ninjin

Not trying to be hostile here, but when you accuse "the other camp" of being "reflexive", maybe it is wise to have a look in the mirror and reflect over a statement like this? It is dismissive, no? Hostile? Possibly. At that, it is against people that have spent millions of man hours producing code that is free to use by all of mankind.

I have read the majority of Stallman's writings, I have met and talked to the man himself, and I even secured a signed poster for myself and the local computer club. But, I find both the argument that sharing the code without viral restrictions and with viral restrictions plausible as ways forward to greater software freedom. Heck, I would argue that history shows that the diversity of tactics has proven successful and that we are better off today than ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. So, maybe refrain from boilerplate retorts as we have bigger fish to fry and shut up and hack?

Modification is the whole point of open source: "Unless you want to modify Windows, the closeness does not impact you". If you want to learn about how NetBSD looks at things, there is this page:

https://netbsd.org/about/redistribution.html

As for being compatible. Yes, FSF considers anything permissive to be compatible with their family of licenses. However, it is a one-way relationship in that permissive code can be freely used by GPL projects, but not the other way around as using GPL code would impose further restrictions compared to a permissive license.

nano(1) is GPLv3 last time I checked and that imposes more restrictions than most (all?) of the rest of the code in NetBSD. It is not about being "reflexive", it is a violation of the very ethos of the project. Gnu rejecting non-free licenses from their own distributions is not "reflexive", it is simply not in line with what they want to achieve and one should respect that.

Thank you, I think you are correct. Compare:

https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-ports-cvs&s=ungoogled-chromium

To:

https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-ports-cvs&s=firefox-esr

You will see that the Firefox patches are tagged for -release/-stable and the Chromium ones are not.

I run -current these days on most desktops. What I can say is that since 7.9, I have experienced smoother audio playback and system load overall on my decade-old laptop. So, it is likely that others will experience similar things when moving to 8.0.

> OpenBSD works well with relatively recent versions of Chromium and Firefox. That being said, they are on a six month release cycle. The Chromium port can fall behind if you stick to -stable or releases.

Just to clarify here, security patches are backported to -stable. So it is not like you stick to the same browser release for six months.

Personally, I run www/firefox-esr. In part because the ESR moves more slowly in general and in part because it is maintained by someone working for Mozilla.

Neat little link trick for PDFs:

https://events.eurobsdcon.org/media/2026/submissions/ZGDXQR/...

Talked to bluhm@ after that talk in Brussels and the general feeling (from what I can remember from the conversation) so far is that there is a large increase in overall reports (good and bad), but that the severity of what is reported has not really increased. This also mirrors my own experience from reading source-changes@. In essence, it seems like we have known how to build secure software for the last thirty or so years, just that most do not seem to have bothered to do so.

"Still uses CVS", I mean, CVS worked twenty years ago and it still works today for all the platforms OpenBSD supports. If you prefer something else, that is all right, but here is emulators/wine on CVSWeb:

https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/ports/emulators/wine

How is that ironic? If you know how to do this, ensure that the license of the code is compatible [1], and maintain the code, then send the patch to tech@ for review and maybe it gets in.

[1]: https://www.openbsd.org/policy.html

"[Doesn't] get the job done"? Well, it gets my job done. You are welcome to use whatever you subjectively prefer (I use GNU's date(1) for a few scripts, but would prefer the English date grammar parsing as a tool of its own), but if you are unable to talk about anything in concrete terms there is not point in trying to discuss in good faith and I will just roll my eyes and move on.

Plenty of issues that have been patched recently found using such tools as well. OpenBSD's policy remains largely the same as always: You need to understand the patch you propose and it needs to be maintainable. The link elsewhere in this thread is mainly discussing large patches where it is unclear if the LLM drew too heavily on code elsewhere.

"Can't even match GNU's coreutils"? Care to elaborate? Last time I checked OpenBSD is pretty much in line with Posix and there are plenty of us that consider many of the GNU extensions to be anti-features.

Nvidia support for OpenBSD is not really a thing [1]. With AMD and Intel, you have support for modern hardware in the tree [2,3].

[1]: https://man.openbsd.org/nv

[2]: https://man.openbsd.org/amdgpu

[3]: https://man.openbsd.org/intel

Honestly, I think this later reply from theo@ gives a clearer picture:

https://www.mail-archive.com/ports@openbsd.org/msg143894.htm...

I think the security argument for carrying an alternative set of Posix-like utilities to Gnu Core Utilities is rather weak. These would mostly have been used to build other ports, or are you suggesting that this would harden the ports build systems (which already use privsep at that)? If so, I would take the lower maintenance burden any day and just wait for the Linux ecosystem to make up their mind as to whether Uutils becomes the new standard or not.

What is this rubbish? We have "media" coverage trying to stir up drama about what happens on mailing lists now?

Go and read the thread yourself [1] and you will see that the reason it was rejected was that no one saw a reason to take on the maintenance burden when you already need to have Gnu Core Utilities in ports to be able to build a heap of other ports. Focusing on theo@ calling out the submitter for having their judgement clouded by "Because Rust" misses the point.

[1]: https://www.mail-archive.com/ports@openbsd.org/msg143875.htm...

Besides, Rust already has a solid presence in ports and I know several experienced OpenBSD developers dabbling in it. But the language will never make it into base in its current form as OpenBSD expects self hosting and I think everything in base is Posix(-like), apart from Perl, but I have not taken the time to go digging through my /usr/src.

You still see interesting efforts today. Here is a dmesg from a Tadpole SPARCbook 6500 booting 7.9 (released in May this year) that appeared on bugs@ just a few weeks ago (also, note who the person is that responds to that message):

https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-bugs&m=178663407424547

You of course also have the absolutely insane luna88k support [1] and I have myself been looking into getting my hands on a landisk [2] box as the Hitachi SuperH CPU is fascinating (I only knew of it from old arcade boards and the Sega Dreamcast).

[1]: https://www.openbsd.org/luna88k.html

[2]: https://www.openbsd.org/landisk.html

In my experience, groups like this have a fairly hostile relationship to State Communism as well. The Kronstadt rebellion for example is frequently cited [1]. But then you have groupings like Anarchist communists [2], which you would then risk lumping together with the anti-Communism part (not to mention that anti-Communism as a term is usually associated with forces staunchly opposed to people like this). Plus, if you are "only" anti-authoritarian, how do you suggest avoiding getting lumped together with Anarcho-capitalism?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_rebellion

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_communism

Furthermore, these organisations operate in what they perceive to be Fascist and/or Capitalist societies, so why state opposition to something that is not "there" and has been pretty much gone from the global scene for nearly forty years?

In conclusion, yes, you have a point. But given the reasons above I find it really hard to get worked up over it and Anarchists do not generally get along with Leninists, Stalinists, or Maoists anyway.

If you are interested in the "sequel", Perfect Dark, then there is this PC port based on the decompilation project that plays great:

https://github.com/perfect-dark-pc-port/perfect_dark

Ported it to OpenBSD for fun an evening about a year ago.

Always happy to see more people having fun with OpenBSD. Running my own set of OpenBSD boxes (although the public-facing ones are on Hetzner), so I read through the instructions and it aligns with my own experience (although I usually emphasise that most correct choices in the installer are just the default).

However, this part: "Since this is going to be a bare-bones web server we can remove most of the sets.". This is not great advice. Reducing the number of sets even on a headless server can lead to issues with ports depending on libraries Xenocara provides that would then be missing (fonts, etc.). Likewise, when you upgrade the default is to install all sets unless you manually intervene, which could lead to a surprise bump in disk usage that you may not have accounted for. In general, reducing the number of sets should be considered "I am deviating from the defaults and I know what I am doing" territory and Theo keeps threatening to remove the option to select the sets in the installer when people complain and I am inclined to agree with him. So, if you have 10GB of disk in that Droplet, just do the OpenBSD thing and go with the defaults and you will be all the happier for it down the line. Messing with the installation size really is for those rare cases (fitting many VMs on a single host, ancient machines, etc.) where you have no other choice.

A lot of love here as well for the F-91W. As for the band, I use mine with a Phoenix Nato strap [1], which I suspect will last as long as the watch itself (if you are on a budget, there are plenty of PRC Nato clones out there). I wear it daily, as well as with my suit given how stylish it is in its simplicity. The only maintenance necessary is to gently run an open flame along the strap holes maybe once a year control the growth of loose nylon threads.

[1]: https://www.phoenixstraps.com

2a03:2880: by any chance?:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48137854

Have asked them to stop numerous times and they just keep hitting for about eight months now.

Tried to see if it was possible to buy the Rom itself. But it seems like you would need to buy a physical copy at this point:

https://modretro.com/products/xibalba-64

An additional option is how I get RGB video and clean audio out of my HVC-101 without modifying the console itself:

https://krikzz.com/our-products/cartridges/rgb-blaster.html

It is a lot of work and usually not cheap to get old consoles to capture properly, so I am only bothering with Nintendo consoles as that is what my childhood was. At the time of writing, I have solutions to play games on original hardware from every console apart from the Nintendo 64 and Nintendo DS family. Not because it is not possible, but rather that I can not justify the expense at the moment.

Yes, and it is in fact the NetBSD Bluetooth stack [1] that OpenBSD had ported from the 4.2 release until it was ripped out in 5.6 [2]. Not to mention that the NetBSD Bluetooth stack is based on code from FreeBSD.

[1]: https://man.netbsd.org/NetBSD-11.x-BRANCH/bluetooth.3

[2]: https://man.openbsd.org/OpenBSD-5.5/bluetooth.4

There is a lot of sharing going on between the BSDs. Most commonly drivers being handed back and forth.

Had one of the OpenBSD Blowfish t-shirts [1] and wore if for many years until it broke. My best memory of it was as an intern in Silicon Valley, when suddenly the CEO who never had seemed that technical, walked past me and one of the secretaries talking and going: "Blowfish, right? Nice!". He earned a lot of respect from this intern that day.

It is a shame that the OpenBSD folks do not reprint their old designs as I would buy about ten different ones in an instant.

[1]: https://www.openbsd.org/tshirts.html#4

Was not familiar with the guy and this is certainly a take:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_L%C3%BCtke#Voting_right...

I do not have a stance on the Maldives, Guam, etc. as I lack enough historical and current context. What I always do is try to derive positions based on the human right to self-determination.

About Taiwan. I find the claim that since an absolute monarchy controlled the island 150 years ago, that then a government which was the result of two (is my count correct?) revolutions overthrowing that monarchy and then another government, a government which failed to conquer the land by military means by 1950, and now after people have lived independently for over 75 years (over 25 of which as a democracy) that said government has any right to dictate how said people should live to be simply absurd. If the people of the RoC wants to join with the PRC, that is for them to decide through their own decision processes. Historical claims like this may make sense for unpopulated tracts of land, but here we are talking about the rights to self-determination of more than twenty million people of which the vast majority were born well after 1950. This would set a terrible precedence and, frankly, it feels akin to how emperors and kings of old asserted their "rights" and not how we move towards a more just world.

Also, Hong Kong? If anything, Hong Kong shows that the PRC is a poor custodian for a pluralistic country with multiple parallel systems. I once thought it reasonable for Hong Kong to be "returned" after the historical travesty that were the Opium Wars, but I have heard enough first-hand accounts of the suffering and tragedy that unfolded over the last ten years to reconsider whether I prioritise history over the people that are alive here and now. It was not that Mao and Xi "unfortunately had to use force" against Tibet and Hong Kong. These were calculated choices on their part and history shall judge them the same way we judge any other oppressor for their moral failures.

No, I do not think that is a fair portrayal of my position. Just like I will not say that your position is simply appeasement and hoping for the best. One must always be charitable in a discussion with strangers whose positions you do not fully understand.

Rather, I think we should look hard into ourselves and what is good and bad about the current world order. For example, the people of the RoC have the right to determine which direction they want to go. Regardless of the chauvinistic rhetoric coming out of Beijing. We should all stand up for this, because it is a universal right that we want everyone to enjoy. Similarly, we should push against the Eleven-dash line and support the 2013 ruling. The list goes on and I am sure these issues can be resolved without an outright war if we are careful, yet firm, in our beliefs and also diplomatically preemptive and thoughtful.

Being concerned about PRC imperialism should not be mistaken for the position that their people should "know their place" and be suppressed back to the stone age. They have the right to enjoy the fruits of their labour and pursue happiness, just like everyone else. We simply must be there to remind them (just like we must remind ourselves) that the course of humanity is a collective project if we are to stay clear of the darker sides of our nature as we venture together into the future.

Not sure if "colonial" is the right word though, as we should be careful to think that oppression always takes on the form we have seen in the past (US imperialist oppression for example did not take on the form of the colonialism that preceded it) . Also, be careful with "true" there. I do not think this is some sort of subterfuge, but rather an inherent weakness in us as a species. Vest power in anyone, and before long their morals will give way and an oppressor will be born.

The way I look at it, until Deng the PRC's economic policies and internal instability kept it from growing at the pace of many of its neighbours. Then we had an era of intense growth (which is still to some degree ongoing). However, as a reaction to this era Xi and others needed a narrative to counter the increased corruption and a new unifying myth to replace the cult of growth as the economy would stagnate at some point and could then call into question the authority of CCP to rule. Their choice of nationalism is what scares me and I know PRC citizens (even CCP members) that share this perspective and would rather have seen the Shanghai clique to have remained. It is possible that in this alternative reality we would still end up with "Imperialism with Chinese characteristics" ("中国特色帝国主义"?), but I chose to believe that at the very least the chances of this would have been smaller.