Re: Contributing to spamd

[prx]

Indeed !
Good luck, and thank you ! 

Le 3 avril 2020 18:49:56 GMT+02:00, Aisha Tammy  a écrit :
>Oh that is really good to hear :)
>Thanks a lot phessler!
>
>Here is to hoping it can be included in the next release.
>
>Thanks a lot again,
>Aisha
>
>On 4/3/20 12:28 PM, Denis Fondras wrote:
>> On Fri, Apr 03, 2020 at 08:54:22AM -0400, Aisha Tammy wrote:
>>> Hi devs and all,
>>>   I have been using spamd for quite a while and have been loving it.
>>> I've seen that spamd currently only supports ipv4 and have been
>>> wondering if it was possible to extend it to ipv6. I know that
>workforce
>>> is always limited so I wanted to know if there is anyway to
>contribute
>>> help towards this :)
>>> I admit I'm not the most knowledgeable about ipv6 so I was wondering
>if
>>> there is any small place to start to contribute to spamd and build
>up
>>> from there.
>>> Hoping for some positive response.
>>>
>>> Thanks a lot for your work and hope you are safe,
>>> Aisha
>>>
>> 
>> phessler@ did almost all the work. There are still one issue so it
>did not get
>> in.
>> 

Re: Contributing to spamd

[Aisha Tammy]

Oh that is really good to hear :)
Thanks a lot phessler!

Here is to hoping it can be included in the next release.

Thanks a lot again,
Aisha

On 4/3/20 12:28 PM, Denis Fondras wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 03, 2020 at 08:54:22AM -0400, Aisha Tammy wrote:
>> Hi devs and all,
>>   I have been using spamd for quite a while and have been loving it.
>> I've seen that spamd currently only supports ipv4 and have been
>> wondering if it was possible to extend it to ipv6. I know that workforce
>> is always limited so I wanted to know if there is anyway to contribute
>> help towards this :)
>> I admit I'm not the most knowledgeable about ipv6 so I was wondering if
>> there is any small place to start to contribute to spamd and build up
>> from there.
>> Hoping for some positive response.
>>
>> Thanks a lot for your work and hope you are safe,
>> Aisha
>>
> 
> phessler@ did almost all the work. There are still one issue so it did not get
> in.
> 

Re: Contributing to spamd

[Denis Fondras]

On Fri, Apr 03, 2020 at 08:54:22AM -0400, Aisha Tammy wrote:
> Hi devs and all,
>   I have been using spamd for quite a while and have been loving it.
> I've seen that spamd currently only supports ipv4 and have been
> wondering if it was possible to extend it to ipv6. I know that workforce
> is always limited so I wanted to know if there is anyway to contribute
> help towards this :)
> I admit I'm not the most knowledgeable about ipv6 so I was wondering if
> there is any small place to start to contribute to spamd and build up
> from there.
> Hoping for some positive response.
> 
> Thanks a lot for your work and hope you are safe,
> Aisha
> 

phessler@ did almost all the work. There are still one issue so it did not get
in.

Re: Contributing to spamd

[Aisha Tammy]

Thanks a lot Ingo.
I'm currently looking through spamd.c and trying to learn.
I'm way too far behind to send any patches yet, lol.
I'll slowly work to it.

Much appreciated,
Aisha

On 4/3/20 9:40 AM, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
> Hi Aisha,
> 
> Aisha Tammy wrote on Fri, Apr 03, 2020 at 08:54:22AM -0400:
> 
>>   I have been using spamd for quite a while and have been loving it.
>> I've seen that spamd currently only supports ipv4 and have been
>> wondering if it was possible to extend it to ipv6. I know that workforce
>> is always limited so I wanted to know if there is anyway to contribute
>> help towards this :)
> 
> The way to contribute to OpenBSD is by sending patches - ideally
> small, incremental patches that work and are well tested, but when
> you get stuck, you can also send something like: "I hope to do
> FOOBAR, and here is what i have so far; the FOO part already seems
> to work in my preliminary testing, but i have doubts whether my
> approach to the BAR part is ideal.  Feedback is welcome."
> 
>> I admit I'm not the most knowledgeable about ipv6 so I was wondering if
>> there is any small place to start to contribute to spamd and build up
>> from there.
>> Hoping for some positive response.
> 
> Being able to learn on your own is among the key qualifications
> required to contribute to OpenBSD.  Learning by doing is recommended:
> First find an issue you would like to fix.  Good judgement of your
> own abilities is essential here: don't pick a task so much over
> your head that you have no chance of ever getting it done.  Picking
> something *slightly* more difficult than what you have experience
> with may be OK if you are willing to learn and can tolerate the
> frustration that unavoidably comes with the first try likely not
> being good enough for commit yet.  Then again, getting used to the
> the processes of sending patches, receiving feeback, and improving
> and re-sending the patches such that they get ready for commit may
> also require some effort, so it is not a bad idea to start with
> tasks you are absolutely sure you can easily manage, until you get
> used to the processes, then progress to more difficult stuff in order
> to learn and grow.
> 
> When asking questions, be as specific as possible, ideally showing
> specific patches or specific sequences of commands and asking
> specific questions about them.
> 
> Avoid questions similar to "what should i do" or "where should i
> start" or "is there a todo list".  That depends on what you are
> interested in and what your abilities are, and you need to know
> that yourself, no one else who doesn't know you personally can help
> you with that.
> 
> Sorry that i can't give you specifics about spamd(8), but your
> question wasn't very specific anyway.  In general, seamless IPv6
> support is welcome in OpenBSD, but i'm not sure about the requirements
> of spamd(8) in particular since i never used it nor worked on it.
> 
> Yours,
>   Ingo
> 

Re: Contributing to spamd

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Aisha,

Aisha Tammy wrote on Fri, Apr 03, 2020 at 08:54:22AM -0400:

>   I have been using spamd for quite a while and have been loving it.
> I've seen that spamd currently only supports ipv4 and have been
> wondering if it was possible to extend it to ipv6. I know that workforce
> is always limited so I wanted to know if there is anyway to contribute
> help towards this :)

The way to contribute to OpenBSD is by sending patches - ideally
small, incremental patches that work and are well tested, but when
you get stuck, you can also send something like: "I hope to do
FOOBAR, and here is what i have so far; the FOO part already seems
to work in my preliminary testing, but i have doubts whether my
approach to the BAR part is ideal.  Feedback is welcome."

> I admit I'm not the most knowledgeable about ipv6 so I was wondering if
> there is any small place to start to contribute to spamd and build up
> from there.
> Hoping for some positive response.

Being able to learn on your own is among the key qualifications
required to contribute to OpenBSD.  Learning by doing is recommended:
First find an issue you would like to fix.  Good judgement of your
own abilities is essential here: don't pick a task so much over
your head that you have no chance of ever getting it done.  Picking
something *slightly* more difficult than what you have experience
with may be OK if you are willing to learn and can tolerate the
frustration that unavoidably comes with the first try likely not
being good enough for commit yet.  Then again, getting used to the
the processes of sending patches, receiving feeback, and improving
and re-sending the patches such that they get ready for commit may
also require some effort, so it is not a bad idea to start with
tasks you are absolutely sure you can easily manage, until you get
used to the processes, then progress to more difficult stuff in order
to learn and grow.

When asking questions, be as specific as possible, ideally showing
specific patches or specific sequences of commands and asking
specific questions about them.

Avoid questions similar to "what should i do" or "where should i
start" or "is there a todo list".  That depends on what you are
interested in and what your abilities are, and you need to know
that yourself, no one else who doesn't know you personally can help
you with that.

Sorry that i can't give you specifics about spamd(8), but your
question wasn't very specific anyway.  In general, seamless IPv6
support is welcome in OpenBSD, but i'm not sure about the requirements
of spamd(8) in particular since i never used it nor worked on it.

Yours,
  Ingo

Re: contributing to open source

[Joe Nosay]

You are human and I appreciate that. I had to see it.
My apologies, I mean you no disrespect.
I appreciate that you only quoted what was necessary.
Again, my apologies, Warren, you are considerate of others.

We do need some code of conduct on both sides here. I'm willing to talk
things through.
I'll accept my "banishment" for the mean time.
It should be that the other party involved also have to pay "restitution
and fees" for this debacle.
I need some software built on PowerPC 32 bit. Perhaps one could convince
Tyler and a few others to make the packages.
I would consider that an apology for his foolishness.
I also need ardour, mixx, ffmpeg, lamemp3, sox, OSS, and a few others built
for sound on PowerPC/POWER 32/64.

They only have experience on the AMD64/i386 architectures. A few more POWER
and ARM hackers could be used and would be appreciated.
Finding the audience for the hardware/software combination is much easier
than you think. I'll give you a working example.

You'll need an omnidirectional microphone and four unidirectional
microphones set up together. The design is to have a central/unified part
and the standard four channel - left bass, left treble, right bass, right
treble - input for stereo. Attach the microphone to an ARM device running
Audacity on Debian or NetBSD for input and have an - or two if possible -
XFi card attached to record the raw sound.
Next, you would play the sound through a card on a PowerPC 64 and 32 setup
with Ardour. There would be a card and the OS would be FreeBSD. The kernel
hertz would need to be about 5000 for a dedicated sound system. Quick
response.
I would go for NetBSD on AMD64 for conversion with ffmpeg, lame mp3, sox,
and what ever else is available.
It would be finished with SPARC64 with OpenBSD for database.

There, you are using multiple architectures as they were meant to be used.

I have already shared this system design with a few people.

On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 6:35 PM, Warren Block  wrote:

> On Tue, 24 May 2016, Joe Nosay wrote:
>
> You see his reaction to me. That was disrespectful.
>>
>
> So what?  That does not justify threats.  Be an adult.
>
> If we were face to face in nature, would you treat me with such disdain
>> and disrespect?
>> And, Warren, would you want me to be as rude to you as Tyler was to me?
>> I do not make any assumptions about what a person's character is.
>>
>
> You have accused me and others of many things.  Some would take that as
> disrespect.  Yet nobody threatened you.
>
> Tyler, you may present your point of view from here, if you wish.
>>
>
> Or he can ignore you.  As you should have ignored him.  I am asking you to
> have the self-control to stop before this escalates further.  Please stop.
> Let this matter drop, and reconsider the way you see the world.

Re: Contributing

[Ryan Freeman]

On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 04:34:35PM -0800, andrew fabbro wrote:
 What about writing tutorials/articles?
 
 There's www.openbsdsupport.org which I believe is officially blessed though
 it doesn't look too active.  Probably for lack of people submitting
 articles :-)

www.openbsdsupport.org definitely isn't 'officially blessed' see here:


Note: The content published here in no way implies that the OpenBSD
project or any member of the OpenBSD team sanctions or approves of
such use. Do not complain to them if you find anything obsolete here.
If you do find it unusable, inexact, obsolete or simply bad, then your
help would be welcome to make it better. Send in your new document.


It doesn't look like its had much activity since 2012.

 Of course if you have a blog or web site you can write OpenBSD stuff for it.
 
 I know I've sometimes struggled with putting the pieces together where a
 step-by-step how to accomplish X with OpenBSD would have helped.  Just
 last week, Ted Unangst's what I wish I known before setting up OpenBSD on
 my Beagle Bone Black on his blog saved me a lot of time and frustration.

In general just blogging about stuff, especially when not fully understood
can be a bad thing.  The blog you mentioned by Mr Ted Unangst is different,
because he is actually a dev :)

Hope this helps clear up confusions, cheers!

-ryan

Re: contributing

[Juan J. Fernandez]

On 11/17/14 01:50, Ingo Schwarze wrote:

Hi Eric,

Eric Furman wrote on Sun, Nov 16, 2014 at 11:40:49PM -0500:


OpenBSD's man pages are fantastic, but one area I have
noticed that could be improved is that some entries could
benefit from having more and/or better examples of use.

That is true.  Not all manual pages are short of examples, but many
are, and some examples can be improved.  People knowing areas well
such that they can distinguish good usage from cumbersome idioms
and such that they know what is important are welcome to submit
patches.

If somebody with less experience has problems understanding some
particular aspect of some particular manual and thinks that an
example might help, saying so on this list can also be helpful
because people knowing an area well often overlook problems that
less experienced users may face.

Yours,
   Ingo



It's worth to note the author of a manual page may have considered not 
to include examples since it could mislead from the main documentation. 
In that case, the author should point to further and/or more detailed 
resources.



Juan J. Fernandez

Re: Contributing

[Jeremy]

To expand on this comment:

No, I am not a beginner.  I have run OpenBSD production servers since 2008.
This is why I feel it is important.

I mostly use them as web servers  file servers (samba).  I have felt like
I needed to give back for some time, but was unsure if I am qualified.

I did not intend to sow discord among this mailing list, and hope I haven't
asked an unhelpful question.

But thank you everyone for all of the suggestions. I will read them all
carefully.

-Jeremy



On Sun, Nov 16, 2014 at 8:52 AM, andrew fabbro and...@fabbro.org wrote:

 On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 9:50 PM, Ingo Schwarze schwa...@usta.de wrote:

  What about writing tutorials/articles?

 That is most definitely *not* a job for beginners.


 The thread starter did not describe himself as a beginner, just a
 non-programmer.  Since he was referring to old content on the web site,
 perhaps I'd erroneously assumed he was an experienced user.

 There are some people who don't speak C who've contributed excellent
 material.  For example, Michael Lucas self-describes himself as a
 non-C-programmer in his talks, yet Absolute OpenBSD is a great resources
 for users.  I was not advocating the here is a spellbook of magical
 incantations you can type into your terminal style of website that is
 popular in other communities nor that the blind lead the blind :-)

 I'm not sure how I formed the opinion openbsdsupport.org was blessed
 (probably someone's forum post somewhere) so thanks for the correction.

Re: Contributing

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Jeremy,

Jeremy wrote on Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 02:35:59PM -0500:
 On Sun, Nov 16, 2014 at 8:52 AM, andrew fabbro and...@fabbro.org wrote:
 On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 9:50 PM, Ingo Schwarze schwa...@usta.de wrote:

 What about writing tutorials/articles?

 That is most definitely *not* a job for beginners.

 The thread starter did not describe himself as a beginner,
 just a non-programmer.  [...]

 No, I am not a beginner.

I meant beginning contributor, not beginning user.
Beginning contributors usually are experienced users.

 I have felt like I needed to give back for some time,
 but was unsure if I am qualified.

Most people feel that way at first (even those later becoming senior
developers).  The only way to find out is to try - and if need be,
to *become* qualified in the process.

 I did not intend to sow discord among this mailing list,
 and hope I haven't asked an unhelpful question.

I hope i didn't sound discouraging, that wasn't my intent;
i merely wanted to caution that writing good tutorials is *much*
harder than most people think, so starting with easier tasks can
help avoid frustration.

I hope you do find a way to contribute that works for you,
there is certainly no lack of things that need to be done.

Yours,
  Ingo

Re: contributing

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Juan,

Juan J. Fernandez wrote on Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 03:11:51PM -0400:

 It's worth to note the author of a manual page may have considered
 not to include examples since it could mislead

You probably mean distract?

(I certainly agree that misleading examples should be deleted.)

 from the main documentation.  In that case, the author should point
 to further and/or more detailed resources.

I strongly disagree.

Having documentation in two places is not helpful - like, a manual
page that is unusable because it's incomplete and some other
resource (like a web site, info(1) file, or PDF document) that
is unusable because it's too wordy and takes too long to read.

The art of good reference documentation is to be complete and
concise, exact and comprehensible all at the same time and all in
the same place.

Yours,
  Ingo

Re: Contributing

[andrew fabbro]

On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 9:50 PM, Ingo Schwarze schwa...@usta.de wrote:

  What about writing tutorials/articles?

 That is most definitely *not* a job for beginners.


The thread starter did not describe himself as a beginner, just a
non-programmer.  Since he was referring to old content on the web site,
perhaps I'd erroneously assumed he was an experienced user.

There are some people who don't speak C who've contributed excellent
material.  For example, Michael Lucas self-describes himself as a
non-C-programmer in his talks, yet Absolute OpenBSD is a great resources
for users.  I was not advocating the here is a spellbook of magical
incantations you can type into your terminal style of website that is
popular in other communities nor that the blind lead the blind :-)

I'm not sure how I formed the opinion openbsdsupport.org was blessed
(probably someone's forum post somewhere) so thanks for the correction.

Re: Contributing

[Daniel Ouellet]

 I'm not sure how I formed the opinion openbsdsupport.org was blessed
 (probably someone's forum post somewhere) so thanks for the correction.

It never been blessed, it is a social experiment to prove a recurring
point that it doesn't work.

Many talked a bout it, none actually do the work.

Daniel

Re: Contributing

[Daniel Ouellet]

On 11/16/14 12:50 AM, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
 Hi Andrew,
 
 andrew fabbro wrote on Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 04:34:35PM -0800:
 
 What about writing tutorials/articles?

It's been a recuring talked before and just do not work.

 That is most definitely *not* a job for beginners.
 Writing good tutorials requires much more expertise and
 experience than writing reference documentation or
 hunting for bugs.
 
 There's www.openbsdsupport.org which I believe is officially blessed
 
 Not at all.  It is completely unofficial, i didn't even know about it,
 and a brief look gives me the impression that most of the content is
 probably completely outdated.  Besides, i haven't ever heard of most
 of the authors, so i doubt the content could be trusted in the first
 place.
 
 I'd strongly advise against using that site for anything.

Yes it is there as a proof of concept that is now going into it's 10th
years anniversary!

If you want to know why it was created look at the archive 10 years ago.
It's all there.

And the goal is clear on the site that it is suppose to be for people
like this that want to do documentation, but it NEVER go anywhere at all!

I did this to prove the point for the recurring talk here. It is not
working! Lots of talk and none last more then a few weeks at best and
the site prove it too!

And no again it is DEFINITELY NOT OFFICIAL like it said on it too!

 though it doesn't look too active.  Probably for lack of people
 submitting articles :-)

Nope.

 Of course if you have a blog or web site you can write OpenBSD
 stuff for it.

Not any different, but be my guess and prove me wrong. (:

 Please don't.  Beginners spreading misinformation across the web are
 not helping anybody.  If you think something could be added to the
 FAQ, submit it for inclusion and have it checked.  Don't publish
 random, unchecked stuff in random locations.

True man pages are the reference to use period. This site is more like a
social experiment to show how talk is cheap and actual work never go
anywhere. (:

 I know I've sometimes struggled with putting the pieces together where a
 step-by-step how to accomplish X with OpenBSD would have helped.  Just
 last week, Ted Unangst's what I wish I known before setting up OpenBSD on
 my Beagle Bone Black on his blog saved me a lot of time and frustration.
 
 Yes.  That is different.  If people who really know what they are doing
 prepare writeups, that can indeed be helpful.

Yes but I must say, they are very rare.

Daniel

Re: Contributing

[Eric Furman]

On Sun, Nov 16, 2014, at 12:50 AM, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
 Hi Andrew,
 
 andrew fabbro wrote on Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 04:34:35PM -0800:
 
  What about writing tutorials/articles?
 
 That is most definitely *not* a job for beginners.
 Writing good tutorials requires much more expertise and
 experience than writing reference documentation or
 hunting for bugs.
 
  There's www.openbsdsupport.org which I believe is officially blessed
 
 Not at all.  It is completely unofficial, i didn't even know about it,
 and a brief look gives me the impression that most of the content is
 probably completely outdated.  Besides, i haven't ever heard of most
 of the authors, so i doubt the content could be trusted in the first
 place.
 
 I'd strongly advise against using that site for anything.

You could submit something to undeadly.org.
BTW, is undeadly.org an official OBSD site?

Re: Contributing

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Eric,

Eric Furman wrote on Sun, Nov 16, 2014 at 09:18:06PM -0500:
 On Sun, Nov 16, 2014, at 12:50 AM, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
 andrew fabbro wrote on Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 04:34:35PM -0800:

 What about writing tutorials/articles?

 That is most definitely *not* a job for beginners.
 Writing good tutorials requires much more expertise and
 experience than writing reference documentation or
 hunting for bugs.

 There's www.openbsdsupport.org which I believe is officially blessed

 Not at all.  It is completely unofficial, i didn't even know about it,
 and a brief look gives me the impression that most of the content is
 probably completely outdated.  Besides, i haven't ever heard of most
 of the authors, so i doubt the content could be trusted in the first
 place.
 
 I'd strongly advise against using that site for anything.

 You could submit something to undeadly.org.

Sure, but note that it's a news portal, not a documentation repository.
It organizes content chronologically, not by topic, and it never
updates published content that gets outdated, so searching it for
documentation is relatively hard and likely to return outdated
stuff, in particular since it mostly reports on brand new things,
often before they have fully stabilized.

We strongly believe in the principle all documentation should be
in one place - to make it easy to find for users, easy to maintain
for developers, and easy to use by following a consistent style.
For reference documentation, that place is the manual pages.
For all other documentation that doesn't fit into manuals, that
place is the FAQ on the OpenBSD web site.

So, to improve documentation, submit patches to manual and FAQ
pages.  Don't put up your own documentation snippets, neither on
Undeadly nor elsewhere on the web.

 BTW, is undeadly.org an official OBSD site?

It is not a part of the OpenBSD project, but run by an independent
group of Undeadly Editors who review submissions and post them,
following a four-eye-principle for quality control.  Some of the
editors are also OpenBSD developers and many OpenBSD developers
submit content to Undeadly now and then.  Not all articles are
perfect, but neither are all commits.

In any case, the OpenBSD project encourages using Undeadly.
In particular, developers are encouraged to post hackathon
reports on Undeadly.

Yours,
  Ingo

Re: contributing

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Eric,

Eric Furman wrote on Sun, Nov 16, 2014 at 11:40:49PM -0500:

 OpenBSD's man pages are fantastic, but one area I have
 noticed that could be improved is that some entries could
 benefit from having more and/or better examples of use.

That is true.  Not all manual pages are short of examples, but many
are, and some examples can be improved.  People knowing areas well
such that they can distinguish good usage from cumbersome idioms
and such that they know what is important are welcome to submit
patches.

If somebody with less experience has problems understanding some
particular aspect of some particular manual and thinks that an
example might help, saying so on this list can also be helpful
because people knowing an area well often overlook problems that
less experienced users may face.

Yours,
  Ingo

Re: Contributing

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Jeremy,

Jeremy wrote on Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 06:33:57PM -0500:

 I very much believe the OpenBSD is important and needs support.
 I am not a programmer, and I do not have money to donate.
 What other ways are there to contribute?

In addition to what Ted said, one other way is to help improving
the documentation.  Programming skills definitely help with that,
in particular the ability to *read* (not necessarily write) C code,
but some things can be done without or with little coding skills.

This is less trivial than it seems because most aspects of the
manuals already are of good quality and there is an unwritten house
style to observe.  But there definitely are lots of things that need
doing (occasional missing or wrong information, inconsistent markup,
outdated standards compliance info in sections 2 and 3, some programs
lack mdoc manuals, lots of missing HISTORY and AUTHORS information,
and more, some of what is not very accessible to beginners).

Actually, hunting for code bugs as Ted suggested and hunting for
documentation bugs can be done at the same time.  Chances are
reports of presumed doc bugs will actually result in code commits
and vice versa.  Just find something that looks broken, submit
patches and learn from the feedback.  At first, expect that only
a minority of your patches result in direct commits - until you
understand the system quite well and the quality of your patches
improves accordingly.

Yours,
  Ingo

Re: Contributing

[Jeremiah Ford]

Thanks everyone.  These sound like good places for me to start.

-Original Message-
From: Ingo Schwarze schwa...@usta.de
Sent: ‎11/‎15/‎2014 5:47 AM
To: Jeremy dyr...@gmail.com
Cc: misc@openbsd.org misc@openbsd.org
Subject: Re: Contributing

Hi Jeremy,

Jeremy wrote on Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 06:33:57PM -0500:

 I very much believe the OpenBSD is important and needs support.
 I am not a programmer, and I do not have money to donate.
 What other ways are there to contribute?

In addition to what Ted said, one other way is to help improving
the documentation.  Programming skills definitely help with that,
in particular the ability to *read* (not necessarily write) C code,
but some things can be done without or with little coding skills.

This is less trivial than it seems because most aspects of the
manuals already are of good quality and there is an unwritten house
style to observe.  But there definitely are lots of things that need
doing (occasional missing or wrong information, inconsistent markup,
outdated standards compliance info in sections 2 and 3, some programs
lack mdoc manuals, lots of missing HISTORY and AUTHORS information,
and more, some of what is not very accessible to beginners).

Actually, hunting for code bugs as Ted suggested and hunting for
documentation bugs can be done at the same time.  Chances are
reports of presumed doc bugs will actually result in code commits
and vice versa.  Just find something that looks broken, submit
patches and learn from the feedback.  At first, expect that only
a minority of your patches result in direct commits - until you
understand the system quite well and the quality of your patches
improves accordingly.

Yours,
  Ingo

Re: Contributing

[andrew fabbro]

What about writing tutorials/articles?

There's www.openbsdsupport.org which I believe is officially blessed though
it doesn't look too active.  Probably for lack of people submitting
articles :-)

Of course if you have a blog or web site you can write OpenBSD stuff for it.

I know I've sometimes struggled with putting the pieces together where a
step-by-step how to accomplish X with OpenBSD would have helped.  Just
last week, Ted Unangst's what I wish I known before setting up OpenBSD on
my Beagle Bone Black on his blog saved me a lot of time and frustration.

Re: Contributing

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Andrew,

andrew fabbro wrote on Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 04:34:35PM -0800:

 What about writing tutorials/articles?

That is most definitely *not* a job for beginners.
Writing good tutorials requires much more expertise and
experience than writing reference documentation or
hunting for bugs.

 There's www.openbsdsupport.org which I believe is officially blessed

Not at all.  It is completely unofficial, i didn't even know about it,
and a brief look gives me the impression that most of the content is
probably completely outdated.  Besides, i haven't ever heard of most
of the authors, so i doubt the content could be trusted in the first
place.

I'd strongly advise against using that site for anything.

 though it doesn't look too active.  Probably for lack of people
 submitting articles :-)
 
 Of course if you have a blog or web site you can write OpenBSD
 stuff for it.

Please don't.  Beginners spreading misinformation across the web are
not helping anybody.  If you think something could be added to the
FAQ, submit it for inclusion and have it checked.  Don't publish
random, unchecked stuff in random locations.

 I know I've sometimes struggled with putting the pieces together where a
 step-by-step how to accomplish X with OpenBSD would have helped.  Just
 last week, Ted Unangst's what I wish I known before setting up OpenBSD on
 my Beagle Bone Black on his blog saved me a lot of time and frustration.

Yes.  That is different.  If people who really know what they are doing
prepare writeups, that can indeed be helpful.

Yours,
  Ingo

Re: Contributing

[ian kremlin]

If you are fluent in two or more languages you might be able to help
out with translations. Bug-hunting (with proper reporting habits!) is
always appreciated too.

On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 6:33 PM, Jeremy dyr...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hello,

 I very much believe the OpenBSD is important and needs support. I am not a
 programmer, and I do not have money to donate. What other ways are there to
 contribute?

 I remember the website used to list ways to contribute in various ways, but
 I can only seem to find monetary donations on the website now.

 Could someone kindly steer me in the correct direction.

 -Jeremy

Re: Contributing

[Ted Unangst]

On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 18:37, ian kremlin wrote:
 If you are fluent in two or more languages you might be able to help
 out with translations. Bug-hunting (with proper reporting habits!) is
 always appreciated too.

I think the translation effort is dead. Better to help out by teaching
English to those who don't know it. :)

 I very much believe the OpenBSD is important and needs support. I am not a
 programmer, and I do not have money to donate. What other ways are there to
 contribute?

 I remember the website used to list ways to contribute in various ways, but
 I can only seem to find monetary donations on the website now.

Testing. I think people get caught up in what to test or how to
test, but it's pretty simple. Use OpenBSD for whatever you want to
use it for. The more people just using it, the more likely it will
just work for others too.

Or pick a random program out of /usr/bin. Read the man page. Do you
know what it does or are you confused?

Re: Contributing

[ag@gmail]

 On Nov 14, 2014, at 4:24 PM, Ted Unangst t...@tedunangst.com wrote:
 
 On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 18:37, ian kremlin wrote:
 If you are fluent in two or more languages you might be able to help
 out with translations. Bug-hunting (with proper reporting habits!) is
 always appreciated too.
 
 I think the translation effort is dead. Better to help out by teaching
 English to those who don't know it. :)

Yeah, that nicely sums up the l10n efforts. No offense to non-English speakers 
(I am too), but I feel the time spent in i18n and l10n efforts can be better 
utilized someone else. Heck, it's easy to learn English than aim for all 
language support.

 
 I very much believe the OpenBSD is important and needs support. I am not a
 programmer, and I do not have money to donate. What other ways are there to
 contribute?
 
 I remember the website used to list ways to contribute in various ways, but
 I can only seem to find monetary donations on the website now.
 
 Testing. I think people get caught up in what to test or how to
 test, but it's pretty simple. Use OpenBSD for whatever you want to
 use it for. The more people just using it, the more likely it will
 just work for others too.
 
 Or pick a random program out of /usr/bin. Read the man page. Do you
 know what it does or are you confused?

That's the best way to start.

-Amarendra

Re: Contributing to OpenBSD documentation

[Stuart Henderson]

On 2014-06-03, Enric Morales li...@enric.me wrote:
 Hi Mark, Anders,

 On 03 Jun 2014 12:40, Marc Espie wrote:
 Find stuff that doesn't work properly and figure out what's going on.
 
 Even without code, complete *reproduceable* bug reports are invaluable
 resources.
 
 (hint: anything that dumps cores is a bug).

 I too was trying to find areas where I can help. The first one was
 buying a couple of T-shirts (i just received an opensource-ami and a
 wireframe blowfish) but thanks to your message, Mark, I'll send some
 core dumps I had lying around. Specifically, firefox and some other apps
 were coredumping quite often (not sure the coredumps can be tied to
 OpenBSD, though), but I'll surely keep an eye on that.

sending core dumps isn't going to help anything .. using them with
gdb on your own system to get additional information to help track
down bugs is helpful (getting a backtrace is a good start), delving
deeper needs a bit more programming knowledge but it's actually
quite easy to get started, at least with bugs in simpler programs.

What is much more helpful is working out what conditions trigger
the crash and writing them up so that somebody else can replicate it...

Re: Contributing to OpenBSD documentation

[Marc Espie]

On Tue, Jun 03, 2014 at 08:28:42PM +1000, Anders Østergaard Jensen-Waud wrote:
 * Translate OpenBSD manuals/FAQ/documentation to Danish/Scandinavian
 (I am Danish)
 * Help out with some of the existing documentation or fill gaps where required
 * Something completely different

Find stuff that doesn't work properly and figure out what's going on.

Even without code, complete *reproduceable* bug reports are invaluable
resources.

(hint: anything that dumps cores is a bug).

Pretty soon, you'll find you can actually dive into code and figure things
out.

Also, working on ports has a lower entry barrier than some other parts of
the system...

Re: Contributing to OpenBSD documentation

[Enric Morales]

Hi Mark, Anders,

On 03 Jun 2014 12:40, Marc Espie wrote:
 Find stuff that doesn't work properly and figure out what's going on.
 
 Even without code, complete *reproduceable* bug reports are invaluable
 resources.
 
 (hint: anything that dumps cores is a bug).

I too was trying to find areas where I can help. The first one was
buying a couple of T-shirts (i just received an opensource-ami and a
wireframe blowfish) but thanks to your message, Mark, I'll send some
core dumps I had lying around. Specifically, firefox and some other apps
were coredumping quite often (not sure the coredumps can be tied to
OpenBSD, though), but I'll surely keep an eye on that.

Cheers,


-- 
Enric Morales
li...@enric.me

Re: Contributing and Shame [Was: Lenovo notebooks?]

[Breen Ouellette]

Otto Moerbeek wrote:

On Sat, 28 Oct 2006, Breen Ouellette wrote:
I honestly do not know as I do not have access to the size of the 
user base

nor the financial needs of the project. If 5000 users gave $100 per year to
the project that would be half a million dollars. Are there 5000 users? Is
half a million per year more or less than the project earns now? Half a
million seems like a lot, but it only represents 10 developers on a yearly
salary of $50,000, and I personally feel that there are  developers that are
worth at least that much for a full time contribution. Do the paid developers
currently take more or less salary to work full time on OpenBSD? How much of
the yearly budget needs to go toward hardware purchases? Operating expenses?
Does Revenue Canada get its dirty little fingers into this? There are too many
unknown variables to answer this.



There is one known factor, though: almost all developers work as
volunteers, the project does not pay salaries (there have been
exceptions, but I'm talking about the current situation). Some
developers work for companies and do OpenBSD (related) stuff in their
work time, but in general, developers work in their spare time.  The
exception being Theo, of course. 


That is why I went with what I believe is a fairly conservative number 
for the user base, although it is a wild guess. But it seems that 5000 
people could make an impressive difference to project funding if they 
were so inclined to donate a mediocre amount on a yearly basis.


Based on the DARPA funding days, did having more developers on salary 
help the situation? There comes a point where throwing money at a 
problem doesn't help anymore, but I have never seen a concrete financial 
goal for OpenBSD so I don't know if there is one. Perhaps a donations 
thermometer on the front page, with appropriate links to Project Goals 
or Donations listing specifics of how additionally raised funding will 
be applied, would give some people more incentive to donate. This kind 
of thing can light a fire under some people.


I would equate it to the vendor mailing campaigns. A lot of us wouldn't 
write emails if Theo didn't tell us where to send them. Once he provides 
a direction, though, the emails start flying. Maybe the same would be 
true with money! It seems like a fairly low impact way to try and boost 
donations, at any rate.


Breeno

PS - This topic came up back in 2003, but the thread degenerated into an 
argument about 'selling printed copies of the BSD license on shiny paper 
for $500 a pop'. The point was also made that some people will not 
change their donating habits if there is a donation meter. I actually 
fall into that category. However, I am open to the idea that not 
everyone falls into that category, just as not everyone falls into the 
CD-buyer category. Some people need a little convincing - which a meter 
plus goals might achieve. Since this is squarely in Theo's court - sorry 
in advance if this is still an idea that you have no interest in 
implementing.

Re: Contributing and Shame [Was: Lenovo notebooks?]

[Tobias Weingartner]

In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Breen Ouellette wrote:
 
  I feel that if the user base can meet the financial needs of the project 
  then the user base is doing its part. Unfortunately, I know of several 
  people who use OpenBSD that will never send in a flat penny. These are 
  the same people that have 2TB of disk space on their main desktop, 
  running a pirated copy of Windows XP, with 2000 CDs and DVDs of pirated 
  music and movies sitting on their bookshelf. They feel that everything 
  that isn't nailed down should be free.

I believe that you mean they feel that anything that is not nailed down
is free to be stolen.  There is quite the chasm between free and stolen
property.

--Toby.

Re: Contributing and Shame [Was: Lenovo notebooks?]

[Breen Ouellette]

Tobias Weingartner wrote:

In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Breen Ouellette wrote:
  
 I feel that if the user base can meet the financial needs of the project 
 then the user base is doing its part. Unfortunately, I know of several 
 people who use OpenBSD that will never send in a flat penny. These are 
 the same people that have 2TB of disk space on their main desktop, 
 running a pirated copy of Windows XP, with 2000 CDs and DVDs of pirated 
 music and movies sitting on their bookshelf. They feel that everything 
 that isn't nailed down should be free.



I believe that you mean they feel that anything that is not nailed down
is free to be stolen.  There is quite the chasm between free and stolen
property.


Indeed. That sums up the attitude very nicely.

Breeno

Re: Contributing and Shame [Was: Lenovo notebooks?]

[Otto Moerbeek]

On Sat, 28 Oct 2006, Breen Ouellette wrote:

 Eliah Kagan wrote:
  That would still be most OpenBSD users, wouldn't it?
 
 I honestly do not know as I do not have access to the size of the user base
 nor the financial needs of the project. If 5000 users gave $100 per year to
 the project that would be half a million dollars. Are there 5000 users? Is
 half a million per year more or less than the project earns now? Half a
 million seems like a lot, but it only represents 10 developers on a yearly
 salary of $50,000, and I personally feel that there are  developers that are
 worth at least that much for a full time contribution. Do the paid developers
 currently take more or less salary to work full time on OpenBSD? How much of
 the yearly budget needs to go toward hardware purchases? Operating expenses?
 Does Revenue Canada get its dirty little fingers into this? There are too many
 unknown variables to answer this.

There is one known factor, though: almost all developers work as
volunteers, the project does not pay salaries (there have been
exceptions, but I'm talking about the current situation). Some
developers work for companies and do OpenBSD (related) stuff in their
work time, but in general, developers work in their spare time.  The
exception being Theo, of course. 

-Otto

Re: Contributing and Shame [Was: Lenovo notebooks?]

[Eliah Kagan]

On 10/28/06, Breen Ouellette wrote:

The shame enters the picture when you place expectations for additional
output from the people giving freely. I see people griping all the time
for this or that feature, or support for this or that hardware. I see
this from people who contribute nothing and never will.


I see what you're saying. On the other hand, I'm not sure the shame is
less justified when people who do contribute place expectations for
additional output from the people giving freely. In fact, whether or
not such a person donates seems totally irrelevant to their placement
of unjustified expectations.


People complain
that certain hardware is not supported very well, but have they ever
written even one email to the vendor demanding open documentation? These
people should be ashamed, but of course they never will.


These people should be ashamed (if indeed it is ever true to say that
someone *should* experience some emotion...which it is not) because
they fail to exercise their own autonomy, instead begging others who
they see as being in positions of authority to magically fix the
situation. This has nothing to do with loyalty or duty to the OpenBSD
project, monetary or otherwise.

-Eliah

Re: Contributing and Shame [Was: Lenovo notebooks?]

[Breen Ouellette]

Eliah Kagan wrote:

On 10/28/06, Breen Ouellette wrote:

The shame enters the picture when you place expectations for additional
output from the people giving freely. I see people griping all the time
for this or that feature, or support for this or that hardware. I see
this from people who contribute nothing and never will.


I see what you're saying. On the other hand, I'm not sure the shame is
less justified when people who do contribute place expectations for
additional output from the people giving freely. In fact, whether or
not such a person donates seems totally irrelevant to their placement
of unjustified expectations.


I agree with that totally. I just haven't encountered a person who 
donates and treats it as a 'fee for future services', although I imagine 
such people must exist. I am certain they would be shamed on the lists.





People complain
that certain hardware is not supported very well, but have they ever
written even one email to the vendor demanding open documentation? These
people should be ashamed, but of course they never will.


These people should be ashamed (if indeed it is ever true to say that
someone *should* experience some emotion...which it is not) because
they fail to exercise their own autonomy, instead begging others who
they see as being in positions of authority to magically fix the
situation. This has nothing to do with loyalty or duty to the OpenBSD
project, monetary or otherwise.


I disagree with this because OpenBSD developers have made their goals 
clear, and magically fixing every problem thrown their way, especially 
fixes for lazy/stupid problems, is not one of those goals.


However, I often see Linux or FreeBSD people writing about capturing a 
larger user base by being receptive to the user base needs, and talking 
as if they have to bend over backwards to try and accommodate user 
requests to grow market share. I don't feel that Linux users whining and 
complaining about 'missing' (aka unnecessary, superfluous) features is 
shameful behaviour because it seems to be expected behaviour in these 
communities, or at least segments of these communities.


I also disagree with your position because shame is not just a feeling - 
it is also an action. Since shame may be inflicted by a community at 
large on individuals which go against the culture of that community, it 
is within reason to say that the behaviour we have been discussing is 
shameful in the OpenBSD community. When someone comes in and complains 
about something unreasonable to the OpenBSD community at large they are 
often publicly shamed on these lists.


That same behaviour of expecting magic fixes, if it were applied to a 
larger community like that of North America (sorry if you aren't from 
this continent), would not be shameful in the least. People in North 
American culture whine and complain for fixes from higher authorities 
(governments, legal systems, corporations, gods, employers, unions, and 
on and on) all the time without being shamed by those around them. In 
fact, in most cases those around them agree wholeheartedly. How many 
people in North America are proactive in their daily lives? I believe 
the number is very few.


In my wife's home town in mainland China there is a plaque on the 
temple. It lists the names of the heads of every household in the town 
and how much money has been donated by that family for the upkeep of the 
temple. Those who donate little to nothing are shamed by others in the 
town. People will refuse to talk to them, or do business with them, or 
help them in any way. They are called names and ridiculed where ever 
they go. It is a powerful incentive for people to donate for the upkeep 
of the temple, and people will put themselves in debt to make payments 
and avoid the shame. It works so well that it is dysfunctional.


Should people who do not contribute to OpenBSD be shamed in this manner? 
Probably not. It seems to lead to very insular communities with serious 
problems (at least from what I have seen in China). However, if we 
define new ways to shame those who deserve it, beyond badmouthing them 
on this list, it could be beneficial to the OpenBSD project. Theo has 
shown some success in shaming companies about their restrictive 
policies. Perhaps there are other ways to use shaming to the advantage 
of the project. Of course, it is a dangerous tool and could become a 
major problem for the project as well.


Breeno

Re: Contributing and Shame [Was: Lenovo notebooks?]

[Eliah Kagan]

On 10/28/06, Breen Ouellette wrote:

That same behaviour of expecting magic fixes, if it were applied to a
larger community like that of North America (sorry if you aren't from
this continent), would not be shameful in the least. People in North
American culture whine and complain for fixes from higher authorities
(governments, legal systems, corporations, gods, employers, unions, and
on and on) all the time without being shamed by those around them. In
fact, in most cases those around them agree wholeheartedly. How many
people in North America are proactive in their daily lives? I believe
the number is very few.


Is your position then that people in North Americans who are not
proactive in their daily lives should not be ashamed, because they act
in accordance with the cultural expectations of their society?


[...] if we
define new ways to shame those who deserve it, beyond badmouthing them
on this list, it could be beneficial to. the OpenBSD project. Theo has
shown some success in shaming companies about their restrictive
policies.


It seems to me that he has shown some success in convincing companies
(rather, the people who control companies) that it is in their
interest to change their restrictive policies. It is not clear to me
that shame, whether the emotion or the action, has anything to do with
it.


Perhaps there are other ways to use shaming to the advantage
of the project. Of course, it is a dangerous tool and could become a
major problem for the project as well.


Perhaps so. I would say that perhaps there are ways to using shaming
to the advantage of the project, since I am not convinced that anyone
ha used shaming to the advantage of the project so far. It seems to me
that the primary effect of shaming on the lists has been to convince
people that it is in their interests to oppose the OpenBSD project.
Arguably, shaming people on the lists has the positive effect of
underscoring that the OpenBSD project doesn't embrace the kind of
niceness that has become associated with ideologically hypocritical
(or ideologically non-serious) software ventures. But this positive
impact, if real, is not a result of shaming per se.

Another possibility is that shaming people has an effect on OpenBSD
similar to the effect of recreational drug use on many rock artists.
(Highly idealized example follows.) Being perceived as correlated with
success, some artists might think that it results in or aids success,
which might be true under some rare, highly specialized
circumstances--for instance, it might inspire some compositions. But
in actuality, other factors tend to account for success, and the drug
use mostly interferes both by taking up time better used for other
ventures and by impairing the acts of practice and performance. Such
rock artists may believe that their drug use leads people to like them
and act in accordance with their goals, which is sometimes true, but
probably doesn't outweigh the negative effects--and often people who
like them and/or act in accordance with their goals do it in spite of
the drug use, rather than because of it. And many people, many of them
other rock artists or people valuable to rock artists in their
advancement of artistic (and sometimes political, and sometimes
economic) goals, simply disregard such rock artists as not worth their
time.

Due to lack of information and experience, I do not consider myself
competent to evaluate any of these suggestions definitively. But
perhaps some people here could.

-Eliah

Re: Contributing and Shame [Was: Lenovo notebooks?]

[ropers]

On 29/10/06, Breen Ouellette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


I don't feel that Linux users whining and
complaining about 'missing' (aka unnecessary, superfluous) features is
shameful behaviour because it seems to be expected behaviour in these
communities, or at least segments of these communities.


With every issue one has, there are two aspects:
0. Getting your own problem fixed.
1. Getting the general problem fixed.

IMHO people who see (0) as an instantiation of (1) and who are
primarily interested in (1) don't deserve shame. People who are only
ever interested in (0) may deserve to be shamed.
Focussing on (1) can take many forms: submitting useful information,
problem reports, diffs, financial contributions, etc., and people who
are genuinely interested in (1) will generally do what they can (but
their abilities may be limited).

With OpenBSD, the documentation is so good and there is so little
dumbing down of the interface (none, actually, AFAICT), that there
isn't any reason or excuse to whine.
With Linux, getting to the point where you can do (1) often is
considerably harder, especially for non-programmers. Whining can
indeed be a necessary step along the way to (1) there. I have whined
in Linux fora. I hope that no one thinks I'm whining here.

--ropers