I'm super excited about this!
Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork
21–30 of 37 posts
Re: Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know what's worse: Theo taking a curse-laden, insult dump on everyone who opposes him, or the faithful who spread it around.
Theo's thoughts do pass through a dick-filter, there is no denying that, but he is almost always right in what he is saying. As far as Bitrig is concerned, I don't see the point in it. The FAQ doesn't say anything that makes me want to try it and, although they say they want to support only modern systems, it seems to me that what they are really doing is limiting themselves to what LLVM supports.
This is a problem, because what makes OpenBSD so smooth is testing on the weird legacy architectures like VAX. With a number of the changes on their roadmap I wonder if maybe adopting DragonflyBSD or FreeBSD may have been simpler.
Re: Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Exactly. OpenBSD is very specific in what it is. That description is more a description for a fork of FreeBSD or NetBSD.
OpenBSD has always had a strong focus on protability. It's just the focus on portability was never restricted to "modernity" for the reason that there's few interestingly different processors anymore you can compile against to check for breaking errors.
It would be interesting though if Bitrig became sort of a DragonflyBSD for OpenBSD, where weird experimental stuff can be tested in a separate playground.
Re: Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork
#24There 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 ot…
I don't like that this gossip thread from a few years ago is at the top. People come to Hackernews for entertainment (including me), but I still don't like it. Mainly I'm here so I can learn things, and see what other people are doing. The gossip side of things is sort of annoying.
It's much more interesting to compare the development process of the groups, and how the two groups will help each other.
I always thought if OpenBSD had modern development tools and processes they would do really well, but unfortunately there are too many risks. How they're doing it works well for them already. But perhaps this situation with another group working in a different way better again. Since this project can experiment, and anything that is proven can be taken on by OpenBSD.
Re: Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought this is where NetBSD shines, why not just enhance NetBSD? or why pulling OpenBSD into embedded space?
Forking is the way of the BSDs. The BSD style is to develop the userland along with the kernel. Thus where Linux has multiple distro families BSD has full userland and kernel forks.
That doesn't explain why you'd start from OpenBSD.
Re: Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork
#26I love this in the FAQ:
> Why is the project named Bitrig? > > The name Bitrig is derived from the Latin "Bitrigus", the name of the software used by the Romans to conquer Europe. Sadly, not having zero among its numerals made traditional computer science difficult for the Romans and the project was put on hold indefinitely. Bitrigus faded into obscurity until it was recently rediscovered at a Viking archaeological site in the modern day country of Iceland. > > The Roman emperor Hadrian is rumored to have sent Bitrigus as far west as a boat could carry it to keep it from the then growing threat of religious fanaticism within the Roman Empire.
Re: Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork
#27There 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 ot…
I don't like that this gossip thread from a few years ago is at the top. People come to Hackernews for entertainment (including me), but I still don't like it. Mainly I'm here so I can learn things, and see what other people are doing. The gossip side of things is sort of annoying. It's much more interesting to compare the development process of the groups, and how the two groups will help each other. I always though…
A thread with some of the people most directly involved, including OpenBSD's founder, on how the fork happened is as relevant to the subject at hand as it gets. Not sure why you view it as gossip. It also directly answers your question on how the two groups will help each other i.e. not much at all.
Re: Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork
#28Aren't there some compiler additions to GCC that OpenBSD relies on that haven't made it into LLVM/clang?
well, support for VAX might be one
Re: Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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.
> Portability and modernity instead of a security focus?
It is you who say "instead", can't it be "in addition to"?
Re: Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't like that this gossip thread from a few years ago is at the top. People come to Hackernews for entertainment (including me), but I still don't like it. Mainly I'm here so I can learn things, and see what other people are doing. The gossip side of things is sort of annoying. It's much more interesting to compare the development process of the groups, and how the two groups will help each other. I always though…
A thread with some of the people most directly involved, including OpenBSD's founder, on how the fork happened is as relevant to the subject at hand as it gets. Not sure why you view it as gossip. It also directly answers your question on how the two groups will help each other i.e. not much at all.
> It also directly answers your question on how the two groups will help each other i.e. not much at all.
Hopefully the bitterness surrounding the fork's birth will eventually wash away and the people involved just look at the benefits. And it's not true that the two groups aren't helping each other. Some code does flow between OpenBSD and Bitrig, just as it does between OpenBSD and NetBSD. And there are people who are involved in both, and communicating with developers from both projects.