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Retguard: An improved stack protector for OpenBSD

marc.info

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Re: Retguard: An improved stack protector for OpenBSD

#15

Post by busterarm »

atonse wrote: post #11

While I didn't understand most of this, any reason why they're still using CVS? Genuinely curious, I'm sure they have good reasons.

They've managed to maintain a consistent roughly-6 month release cadence since 1995. CVS is working for them, so why switch?

Re: Retguard: An improved stack protector for OpenBSD

#16

Post by ams6110 »

atonse wrote: post #11

While I didn't understand most of this, any reason why they're still using CVS? Genuinely curious, I'm sure they have good reasons.

It works for them. Changing would be a lot of work for little benefit.

Note that there is a mirror on github at https://github.com/openbsd and to my understanding, developers who prefer git use that, but the official source tree is in CVS.

Re: Retguard: An improved stack protector for OpenBSD

#17

Post by kazinator »

brynet wrote: post #14
atonse wrote: post #11

While I didn't understand most of this, any reason why they're still using CVS? Genuinely curious, I'm sure they have good reasons.

You must be jealous that we're self-hosted. ;-)

I made a program called Meta-CVS in 2002 that stores a versioned directory structure with permissions and symbolic links along with the files in an ordinary CVS repository.

http://www.kylheku.com/~kaz/mcvs.html

Meta-CVS has an import feature (mcvs grab) which detects renamed files. It fixes up symlinks pointing to moved files too and such.

Meta-CVS didn't catch on widely because by the time I had it stable, CVS itself was being side tracked by newly emerging projects like SVN.

Plus people were afraid of it being written in Common Lisp.

If you're still using CVS in 2018 and not Meta-CVS, you're ridiculously backwards though. :)

Re: Retguard: An improved stack protector for OpenBSD

#18

Post by brynet »

amenghra wrote: post #13

The post from ~9 months ago by deraadt is worth reading: https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=150317547021396&w=2

That is the previous design which changed significantly from what's been committed today (see other comments).

Github mirror, for easier review: https://github.com/openbsd/src/commit/e688c2b0648a80551cf735...

Re: Retguard: An improved stack protector for OpenBSD

#19

Post by atonse »

atonse wrote: post #11

While I didn't understand most of this, any reason why they're still using CVS? Genuinely curious, I'm sure they have good reasons.

I actually wasn't clear at all. To me, it's more about code browseability, and I've found it much easier to splunk through codebases for fun in a GitHub-like interface. (Not much to do with the developers' workflows, I suppose)

That's really where it's coming from, wasn't really trying to be snarky or anything.

Re: Retguard: An improved stack protector for OpenBSD

#20

Post by ams6110 »

atonse wrote: post #19
atonse wrote: post #11

While I didn't understand most of this, any reason why they're still using CVS? Genuinely curious, I'm sure they have good reasons.

I actually wasn't clear at all. To me, it's more about code browseability, and I've found it much easier to splunk through codebases for fun in a GitHub-like interface. (Not much to do with the developers' workflows, I suppose) That's really where it's coming from, wasn't really trying to be snarky or anything.

If nothing else, nobody "owns" CVS. Github (and thus, effectively git by sheer mass) is now owned by Microsoft.
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