OpenBSD 3.9 released
It's May 1st, the sun is shining and OpenBSD 3.9 sees the light. I haven't ordered my CD set as yet, but will be doing so shortly. For now, I'm only going to pass comment on some of the points raised over at KernelTrap, in their interview with Theo De Raadt.
Once again, the issue of funding and donations is raised and the unnamed businesses who continue to benefit from OpenBSD/OpenSSH and other related technologies, without giving anything back. Do they realise what they are doing, I wonder? I doubt it, as I think it's the companies' accountants who are making these decisions, with no understanding of the consequences. Give a little back, or one day you might just lose it.
Vendors' refusals to release hardware related documentation for their products and the relationship between chip makers, VARs and the end user, is again scrutinised, with the monopolising big boys looking very bad, as per usual. A brief coverage about Theo's character and his interaction with some of the attention seeking, brain dead egocentric idiots, probably US based in the norm. Why is everybody so fascinated with Theo being rude to the odd idiot? He's a developer, not a diplomat, so get off his back.
The natives jump on a point about compilers, so as to be able to flex their intellectual muscles in public, but that's the norm anyway and they've every right to do so. Hackathons are touched upon and described in enviable detail. Oh for a week in an isolated log cabin! Vendor binary blobs and why they are not a good idea, from a security or reliability viewpoint are covered, but nothing new there, if you follow the lists and keep your ear to the OpenBSD/OpenSource ground.
An interesting article, which is well worth the time taken to read it. I liked the closing question about Theo's outdoor activites, which really puts a human face on it. Remember, Theo is just a man! ;)
I've ordered my OpenBSD 3.9 CD set from OpenBSD Europe and when they arrive, I'll be installing it onto my latest addition to the collection, a 933MHz PIII Dell Poweredge 1400SC. I've already tried out 3.8 on the machine and it installed and runs flawlessly. At some point, I will also be upgrading the Sun Ultra 5 web server, probably via a quick wipe and re-installation of the bas system and the handful of extras that I need in place. More to follow...
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