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Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork

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Re: Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork

#3
post #2

Why did they decide to fork OpenBSD?

"With the goal of bringing more experimental development to the OpenBSD code base, a few developers have announced a fork named Bitrig. According to their FAQ, Bitrig aims to build a small system targeting only modern hardware and "be a very commercially friendly code base by using non-viral licenses where possible." Their first step toward that goal was removing GCC in favor of LLVM/Clang. The project roadmap shows their future goals as adding FUSE support, improving multiprocessing, porting the system to ARM, and replacing the GNU C++ library with LLVM's."

http://bsd-beta.slashdot.org/story/12/06/13/1645211/openbsd-...

Re: Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork

#4
post #2

Why did they decide to fork OpenBSD?

Why did you fork OpenBSD?

OpenBSD is an amazing project and has some of the best code around but some of us are of the opinion that it could use a bit of modernization. OpenBSD is a very security conscious project and, correspondingly, has to be more conservative with features. We want to be less restrictive with the codebase when it comes to experimenting with features.

https://github.com/bitrig/bitrig/wiki/Faq

Re: Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork

#7
post #2

Why did they decide to fork OpenBSD?

"With the goal of bringing more experimental development to the OpenBSD code base, a few developers have announced a fork named Bitrig. According to their FAQ, Bitrig aims to build a small system targeting only modern hardware and "be a very commercially friendly code base by using non-viral licenses where possible." Their first step toward that goal was removing GCC in favor of LLVM/Clang. The project roadmap shows…

Portability and modernity instead of a security focus?

I'm not sure why I would use a fork of OpenBSD instead of just FreeBSD though. I've always seen the primary benefits of OpenBSD as deriving from their obsessive focus on security, but if this fork isn't focussed on that I'm not sure what I gain vs. other BSDs that already have these goals and objectives in place/completed.

Re: Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork

#8
post #6

Bitrig developer here, feel free to shoot questions!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the things (or maybe just the ideas?) you have implemented seems to be coming from NetBSD. If so, could you share other NetBSD stuff you'd like to see on Bitrig ?

Congratulations on the 1.0 !

Re: Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork

#9
There was a discussion about this on the OpenBSD misc mailing archives back in 2012: http://marc.info/?t=133961305400003&r=1&w=2

Theo's initial response to the thread, which may help illuminate the situation, was:

"Except for the fact that it is bullshit.

They started the fork because they got kicked out because one developer (Marco) hired 5 other developers for his startup company, and attempted to hire around 10 other developers in a sneaky and underhanded way. They were told, oh i forget they were "asked", to not tell anyone else in OpenBSD that this was happening, probably because people "including Theo" would be upset.

Funny thing is, I've never been upset about the 20+ OpenBSD and ex-OpenBSD developers who now work for google.

Previously, many of those developers were in critical positions in the development team. As they were suddenly hired with such terms and conditions, they became more scarce in OpenBSD -- perhaps because they suddenly got real busy with work, but also to avoid telling others that this was happening. Various projects lagged. To avoid telling a lie, they instead chose to not tell the truth. It had effects. It was dishonest of them to not tell their co-developers that they were creating vacuums in the development process.

So because of those decisions, they are now gone from OpenBSD. And now they miss it. So now, all these guys who work for the same company have started a fork. And it is directed by the guy who hired them in the first place.

From where I stand, that is the truth.

Yet none of that is in that article, because the truth hurts, doesn't it guys?"

Re: Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork

#10
post #8
post #6

Bitrig developer here, feel free to shoot questions!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the things (or maybe just the ideas?) you have implemented seems to be coming from NetBSD. If so, could you share other NetBSD stuff you'd like to see on Bitrig ? Congratulations on the 1.0 !

For me personally, better armv7 support. Even though many things stem from our hands, NetBSD and FreeBSD are a great resource. I have already started working on SMP support, based on their example.

Otherwise I do not have any NetBSD stuff in mind. Can't speak for our other developers though. ;)

I would love to have FreeBSD's bhyve on Bitrig. I will dedicate some time in January for that goal. DragonflyBSD is an inspiration for us, too. We have an experimental branch (smpns) for revamping the kernel for decent SMP support.

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