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From: briggs@puma.macbsd.com (Allen Briggs)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.security.unix
Subject: Re: OpenBSD hides security fixes (and blindly integrates code)
Date: 19 Feb 1997 17:54:18 GMT
Organization: Home
Lines: 68
Message-ID: <5efeoa$c2s$1@solaris.cc.vt.edu>
References: <none-ya023480001912962244220001@news.infi.net> <5ea2pm$h45@cynic.portal.ca> <slrn5ghrv6.90q.tqbf@char-star.rdist.org> <5ecm2o$p6n@cynic.portal.ca>
NNTP-Posting-Host: puma.macbsd.com
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:5501 comp.security.unix:31972
In article <5ecm2o$p6n@cynic.portal.ca>,
Curt Sampson <cjs@cynic.portal.ca> wrote:
>That's not really something I can do. It is, however, something
>you can do. When do you intend to remove his commit privileges and
>kick him out of the core team? :-)
Core team? In OpenBSD? There is no such animal. As for revoking
anyone's commit privileges, that's not been an issue yet, as far as
I know.
>Given that Theo is the founder of OpenBSD, appears to be one of
>the key decision-makers, is the Sparc co-portmaster, the author of
>many of those web pages, has OpenBSD in his signature, and spends
>a lot of time in the usenet newsgroups promoting OpenBSD, it's
>disingenous to tell me to `disassociate' the two.
Of course not, however I think the point was that no one should
assume that OpenBSD == Theo any more than one should assume that
NetBSD == core. There are a lot of other developers working on
each projects. Including me (on both), when I have time.
>Letting him go on the way he does and still associating
>yourself and him with OpenBSD is tacit approval of his behaviour.
In your opinion, which is probably shared by others. It's obviously
not shared by everyone. "Letting him go on the way he does" is awfully
vague, too. I've seen Theo (and others) lose control over the last few
years, but I've seen a lot more reasonable behavior than unreasonable.
In all cases that I'm aware of, the folks who lost control felt justified
in doing so (and, of course, others didn't think so). Some of the things
that were said and done (or just done in some cases) on BOTH sides were
(and apparently still are -- *sigh*) pretty darn vicious, as have been
the responses to those statements or actions.
Personally, I find that it's easy to find blame with the actions of
anyone who has contributed to this thread (including mine). Usenet
is not a peaceful haven of anything. Remarks are deliberately
misinterpreted and some people love to fuel the flames higher and
higher.
>Keep in mind that the reason OpenBSD exists is that he had the same
>behaviour when he was part of the NetBSD team, and eventually, it
>appears, the NetBSD team just wouldn't stand for it any more.
I think we all know that it's a little more complicated than that.
A lot of this thread has skirted around the real issues.
There are now three varients of freely-available 4.4BSD-derived systems.
They are all being actively developed by humans. They are all being
used by humans. Humans are fallible, but still each of the systems does
have a unique contribution to the free software community. No one has
to deal directly with Theo de Raadt or Jason Downs when working on or
with OpenBSD, just as no one has to deal with Charles Hannum or Jason
Thorpe when dealing with NetBSD.
It does seem like a waste of effort to have two (or three), mostly
parallel development paths when developer resources are scarce. On
the other hand, it has the potential for more ideas to be explored.
I'm sure that a lot of people are happy with some of the security
issues being addressed in OpenBSD--including some of the changes that
other groups resisted or found either too pedantic or too bizarre to
act on. [there, some bearing to c.s.u ;-]
-allen
--
Allen Briggs - end killing - briggs@macbsd.com