rthreads. I’m really curious to see how they compare to other systems (namely, Linux & FreeBSD)
Otherwise great interview. Theo is stubborn but I highly respect him and his team for all the great work they have done over the years.
rthreads doesn’t compare, it’s not done yet.
Must be the first interview where Theo didn’t blast Sun and IBM by name directly. Perhaps somebody’s taught him some PR skills.
OpenBSD, like the other members of BSD family are a great value project, with a clear focus, and this is (for me) the great difference to the linux world: The way things happens in BSD camp are more logical, and (most important!) more “standard”, in a way that project can share code easy.I can’t forgot the good and valuable code that openbsd and others BSD give us: OpenSSH, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, MacOS,…
Thanks Theo!
Solaris and Mac OS X are not exactly BSD.
Besides that, you should remember that FreeBSD is not only a system, but also the distribution. Linux is only a kernel, so you cannot compare it directly this way.
The clear focus in *BSD is no clearer than in RHEL or Gentoo or in the other big distributions. And some of the clear focus in *BSD disappears when you start looking at the many forks, and the rising number of distributions (based on FreeBSD).
When comparing apples and oranges, don’t forget you are comparing apples and oranges. Otherwise you’re in for a surprise.
[EDIT:] Considered as a binary distribution PC-BSD beats the binary Linux distributions I’ve tried so far. Note to myself: Must try DesktopBSD.
Edited 2006-05-03 01:18
Are you high? Or at least were you at the time of that post? FreeBSD is an operating system, not a distribution, big difference – it’s all one thing. Linux is just a kernel, but Gentoo is a Linux distribution and an operating system – two things mushed together.
There is no clear focus that covers all BSDs you twat. The clear focus of FreeBSD is to be Linux, the clear focus of NetBSD is to be functional on all available platforms and the clear focus of OpenBSD is to be secure and correct.
On the other hand, all Linux distributions use the same kernel, negating any difference in the actual functionality of the system and meaning the focus is entirely dependent on the people making the kernel.
When comparing apples and oranges don’t include pears and mangos as apples.
I’d love to score you down for use of offensive language (end of sentence #5) but the rest of your post is on-topic and very relevant.
I’m not the one claiming there is a clear focus for all BSD.
But FreeBSD is as much as BSD-distribution as Gentoo Linux is a GNU/Linux-distribution. Many BSD-fanboys are using the “One OS – One Distribution” part to bash the many GNU/Linux-distributions.
I merely pointed out that the situation isn’t that different in the BSD-world.
Or put another way: Don’t throw with stones, when you yourself live in a house of glass (poorly translated from danish).
The clear focus of FreeBSD is to be Linux,
What exactly do you mean?
Solaris and Mac OS X are not exactly BSD
I refer to the BSD family (derivates from)
Besides that, you should remember that FreeBSD is not only a system, but also the distribution. Linux is only a kernel, so you cannot compare it directly this way
I compare BSD with linux in a generic way (not openbsd vs gentoo, for example), besides I can compare BSD with linux+GNU utilities.
The clear focus in *BSD is no clearer than in RHEL or Gentoo or in the other big distributions
I use linux from about 5 years and I saw to many distros do the same thing: compile packets over and over, create a anarchy of systems that you can’t share you knowledge from one to another
I refer to the BSD family (derivates from)
Solaris and Mac OS X is no more a BSD-derivate than Linux is. Or Linux is as much a BSD-derivate as Solaris and Mac OS X is.
I compare BSD with linux in a generic way (not openbsd vs gentoo, for example), besides I can compare BSD with linux+GNU utilities.
Take some English Classes and rephrase the sentence above mine.
Anyway, there is no mo clear focus in the BSD-world than in the Linux-world.
I’m sick and tired of BSD-zealots bashing Linux because you are jealous of the Linux Success. And tired of the Linux zealots bashing BSD because you bash Linux. It only leeds to BSD-zealots and Linux-zealots beating each other for no valid reason.
I use linux from about 5 years and I saw to many distros do the same thing: compile packets over and over, create a anarchy of systems that you can’t share you knowledge from one to another
You haven’t used Linux then, except from some sort of broken live CD. I’ve used many Linux distributions (and the horror of Fedora brought me to LFS, Gentoo (and FreeBSD btw.)), and so far I’ve been able to reuse my knowledge from one system to another. Most basic elements are unchanged across the distributions, and you’d know that if you have ever used Linux. And used, not tried Linux.
“I’m not the one claiming there is a clear focus for all BSD.”
I claim that OpenBSD has a clearer focus than most but that’s just me. I’m sure many will disagree.
“But FreeBSD is as much as BSD-distribution as Gentoo Linux is a GNU/Linux-distribution.”
No. There isnt a single “BSD” kernel and userland that all the BSD’s build their systems from and therefore they arent “distributions” in the same sense as Gentoo et al. DesktopBSD and PC-BSD are FreeBSD distributions though.
“I merely pointed out that the situation isn’t that different in the BSD-world.”
Except that there arent 130+ distributions (for better or worse).
No. There isnt a single “BSD” kernel and userland that all the BSD’s build their systems from and therefore they arent “distributions” in the same sense as Gentoo et al. DesktopBSD and PC-BSD are FreeBSD distributions though.
There are no single Linux kernel nor userland that all the GNU/Linux distributions build their systems from. Same situation. There are not even a single Linux kernel nor userland in Gentoo Linux.
Except that there arent 130+ distributions (for better or worse).
Well, that depends on how you look at it.
Anyway, the number of distributions _are_ rising. And guess what? At the moment 2 desktop distributions are based on FreeBSD – and they are mutually incompatible on the binary level. Clear focus anyone?
i have alot of respect for the BSDs. they stll stick to the style and design that made unix famous.
Lovely attitude. Not that the interview really picked up something new that most didn’t already know I guess. Just a brief look to the history, with one exception. The university in between OpenBSD and Darpa. I’d love to see some figures on what happened with all the money (Yeah I’m curious..).
On a sidenote. 20years of coding is a long time, all that experience is worth a lot, let’s hope it’ll keep doing good things for another 20 years.
Kudos Theo =)