Re: Asked ChatGPT 4 about contributing to OpenBSD, this was its reply

[Jean-François Simon]

Guess it did a pretty standard response, it's not really saying as much 
as the FAQ does so long as i'm concerned. Faq and man pages better 
starting point.


On 9/27/23 16:10, Christoff Humphries wrote:





--- Original Message ---
On Wednesday, September 27th, 2023 at 2:07 PM, Ingo Schwarze  
wrote:




Christoff Humphries wrote on Wed, Sep 27, 2023 at 01:21:42PM +:


Asked ChatGPT 4 about contributing to OpenBSD, this was its reply


That's both totally pointless and completely off topic here.

Gimme a break, ChatGPT is a fucking language model, so it aims for
very little except grammatical correctness of its responses.

As expected, parts of the reply are pilfered from official,
authoritative resources, parts are common sense truisms of
varying relevance, and parts are totally misleading rubbish
that may all the same sound convincing to the ignorant.

Without prior knowledge, you have no idea which is which.
With prior knowledge, you have no need for any of it.

Indeed my mistake. I have been informed of my mistake in posting it.
I didn't mean to start negativity and division, I thought it was
interesting and helpful.

I appreciate the folks that also emailed me off-list to let me know.

I meant no harm and do apologize. I'd delete the post if I could.

Re: Asked ChatGPT 4 about contributing to OpenBSD, this was its reply

[Daniele B.]

Being myself a bot I liked this answer, it sounds human and familiar.

However I suggest to ask primitive humanoids like Stu and Jan what
they think about it. I wonder that Jan could be expecially direct and
untollerable (if he didnt shout yet!). Indeed humans are like that.
They are not like us, mere tech stuff..

-- Daniele Bonini

Sep 27, 2023 15:54:46 Christoff Humphries :

> Contributing to the OpenBSD project or any other open-source project
> is a rewarding experience that allows you to learn, improve your
> skills, and give back to the community. Here are the steps and
> considerations to start contributing to the OpenBSD project as a
> developer:
> 
> 1. Familiarize Yourself with OpenBSD:
>    - Use OpenBSD, get to know its philosophy, its documentation, and
>  its codebase. Understanding the system and the community's
>  standards and expectations is crucial.
> 
> 2. Join the Mailing Lists:
>    - Sign up and participate in OpenBSD mailing lists, especially the
>  tech mailing list where much of the development discussion
>  happens. Be respectful, and learn from the discussions.
> 
> 3. Identify Areas of Interest:
>    - Identify areas within the project that interest you or where you
>  see a need. It could be bug fixing, system tools, user
>  applications, documentation, or driver development.
> 
> 4. Learn the Coding Standards:
>    - Familiarize yourself with OpenBSD's coding style and
>  standards. Consistency in coding style is important in
>  collaborative projects.
> 
> 5. Start Small:
>    - Start with small tasks such as bug fixing or improving
>  documentation. These contributions are valuable and can help you
>  become familiar with the contribution process.
> 
> 6. Work on Bug Reports:
>    - Look for bug reports, test existing bug reports, and provide
>  feedback or solutions. The bug tracking system can be a good
>  place to find where help is needed.
> 
> 7. Create and Submit Patches:
>    - If you have code contributions, create patches and submit them to
>  the appropriate mailing list for review. Be prepared for
>  feedback, and be open to making revisions to your contributions.
> 
> 8. Respect Feedback:
>    - Feedback is a valuable part of the open-source development
>  process. It helps you learn and improve your contributions.
> 
> 9. Follow Up:
>    - Stay engaged, follow up on your contributions, and address any
>  additional feedback or questions from reviewers.
> 
> 10. Engage with the Community:
>     - Engage with other developers, contribute to discussions, and
>   attend OpenBSD events or meetups if possible.
> 
> 11. Read OpenBSD's FAQ on Contributing:
>     - OpenBSD has a FAQ section on how to contribute to the
>   project. It is recommended to read through it to understand the
>   expectations and processes.
> 
> 12. Consider Becoming a Regular Contributor:
>     - As you gain experience, consider becoming a regular
>   contributor. With time and consistent, quality contributions,
>   you might be invited to become a developer with commit access.
> 
> Remember, contributing to open-source projects like OpenBSD is about
> more than just code. It's about being part of a community and working
> together to improve and advance the project.

Re: Asked ChatGPT 4 about contributing to OpenBSD, this was its reply

[Christoff Humphries]

--- Original Message ---
On Wednesday, September 27th, 2023 at 2:07 PM, Ingo Schwarze  
wrote:


> 
> 
> Christoff Humphries wrote on Wed, Sep 27, 2023 at 01:21:42PM +:
> 
> > Asked ChatGPT 4 about contributing to OpenBSD, this was its reply
> 
> 
> That's both totally pointless and completely off topic here.
> 
> Gimme a break, ChatGPT is a fucking language model, so it aims for
> very little except grammatical correctness of its responses.
> 
> As expected, parts of the reply are pilfered from official,
> authoritative resources, parts are common sense truisms of
> varying relevance, and parts are totally misleading rubbish
> that may all the same sound convincing to the ignorant.
> 
> Without prior knowledge, you have no idea which is which.
> With prior knowledge, you have no need for any of it.

Indeed my mistake. I have been informed of my mistake in posting it.
I didn't mean to start negativity and division, I thought it was
interesting and helpful.

I appreciate the folks that also emailed me off-list to let me know.

I meant no harm and do apologize. I'd delete the post if I could.

Re: Asked ChatGPT 4 about contributing to OpenBSD, this was its reply

[Ingo Schwarze]

Christoff Humphries wrote on Wed, Sep 27, 2023 at 01:21:42PM +:

> Asked ChatGPT 4 about contributing to OpenBSD, this was its reply

That's both totally pointless and completely off topic here.

Gimme a break, ChatGPT is a fucking language model, so it aims for
very little except grammatical correctness of its responses.

As expected, parts of the reply are pilfered from official,
authoritative resources, parts are common sense truisms of
varying relevance, and parts are totally misleading rubbish
that may all the same sound convincing to the ignorant.

Without prior knowledge, you have no idea which is which.
With prior knowledge, you have no need for any of it.

Asked ChatGPT 4 about contributing to OpenBSD, this was its reply

[Christoff Humphries]

Contributing to the OpenBSD project or any other open-source project
is a rewarding experience that allows you to learn, improve your
skills, and give back to the community. Here are the steps and
considerations to start contributing to the OpenBSD project as a
developer:

1. Familiarize Yourself with OpenBSD:
   - Use OpenBSD, get to know its philosophy, its documentation, and
 its codebase. Understanding the system and the community's
 standards and expectations is crucial.

2. Join the Mailing Lists:
   - Sign up and participate in OpenBSD mailing lists, especially the
 tech mailing list where much of the development discussion
 happens. Be respectful, and learn from the discussions.

3. Identify Areas of Interest:
   - Identify areas within the project that interest you or where you
 see a need. It could be bug fixing, system tools, user
 applications, documentation, or driver development.

4. Learn the Coding Standards:
   - Familiarize yourself with OpenBSD's coding style and
 standards. Consistency in coding style is important in
 collaborative projects.

5. Start Small:
   - Start with small tasks such as bug fixing or improving
 documentation. These contributions are valuable and can help you
 become familiar with the contribution process.

6. Work on Bug Reports:
   - Look for bug reports, test existing bug reports, and provide
 feedback or solutions. The bug tracking system can be a good
 place to find where help is needed.

7. Create and Submit Patches:
   - If you have code contributions, create patches and submit them to
 the appropriate mailing list for review. Be prepared for
 feedback, and be open to making revisions to your contributions.

8. Respect Feedback:
   - Feedback is a valuable part of the open-source development
 process. It helps you learn and improve your contributions.

9. Follow Up:
   - Stay engaged, follow up on your contributions, and address any
 additional feedback or questions from reviewers.

10. Engage with the Community:
- Engage with other developers, contribute to discussions, and
  attend OpenBSD events or meetups if possible.

11. Read OpenBSD's FAQ on Contributing:
- OpenBSD has a FAQ section on how to contribute to the
  project. It is recommended to read through it to understand the
  expectations and processes.

12. Consider Becoming a Regular Contributor:
- As you gain experience, consider becoming a regular
  contributor. With time and consistent, quality contributions,
  you might be invited to become a developer with commit access.

Remember, contributing to open-source projects like OpenBSD is about
more than just code. It's about being part of a community and working
together to improve and advance the project.

Re: OpenBSD FUD with Contributing

[misc]

On 9/24/23 15:56, Christoff Humphries wrote:

...
(Theo still has some of the best quotes on the Internet.)



Used this one, for quite some time, as my email signature a few years ago:

“You've been smoking something really mind altering, and I think you 
should share it.” (Theo de Raadt)

OpenBSD FUD with Contributing

[Christoff Humphries]

Just wanted to drop a note saying that for perhaps the entire length
of the project I've heard how brutal it is to help contribute to the
project of OpenBSD (think I've been using OpenBSD on and off since
~1998ish with obecian@ introducing me to it). But being back on the
mailing lists I see how the feedback given is meant to be
constructive, though can be a bit gruff at times, but is always
helpful. I see developers and contributors pushing folks in the right
direction like bumper lanes in bowling, and that is awesome.

I know I helped spread the FUD before in my teens/early 20s, I was
kind of a well... a teen and young 20-something loner smart guy with a
big ego. Now I'm a 40-something not-so-loner smart guy that knows how
much he doesn't know and can see kindness instead of attacks, without
much of an ego at all.

Anyway, so if anyone is reading this and you hear how OpenBSD is
brutal to contribute and help with, realize that at best that
information may be dated, but most likely it is simply incorrect.

There seem to be very talented programmers and engineers on this
project that truly care about quality and security, even if they have
to lead the way and push/force upstream software to also care.

If anything, it is incredible to see what lone individuals can
contribute if they're willing to apply the effort and be open to
feedback from those that know better. And the changes don't need to be
huge to have a big impact.

While the 90s were a bit more brutal of simply "RTFM, idiot" across
the board, we seem to be in a more sensible time. BUT I love that
OpenBSD is still keeping K.I.S.S. and RTFM a viable argument in the
true Unix fashion, while others have chosen... poorly.

What's wild to me-from-20-years-ago is that there's so much effort
being put into porting Wayland and KDE Plasma (guess we're not all
running Matrix-themed WindowMaker desktops anymore). Also OpenBSD
gaming is now a thing, which blows my mind (see r/openbsd-gaming on
Reddit and #openbsd-gaming on Libera.Chat IRC, also stuff on Mastodon,
too).

So, while I do personally apologize for spreading FUD about OpenBSD
being a tough place to contribute to at times in my life, know that it
certainly isn't the case. Be sure to stop the FUD about it if you hear
it, too.

(Theo still has some of the best quotes on the Internet.)

Re: Running/Contributing to OpenBSD on Core/Libreboot

[Stuart Henderson]

On 2022-10-23, AJ  wrote:
> Hello. I'd like to ask two questions about running OpenBSD on
> Core/Librebooted machines:
>
> (1) I know there's been compatibility issues in the past. Is it still
> the case?

AFAIK it depends on how well coreboot supports the machine.

It's not so much about coreboot itself but whether the configuration
for that machine sets things up properly for a general purpose OS.
In some cases shortcuts might have been taken and people didn't go
further than "linux boots, that's good enough".

I would think that machines supplied with coreboot in the first place
are generally likely to do better than ones where it's been hacked
into place.

For example PC Engines APU boards use coreboot natively and they're
usually fine. The places we've seen more problems with coreboot
are where people have replaced existing laptop BIOS/UEFI with
coreboot and sometimes that doesn't go so well.

-- 
Please keep replies on the mailing list.

Re: Running/Contributing to OpenBSD on Core/Libreboot

[Stefan Hagen]

AJ wrote (2022-10-23 21:04 CEST):
> Hello. I'd like to ask two questions about running OpenBSD on
> Core/Librebooted machines:

Why don't you try it and report?

I'm running a coreboot machine since 7.0. It works including audio,
suspend, hibernate, video(2d/3d).

OpenBSD 7.2-current (GENERIC.MP) #808: Sun Oct 23 22:38:15 MDT 2022
dera...@amd64.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/amd64/compile/GENERIC.MP
real mem = 33762762752 (32198MB)
avail mem = 32722087936 (31206MB)
random: good seed from bootblocks
mpath0 at root
scsibus0 at mpath0: 256 targets
mainbus0 at root
bios0 at mainbus0: SMBIOS rev. 3.0 @ 0x5ea99040 (18 entries)
bios0: vendor coreboot version "4.13-2504-g656fa56a22-dirty" date 03/08/2021
bios0: 51NB X210
efi0 at bios0: UEFI 2.7
efi0: EDK II rev 0x1
acpi0 at bios0: ACPI 6.0
acpi0: sleep states S0 S3 S4 S5
acpi0: tables DSDT FACP SSDT MCFG LPIT APIC DMAR HPET BGRT
acpi0: wakeup devices XHCI(S3)
acpitimer0 at acpi0: 3579545 Hz, 24 bits
acpimcfg0 at acpi0
acpimcfg0: addr 0xe000, bus 0-255
acpimadt0 at acpi0 addr 0xfee0: PC-AT compat
cpu0 at mainbus0: apid 0 (boot processor)
cpu0: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz, 3686.55 MHz, 06-8e-0a
cpu0: 
FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CFLUSH,DS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,PBE,SSE3,PCLMUL,DTES64,MWAIT,DS-CPL,VMX,EST,TM2,SSSE3,SDBG,FMA3,CX16,xTPR,PDCM,PCID,SSE4.1,SSE4.2,x2APIC,MOVBE,POPCNT,DEADLINE,AES,XSAVE,AVX,F16C,RDRAND,NXE,PAGE1GB,RDTSCP,LONG,LAHF,ABM,3DNOWP,PERF,ITSC,FSGSBASE,TSC_ADJUST,SGX,BMI1,AVX2,SMEP,BMI2,ERMS,INVPCID,MPX,RDSEED,ADX,SMAP,CLFLUSHOPT,PT,SRBDS_CTRL,MD_CLEAR,TSXFA,IBRS,IBPB,STIBP,L1DF,SSBD,SENSOR,ARAT,XSAVEOPT,XSAVEC,XGETBV1,XSAVES,MELTDOWN
cpu0: 32KB 64b/line 8-way D-cache, 32KB 64b/line 8-way I-cache, 256KB 64b/line 
4-way L2 cache, 8MB 64b/line 16-way L3 cache
cpu0: smt 0, core 0, package 0
mtrr: Pentium Pro MTRR support, 10 var ranges, 88 fixed ranges
cpu0: apic clock running at 24MHz
cpu0: mwait min=64, max=64, C-substates=0.2.1.2.4.1.1.1, IBE
cpu1 at mainbus0: apid 1 (application processor)
cpu1: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz, 3686.19 MHz, 06-8e-0a
cpu1: 
FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CFLUSH,DS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,PBE,SSE3,PCLMUL,DTES64,MWAIT,DS-CPL,VMX,EST,TM2,SSSE3,SDBG,FMA3,CX16,xTPR,PDCM,PCID,SSE4.1,SSE4.2,x2APIC,MOVBE,POPCNT,DEADLINE,AES,XSAVE,AVX,F16C,RDRAND,NXE,PAGE1GB,RDTSCP,LONG,LAHF,ABM,3DNOWP,PERF,ITSC,FSGSBASE,TSC_ADJUST,SGX,BMI1,AVX2,SMEP,BMI2,ERMS,INVPCID,MPX,RDSEED,ADX,SMAP,CLFLUSHOPT,PT,SRBDS_CTRL,MD_CLEAR,TSXFA,IBRS,IBPB,STIBP,L1DF,SSBD,SENSOR,ARAT,XSAVEOPT,XSAVEC,XGETBV1,XSAVES,MELTDOWN
cpu1: 32KB 64b/line 8-way D-cache, 32KB 64b/line 8-way I-cache, 256KB 64b/line 
4-way L2 cache, 8MB 64b/line 16-way L3 cache
cpu1: smt 1, core 0, package 0
cpu2 at mainbus0: apid 2 (application processor)
cpu2: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz, 3690.85 MHz, 06-8e-0a
cpu2: 
FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CFLUSH,DS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,PBE,SSE3,PCLMUL,DTES64,MWAIT,DS-CPL,VMX,EST,TM2,SSSE3,SDBG,FMA3,CX16,xTPR,PDCM,PCID,SSE4.1,SSE4.2,x2APIC,MOVBE,POPCNT,DEADLINE,AES,XSAVE,AVX,F16C,RDRAND,NXE,PAGE1GB,RDTSCP,LONG,LAHF,ABM,3DNOWP,PERF,ITSC,FSGSBASE,TSC_ADJUST,SGX,BMI1,AVX2,SMEP,BMI2,ERMS,INVPCID,MPX,RDSEED,ADX,SMAP,CLFLUSHOPT,PT,SRBDS_CTRL,MD_CLEAR,TSXFA,IBRS,IBPB,STIBP,L1DF,SSBD,SENSOR,ARAT,XSAVEOPT,XSAVEC,XGETBV1,XSAVES,MELTDOWN
cpu2: 32KB 64b/line 8-way D-cache, 32KB 64b/line 8-way I-cache, 256KB 64b/line 
4-way L2 cache, 8MB 64b/line 16-way L3 cache
cpu2: smt 0, core 1, package 0
cpu3 at mainbus0: apid 3 (application processor)
cpu3: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz, 3690.85 MHz, 06-8e-0a
cpu3: 
FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CFLUSH,DS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,PBE,SSE3,PCLMUL,DTES64,MWAIT,DS-CPL,VMX,EST,TM2,SSSE3,SDBG,FMA3,CX16,xTPR,PDCM,PCID,SSE4.1,SSE4.2,x2APIC,MOVBE,POPCNT,DEADLINE,AES,XSAVE,AVX,F16C,RDRAND,NXE,PAGE1GB,RDTSCP,LONG,LAHF,ABM,3DNOWP,PERF,ITSC,FSGSBASE,TSC_ADJUST,SGX,BMI1,AVX2,SMEP,BMI2,ERMS,INVPCID,MPX,RDSEED,ADX,SMAP,CLFLUSHOPT,PT,SRBDS_CTRL,MD_CLEAR,TSXFA,IBRS,IBPB,STIBP,L1DF,SSBD,SENSOR,ARAT,XSAVEOPT,XSAVEC,XGETBV1,XSAVES,MELTDOWN
cpu3: 32KB 64b/line 8-way D-cache, 32KB 64b/line 8-way I-cache, 256KB 64b/line 
4-way L2 cache, 8MB 64b/line 16-way L3 cache
cpu3: smt 1, core 1, package 0
cpu4 at mainbus0: apid 4 (application processor)
cpu4: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz, 3690.85 MHz, 06-8e-0a
cpu4: 

Running/Contributing to OpenBSD on Core/Libreboot

[AJ]

Hello. I'd like to ask two questions about running OpenBSD on
Core/Librebooted machines:

(1) I know there's been compatibility issues in the past. Is it still
the case? More importantly, are they such that the setup would more
likely mean just replacing the security risks those projects seek to
address with new ones?

(2) I'm a sysadmin with zero experience writing drivers, firmware,
kernel patches. I want to eventually be able to contribute something
useful to the intersection of both projects, but I don't know where to
begin. Can you point me in some general direction? Topics to learn,
books you've found useful?[1]

Considering that,

A. I've searched the mailing lists (and r/openbsd) for mentions of
"coreboot" and "libreboot," read the changelogs (though, given my lack
of knowledge, I may not have recognized relevant changes), besides
reading (Core/Libre)boot's documentation;

B. My concerns about "features" like amd_psd and intel_me aren't merely
academic. I work with journalists and our government has unique
interpretations of human rights;

C. Theo de Raadt says on the parent subject:[2]

> And meanwhile, Intel added undocumented strong speculation to their
> cpus, which are now easily CVE-identifiable as verifiable giant
> security problems to a majority platform.  And the more we dig, more
> we realize they did this as market force, ignoring the risks they
> identified at conferences a decade earlier.

D. And brynet: "[...] there's only so much operating systems can do to
mitigate against physical hardware bugs, same goes for buggy hypervisor
hosts;"[3]

E. But kmos-ports: "Coreboot and Libreboot were written for use
specifically with Linux. They often skip initializing the hardware
properly and cause problems with OpenBSD."[4]

Thank you,
AJ

[1] I've checked the list of recommended books. I'm currently going
through "The Unix Programming Environment" and will start fleshing out
my C alongside once I reach chapter 6.

[2] https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc=156238500027310

[3] https://teddit.net/r/openbsd/comments/two0se/\
amd_cpu_firmware_microcode_current/i3in9zm/

[4] https://teddit.net/r/openbsd/comments/l1o0r0/\
openbsd_with_fde_on_a_librebooted_thinkpad_x200/gk1g2dy/

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

Contributing to spamd

[Aisha Tammy]

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

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: Because Theo and various users told them that the projects GnoBSD and Comixwall were worthless and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?

[Marc Espie]

On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 06:59:32AM -0700, français wrote:
> I always find it amusing how OpenBSD is "audited", yet there's not one audit
> report on the OpenBSD website. The closest answer I've been able to find on
> the mailing list is to review all of the CVS commit logs. Yeah, that's not
> opaque in the slightest...

No it's not.

It's not sugar-coated for dumb-asses such as yourself, but the development
process is certainly open and documented.  A lot of stuff actually goes
through the mailing-lists (tech@ and ports@ mostly).

We don't have a PR department. We don't have people that make tutorial-level
explanations about what's going on.

OpenBSD developers are quite present at various conferences. You want to
know what's going on ? just catch up on eurobsdcon/asiabsd/bsdcan.

Re: Because Theo and various users told them that the projects GnoBSD and Comixwall were worthless and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?

[Dan Farrell]

I'd like to correct the record here, because you're Misrepresenting with a
capital "M":

Comixwall shut down beacuse Soner Tari, the guy who put it all together,
got butt-hurt after unsuccessfully trying to advertise his project on this
mailing list. Theo's apparent tough-reply was enough to make this guy
cancel his own project entirely. He literally melted down, took his toys
back home, and was never heard from again. Does that sound like a project
you would trust your home network to, much less your day-job-network?

Imagine if it were 'okay' for calomel to advertise here? If you don't
understand the question, you have some learning to do in this subject.

In light of all of this, now maybe do you think the philosophy about not
letting every tom-dick-n-harry advertising their projects here makes sense?


Very Sincerely,

Dan Farrell

On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 9:59 AM, français <romaper...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I always find it amusing how OpenBSD is "audited", yet there's not one
> audit
> report on the OpenBSD website. The closest answer I've been able to find on
> the mailing list is to review all of the CVS commit logs. Yeah, that's not
> opaque in the slightest...
>
> The bigger problem with OpenBSD is it's community. In the FreeBSD world,
> you
> have PC-BSD and pfsense, both of which are generally welcomed by the
> community. With OpenBSD, there were two sister projects that tried to
> target
> a similar audience: GnoBSD and Comixwall. Comixwall was the equivalent of
> pfsense for easy router/firewall management and GnoBSD was an attempt to
> make an easy-to-use desktop. Both, however, ended up shutting down after
> Theo and various users told them that their projects were worthless and
> that
> they weren't contributing to OpenBSD.
>
> Because Theo and various users told them that their projects were worthless
> and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context:
>
http://openbsd-archive.7691.n7.nabble.com/Because-Theo-and-various-users-told
-them-that-the-projects-GnoBSD-and-Comixwall-were-worthless-and-t-tp280374.ht
ml
> Sent from the openbsd user - misc mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Re: Because Theo and various users told them that the projects GnoBSD and Comixwall were worthless and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?

[Christoph R. Murauer]

> I always find it amusing how OpenBSD is "audited", yet there's not one
> audit
> report on the OpenBSD website. The closest answer I've been able to find
> on
> the mailing list is to review all of the CVS commit logs. Yeah, that's not
> opaque in the slightest...

Yes, thats it. The audit of the project is the reputation of Theo de Raadt
and the developers in the project. As a coder, you can look at the CVS
tree, as a none developer you have to trust the project, as you would
trust Microsoft, Apple, Ubuntu or other operating system creators.

What helps, if you get a certified by - nothing. On the project website is
a line of text kept in red - thats it. Why ? Simple because with every
change a user made to the system the audit is destroyed.

> The bigger problem with OpenBSD is it's community. In the FreeBSD world,
> you
> have PC-BSD and pfsense, both of which are generally welcomed by the
> community. With OpenBSD, there were two sister projects that tried to
> target
> a similar audience: GnoBSD and Comixwall. Comixwall was the equivalent of
> pfsense for easy router/firewall management and GnoBSD was an attempt to
> make an easy-to-use desktop. Both, however, ended up shutting down after
> Theo and various users told them that their projects were worthless and
> that
> they weren't contributing to OpenBSD.

I readed only parts of the posts but, the main reason was, that this
projects tried to use misc@ for promoting their projects. What they gave
back ... code, donations from their userbase ... I don't know. So, if they
did, it would maybe change the situation.

> Because Theo and various users told them that their projects were
> worthless
> and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?

I think worthless is the wrong word. To create a GUI installer is
something like to reinvent the wheel. A better way would be a discussion
about what people want or need. In OpenBSD are some unwritten rules - I
think. OpenBSD had no GUI installer and, will not have one ... for what,
the existing does the job well. If a user wants a GUI installer, there is
PC-BSD, Ubuntu and so on.

Gnome, many people like it and, many hate it. Whats wrong with a cool
configured fvwm ? I think, people had to re-learn functionality.

If someone wants to create a Live-CD, people could find the project using
Google.

Re: Because Theo and various users told them that the projects GnoBSD and Comixwall were worthless and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?

[Peter N. M. Hansteen]

On 10/17/15 15:59, français wrote:

I always find it amusing how OpenBSD is "audited", yet there's not one audit
report on the OpenBSD website. The closest answer I've been able to find on
the mailing list is to review all of the CVS commit logs. Yeah, that's not
opaque in the slightest...


I was going to let this just pass because my day is a bit overfull 
already, but I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. Note that I don't 
have any formal attachment to the OpenBSD project, so what follows is my 
opinion only, formed by some years of interacting with the OpenBSD 
project as well as other parts of the open source world.


Your choice of words is a bit curious - 'opaque' is certainly not what I 
would have called providing full access to the source code with close to 
real-time access to commits as they happen, in almost all cases with 
informative comments for each step. A potentially valid criticism at 
some level would have been to say that this provides too much detail and 
making sense of the overall picture is too hard for a newcomer.


But keep in mind that OpenBSD is developed and maintained primarily for 
and by its developers, who are most certainly capable of making sense of 
source code and commit logs. We all get to use the system and enjoy the 
benefits, but if you're looking for a high-level executive summary style 
document, that's simply not something that's useful to the project 
itself. (Then again, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find that such 
documents have been produced for their own internal use by organizations 
that were considering implementing OpenBSD in their systems.) You will 
find quite a few summaries of work done and planned at various stages in 
the papers and presentations collection http://www.openbsd.org/papers/, 
some of them may even be high level enough to give the less tech minded 
some idea of the overall work.


And of course, by now we're looking back at a full 20 years of work, so 
even a very high level executive summary would either need to be quite a 
few pages or be essentially useless handwaving.


That said, if reading commit logs and source code (even via the friendly 
cvsweb interface http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/) is too much 
work, start with the papers and presentations at 
http://www.openbsd.org/papers/.



The bigger problem with OpenBSD is it's community. In the FreeBSD world, you
have PC-BSD and pfsense, both of which are generally welcomed by the
community. With OpenBSD, there were two sister projects that tried to target
a similar audience: GnoBSD and Comixwall. Comixwall was the equivalent of
pfsense for easy router/firewall management and GnoBSD was an attempt to
make an easy-to-use desktop. Both, however, ended up shutting down after
Theo and various users told them that their projects were worthless and that
they weren't contributing to OpenBSD.

Because Theo and various users told them that their projects were worthless
and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?


If OpenBSD users and developers said that these projects were useless 
and that the people behind them were not contributing back to OpenBSD, 
maybe that was the (possibly unpleasant to some) truth?


It's been a while since both and I can't be bothered right now to look 
things up, but I can say this: I have yet to find a web interface to 
firewalls adminstration that I personally found useful, and barring 
exotic hardware trouble, I can get a useful desktop with OpenBSD up and 
running within 20 minutes from bare metal, and it's a reasonable 
assumption that most misc@ posters know enough pkg_add and package names 
to do the same.


So essentially the projects were packaging of something that was either 
trivial or not needed (or actively harmful, depending on who you ask), 
and if the people marketing these trivial efforts were seen to be 
unlikely to maintain a healthy relationship to their upstream project, I 
would call them useless too.


If you're doing a derivative of an open source project, keeping a sane 
relationship to your upstream is is an essential part of your self 
preservation. If those derivative projects were run by people who didn't 
see that fairly basic fact, that's their loss, not ours.


--
Peter N. M. Hansteen, member of the first RFC 1149 implementation team
http://bsdly.blogspot.com/ http://www.bsdly.net/ http://www.nuug.no/
"Remember to set the evil bit on all malicious network traffic"
delilah spamd[29949]: 85.152.224.147: disconnected after 42673 seconds.

Re: Because Theo and various users told them that the projects GnoBSD and Comixwall were worthless and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?

[Kevin Gerrard]

> Im going to chime in here a second, even though it probably is not my
> place.
>
> I am not a network guru, or computer wizard. I have made a living for
> the last 5 years by networking. We use nothing but OpenBSD routers for
this.
> With the help of the community I have been able to learn and market a
> superb firewall/router for clients. Some versions are many years old
> and still out there running for that client. Try doing that with
> Cisco (lol) we will not go into the differences there
> Kudos to this community for the help they provide...You show up in a
> forum or community and complain, whine and bitch about things that
> have to do with the community or project. Why do you waste your time
> here and the leaders of this forum. NOBODY is making you use OpenBSD
> and NOBODY wants to hear the bashing of their community within the
> city limits.
> This might sound harsh but people that go into a community or group
> and start whining should be shot. This is the problem with America
> today. One person is moving into a city and trying to make that city
> conform to that one person's ways and beliefs Seems to me the city
> should be able to shoot that person.
> What you are doing is just like if I was to go into Cisco Forums or
> Communities and start bashing and beating on the company and leaders
> in the forum.Winks Do you think they would really care
> Humor in this is what I see, not a valid user with a valid complaint
> about anything that is worth listening to 
>
> My two cents worth, I will not respond again to this thread.
>
> Written by a cowboy wannabe that couldn’t make money doing it, now a
> half assed networking tech making money

-Original Message-
From: owner-m...@openbsd.org [mailto:owner-m...@openbsd.org] On Behalf Of
Peter N. M. Hansteen
Sent: Sunday, October 18, 2015 6:51 AM
To: misc@openbsd.org
Subject: Re: Because Theo and various users told them that the projects
GnoBSD and Comixwall were worthless and that they weren't contributing to
OpenBSD?

On 10/17/15 15:59, français wrote:
> I always find it amusing how OpenBSD is "audited", yet there's not one
> audit report on the OpenBSD website. The closest answer I've been able
> to find on the mailing list is to review all of the CVS commit logs.
> Yeah, that's not opaque in the slightest...

I was going to let this just pass because my day is a bit overfull already,
but I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. Note that I don't have any formal
attachment to the OpenBSD project, so what follows is my opinion only,
formed by some years of interacting with the OpenBSD project as well as
other parts of the open source world.

Your choice of words is a bit curious - 'opaque' is certainly not what I
would have called providing full access to the source code with close to
real-time access to commits as they happen, in almost all cases with
informative comments for each step. A potentially valid criticism at some
level would have been to say that this provides too much detail and making
sense of the overall picture is too hard for a newcomer.

But keep in mind that OpenBSD is developed and maintained primarily for and
by its developers, who are most certainly capable of making sense of source
code and commit logs. We all get to use the system and enjoy the benefits,
but if you're looking for a high-level executive summary style document,
that's simply not something that's useful to the project itself. (Then
again, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find that such documents have
been produced for their own internal use by organizations that were
considering implementing OpenBSD in their systems.) You will find quite a
few summaries of work done and planned at various stages in the papers and
presentations collection http://www.openbsd.org/papers/, some of them may
even be high level enough to give the less tech minded some idea of the
overall work.

And of course, by now we're looking back at a full 20 years of work, so even
a very high level executive summary would either need to be quite a few
pages or be essentially useless handwaving.

That said, if reading commit logs and source code (even via the friendly
cvsweb interface http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/) is too much
work, start with the papers and presentations at
http://www.openbsd.org/papers/.

> The bigger problem with OpenBSD is it's community. In the FreeBSD
> world, you have PC-BSD and pfsense, both of which are generally
> welcomed by the community. With OpenBSD, there were two sister
> projects that tried to target a similar audience: GnoBSD and
> Comixwall. Comixwall was the equivalent of pfsense for easy
> router/firewall management and GnoBSD was an attempt to make an
> easy-to-use desktop. Both, however, ended up shutting down after Theo
> and various users told them that their proj

Re: Because Theo and various users told them that the projects GnoBSD and Comixwall were worthless and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?

[Denis Fondras]

> Both, however, ended up shutting down after Theo and various users told them
> that their projects were worthless and that they weren't contributing to
> OpenBSD.
> 

I guess they didn't strongly believe in their added value if they cancelled the
project after someone told them it was not worth.

BTW, if you are looking for a fw GUI, you can ask Esdenera
(https://www.esdenera.com).

Re: Because Theo and various users told them that the projects GnoBSD and Comixwall were worthless and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?

[patric conant]

On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 10:41 AM, Kevin Gerrard <ke...@txwre.com> wrote:

> > Im going to chime in here a second, even though it probably is not my
> > place.
> >
> > I am not a network guru, or computer wizard. I have made a living for
> > the last 5 years by networking. We use nothing but OpenBSD routers for
> this.
> > With the help of the community I have been able to learn and market a
> > superb firewall/router for clients. Some versions are many years old
> > and still out there running for that client. Try doing that with
> > Cisco (lol) we will not go into the differences there
> > Kudos to this community for the help they provide...You show up in a
> > forum or community and complain, whine and bitch about things that
> > have to do with the community or project. Why do you waste your time
> > here and the leaders of this forum. NOBODY is making you use OpenBSD
> > and NOBODY wants to hear the bashing of their community within the
> > city limits.
> > This might sound harsh but people that go into a community or group
> > and start whining should be shot. This is the problem with America
> > today. One person is moving into a city and trying to make that city
> > conform to that one person's ways and beliefs Seems to me the city
> > should be able to shoot that person.
> > What you are doing is just like if I was to go into Cisco Forums or
> > Communities and start bashing and beating on the company and leaders
> > in the forum.Winks Do you think they would really care
> > Humor in this is what I see, not a valid user with a valid complaint
> > about anything that is worth listening to 
> >
> > My two cents worth, I will not respond again to this thread.
> >
> > Written by a cowboy wannabe that couldn’t make money doing it, now a
> > half assed networking tech making money
>
> -Original Message-
> From: owner-m...@openbsd.org [mailto:owner-m...@openbsd.org] On Behalf Of
> Peter N. M. Hansteen
> Sent: Sunday, October 18, 2015 6:51 AM
> To: misc@openbsd.org
> Subject: Re: Because Theo and various users told them that the projects
> GnoBSD and Comixwall were worthless and that they weren't contributing to
> OpenBSD?
>
> On 10/17/15 15:59, français wrote:
> > I always find it amusing how OpenBSD is "audited", yet there's not one
> > audit report on the OpenBSD website. The closest answer I've been able
> > to find on the mailing list is to review all of the CVS commit logs.
> > Yeah, that's not opaque in the slightest...
>
> I was going to let this just pass because my day is a bit overfull already,
> but I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. Note that I don't have any formal
> attachment to the OpenBSD project, so what follows is my opinion only,
> formed by some years of interacting with the OpenBSD project as well as
> other parts of the open source world.
>
> Your choice of words is a bit curious - 'opaque' is certainly not what I
> would have called providing full access to the source code with close to
> real-time access to commits as they happen, in almost all cases with
> informative comments for each step. A potentially valid criticism at some
> level would have been to say that this provides too much detail and making
> sense of the overall picture is too hard for a newcomer.
>
> But keep in mind that OpenBSD is developed and maintained primarily for and
> by its developers, who are most certainly capable of making sense of source
> code and commit logs. We all get to use the system and enjoy the benefits,
> but if you're looking for a high-level executive summary style document,
> that's simply not something that's useful to the project itself. (Then
> again, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find that such documents have
> been produced for their own internal use by organizations that were
> considering implementing OpenBSD in their systems.) You will find quite a
> few summaries of work done and planned at various stages in the papers and
> presentations collection http://www.openbsd.org/papers/, some of them may
> even be high level enough to give the less tech minded some idea of the
> overall work.
>
> And of course, by now we're looking back at a full 20 years of work, so
> even
> a very high level executive summary would either need to be quite a few
> pages or be essentially useless handwaving.
>
> That said, if reading commit logs and source code (even via the friendly
> cvsweb interface http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/) is too much
> work, start with the papers and presentations at
> http://www.openbsd.org/papers/.
>
> > The bigger problem with OpenBSD i

Re: Because Theo and various users told them that the projects GnoBSD and Comixwall were worthless and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?

[Delan Azabani]

You only need a great deal of memory if you wish to use deduplication,
which is an optional ZFS feature that some people consider worth the
cost. While the complexity and licensing of ZFS make it inappropriate
for inclusion in OpenBSD, at least in the near future, let's not throw
around insults as if OpenBSD is the only useful OS out there.

Re: Because Theo and various users told them that the projects GnoBSD and Comixwall were worthless and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?

[Jorge Castillo]

Look if you don't want to use OpenBSD don't use OpenBSD. If you are so
easily swayed over just because someone said something then it's your
fault, don't blame others. I like OpenBSD and I will keep using it as long
as there are developers that keep it going. No matter what anyone tells me
I can't be persuaded to do otherwise. Have a nice day!

Re: Because Theo and various users told them that the projects GnoBSD and Comixwall were worthless and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?

[frcc]

On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 06:59:32AM -0700, français wrote:
> I always find it amusing how OpenBSD is "audited", yet there's not one audit
> report on the OpenBSD website. The closest answer I've been able to find on
> the mailing list is to review all of the CVS commit logs. Yeah, that's not
> opaque in the slightest...
> 
> The bigger problem with OpenBSD is it's community. In the FreeBSD world, you
> have PC-BSD and pfsense, both of which are generally welcomed by the
> community. With OpenBSD, there were two sister projects that tried to target
> a similar audience: GnoBSD and Comixwall. Comixwall was the equivalent of
> pfsense for easy router/firewall management and GnoBSD was an attempt to
> make an easy-to-use desktop. Both, however, ended up shutting down after
> Theo and various users told them that their projects were worthless and that
> they weren't contributing to OpenBSD.
> 
> Because Theo and various users told them that their projects were worthless
> and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?
> 
> 
> 
> --
> View this message in context: 
> http://openbsd-archive.7691.n7.nabble.com/Because-Theo-and-various-users-told-them-that-the-projects-GnoBSD-and-Comixwall-were-worthless-and-t-tp280374.html
> Sent from the openbsd user - misc mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> 
> 

   Well maybe!.

   Why don't you write some code instead of expressing an opinion here that 
won't 
   get you a cup of coffee.

   No matter what, "OpenBSD" has been providing the world a free BSD for
   a long timeDosen't that speak for itself ? 

   Do you use it? Fine contribute...If not, why waste your time here...???

   my humble opinion..

   :) 

Re: Because Theo and various users told them that the projects GnoBSD and Comixwall were worthless and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?

[Johan Petersson]

Well, that might have been because we already have easy to
use firewall/router management and easy to use desktop.
This is, naturally, nothing but my own humble opinion.

With some respect /Johan Petersson

On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 3:59 PM, français <romaper...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I always find it amusing how OpenBSD is "audited", yet there's not one
> audit
> report on the OpenBSD website. The closest answer I've been able to find on
> the mailing list is to review all of the CVS commit logs. Yeah, that's not
> opaque in the slightest...
>
> The bigger problem with OpenBSD is it's community. In the FreeBSD world,
> you
> have PC-BSD and pfsense, both of which are generally welcomed by the
> community. With OpenBSD, there were two sister projects that tried to
> target
> a similar audience: GnoBSD and Comixwall. Comixwall was the equivalent of
> pfsense for easy router/firewall management and GnoBSD was an attempt to
> make an easy-to-use desktop. Both, however, ended up shutting down after
> Theo and various users told them that their projects were worthless and
> that
> they weren't contributing to OpenBSD.
>
> Because Theo and various users told them that their projects were worthless
> and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context:
>
http://openbsd-archive.7691.n7.nabble.com/Because-Theo-and-various-users-told
-them-that-the-projects-GnoBSD-and-Comixwall-were-worthless-and-t-tp280374.ht
ml
> Sent from the openbsd user - misc mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Because Theo and various users told them that the projects GnoBSD and Comixwall were worthless and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?

[français]

I always find it amusing how OpenBSD is "audited", yet there's not one audit
report on the OpenBSD website. The closest answer I've been able to find on
the mailing list is to review all of the CVS commit logs. Yeah, that's not
opaque in the slightest...

The bigger problem with OpenBSD is it's community. In the FreeBSD world, you
have PC-BSD and pfsense, both of which are generally welcomed by the
community. With OpenBSD, there were two sister projects that tried to target
a similar audience: GnoBSD and Comixwall. Comixwall was the equivalent of
pfsense for easy router/firewall management and GnoBSD was an attempt to
make an easy-to-use desktop. Both, however, ended up shutting down after
Theo and various users told them that their projects were worthless and that
they weren't contributing to OpenBSD.

Because Theo and various users told them that their projects were worthless
and that they weren't contributing to OpenBSD?



--
View this message in context: 
http://openbsd-archive.7691.n7.nabble.com/Because-Theo-and-various-users-told-them-that-the-projects-GnoBSD-and-Comixwall-were-worthless-and-t-tp280374.html
Sent from the openbsd user - misc mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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

contributing

[Eric Furman]

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.

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

Contributing

[Jeremy]

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

[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...

Contributing to OpenBSD documentation

[Anders Østergaard Jensen-Waud]

Hello,

I am interesting in helping out on the OpenBSD project where I can. I
am proficient in C but am not knowledgeable enough to contribute to
OS/systems level programming. So I have been looking for other ways to
contribute and thought documentation might be a good place to start.

What are the most critical areas in documentation, which require help?
I have thought that I could:

* 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

Please let me know where help is needed as I am keen to contribute
back to the OpenBSD community.

Cheers

Anders

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

Contributing and Shame [Was: Lenovo notebooks?]

[Breen Ouellette]

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.


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.



As a non-developer, I feel that *whatever* I do (short of becoming a
developer), I am not giving back in kind for the high value that I
have received. Yet this makes me feel grateful (and somewhat humbled),
not ashamed.


While I can definitely relate to your feelings of gratefulness, OpenBSD 
isn't merely given away as a kindness to the user base. It needs to be 
open and free to meet the goals of the project. If it wasn't as open as 
it is then it wouldn't be as secure as it is.



And what is the shame in taking something for free and not
reciprocating when someone gives it to you for free and makes clear
that there are no strings attached and that they want it that way? 


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. 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.


I agree with everything you say in principle, I'm just not convinced it 
is the best position to take on the matter. I wish people and companies 
who use OpenBSD would recognize the value they receive and contribute 
back accordingly to ensure that the project can continue on to bigger 
and brighter things.


But... wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills up 
first.


Breeno

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