8 ms·

One of the three OpenBSD users

54 points by fcambus 11y ago

JoshTriplett 11y ago
Such a bug didn't deserve the snarkiness it got; as the article author notes, Linux itself remains a minor platform for end users, and benefits from people doing ports to Linux of software that has more users on other platforms. (For instance, Firefox and Chrome both have far more users on Windows than Linux.) But apart from the unnecessarily snarky response, I think this played out exactly as it should have. A kinder response would have been "none of us run OpenBSD, but if you can provide a non-invasive patch, we'll merge it". Which ended up happening anyway.
- rewqfdsa 11y ago
  > Linux itself remains a minor platform for end users What the fuck? Android is one of the most popular operating systems in the world.
  - biot 11y ago
    That's a bit like saying that all Xbox users should count towards Windows numbers.
  - umanwizard 11y ago
    When people say linux, they don't care what kernel they're running - they mean GNU/Linux that has a reasonably close interface to that of a typical UNIX machine. I agree with Stallman &co. that the name "Linux" is imprecise, but you shouldn't pretend you don't understand what people mean.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    Android systems don't run normal Linux binaries; Android has an incompatible ABI, not least of which because it puts the dynamic linker in a different location (and compiles that different location into every single binary). It shares the same kernel, but with a completely different userspace, and typically requires a separate effort to port. (I'd have said "GNU/Linux" to avoid the ambiguity if I didn't think it'd massively and pointlessly derail the conversation. In particular, given the nature of this thread, it seemed needlessly adversarial.)
  - mrweasel 11y ago
    Google patches the snot out of the Linux kernel in Android. In fact in now contains a fair amount of ideas from OpenBSD. Theo De Raadt talks about some of the in his Pledge talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_7S1eqKsFk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_7S1eqKsFk
- toadkicker 11y ago
  This is the way good things get done. New ideas should come from anywhere they can and the best ones bubble up into the product. Always reset expectations if anything that does get said ends up being misread. Let's face it; text is a horrible medium for communicating complex ideas. Open the communication channel accepting things at face value.
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
It wasn't long ago that Linux users fancied themselves the underdog being sidelined in favor of Windows. Now, the Linux users have become the Goliath flaunting their weight and key spokespeople even encouraging the rejection of all other platforms. It is a community defined by myopia, arrogance and a refusal to look outside its borders.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  Linux has many different communities, not all of whom share the same opinions (or level of snarkiness). Some Linux developers may feel as you suggest, or more charitably, perhaps they just want to conserve their limited development resources focusing on providing the most benefit to the most users. But I don't think that view has become universal or even a majority, and I still regularly see projects merging support for other platforms, especially other Free Software platforms. I've merged such patches myself, written portability libraries, and even gone out of my way to test software I've written on GNU/Hurd. I've also seen ideas from such platforms influence Linux, and vice versa. I certainly hope nobody views Linux and its community as consisting entirely of the kinds of people whose snarky remarks make the news. We could do with far less of those people. In my more idealistic moments, I wonder how much better we could do if we focused on making one kernel better rather than half a dozen. Then again, in those same moments, I also wonder how much better we could do if we focused on making one desktop environment or browser better, too. None of those seem likely to happen.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - vu3rdd 11y ago
    While what you are saying is very true, recent developments around systemd seem to have changed a few people to target linux-kernel based systems than the BSDs. As the autoconf files suggest, a lot of GNU software was written in the most general way possible, targeting even the macos/osx/windows/aix/hpux etc. In this age of easy virtual machine installations, it seems odd that software authors of popular software are not targeting at least the BSDs.
bcoates 11y ago
More importantly, why doesn't OpenBSD have procfs? Is there something fundamentally wrong with the idea? Is there some more standard alternative that portable software should be using?
- asveikau 11y ago
  Trying to answer this I found this old thread: http://marc.info/?t=125341144400003&r=1&w=2 http://marc.info/?t=125341144400003&r=1&w=2 Arguments I see here: * it's old code and not maintained. * the interface has inherent race conditions (see Theo's comment about reading from procfs one byte at a time with sleep calls in between - I presume with the values changing underneath you) Unrelated to this thread I found googling that OpenBSD and NetBSD have had a small but nonzero number of security issues in procfs over the years.
anarcat 11y ago
what happened to syncthing usage since october? it seems the numbers have been dropping since the 0.12 upgrade...

54 points by fcambus 11y ago

Such a bug didn't deserve the snarkiness it got; as the article author notes, Linux itself remains a minor platform for end users, and benefits from people doing ports to Linux of software that has more users on other platforms. (For instance, Firefox and Chrome both have far more users on Windows than Linux.) But apart from the unnecessarily snarky response, I think this played out exactly as it should have. A kinder response would have been "none of us run OpenBSD, but if you can provide a non-invasive patch, we'll merge it". Which ended up happening anyway.

rewqfdsa 11y ago
> Linux itself remains a minor platform for end users What the fuck? Android is one of the most popular operating systems in the world.
- biot 11y ago
  That's a bit like saying that all Xbox users should count towards Windows numbers.
- umanwizard 11y ago
  When people say linux, they don't care what kernel they're running - they mean GNU/Linux that has a reasonably close interface to that of a typical UNIX machine. I agree with Stallman &co. that the name "Linux" is imprecise, but you shouldn't pretend you don't understand what people mean.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  Android systems don't run normal Linux binaries; Android has an incompatible ABI, not least of which because it puts the dynamic linker in a different location (and compiles that different location into every single binary). It shares the same kernel, but with a completely different userspace, and typically requires a separate effort to port. (I'd have said "GNU/Linux" to avoid the ambiguity if I didn't think it'd massively and pointlessly derail the conversation. In particular, given the nature of this thread, it seemed needlessly adversarial.)
- mrweasel 11y ago
  Google patches the snot out of the Linux kernel in Android. In fact in now contains a fair amount of ideas from OpenBSD. Theo De Raadt talks about some of the in his Pledge talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_7S1eqKsFk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_7S1eqKsFk
toadkicker 11y ago
This is the way good things get done. New ideas should come from anywhere they can and the best ones bubble up into the product. Always reset expectations if anything that does get said ends up being misread. Let's face it; text is a horrible medium for communicating complex ideas. Open the communication channel accepting things at face value.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago

It wasn't long ago that Linux users fancied themselves the underdog being sidelined in favor of Windows. Now, the Linux users have become the Goliath flaunting their weight and key spokespeople even encouraging the rejection of all other platforms. It is a community defined by myopia, arrogance and a refusal to look outside its borders.

JoshTriplett 11y ago
Linux has many different communities, not all of whom share the same opinions (or level of snarkiness). Some Linux developers may feel as you suggest, or more charitably, perhaps they just want to conserve their limited development resources focusing on providing the most benefit to the most users. But I don't think that view has become universal or even a majority, and I still regularly see projects merging support for other platforms, especially other Free Software platforms. I've merged such patches myself, written portability libraries, and even gone out of my way to test software I've written on GNU/Hurd. I've also seen ideas from such platforms influence Linux, and vice versa. I certainly hope nobody views Linux and its community as consisting entirely of the kinds of people whose snarky remarks make the news. We could do with far less of those people. In my more idealistic moments, I wonder how much better we could do if we focused on making one kernel better rather than half a dozen. Then again, in those same moments, I also wonder how much better we could do if we focused on making one desktop environment or browser better, too. None of those seem likely to happen.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- vu3rdd 11y ago
  While what you are saying is very true, recent developments around systemd seem to have changed a few people to target linux-kernel based systems than the BSDs. As the autoconf files suggest, a lot of GNU software was written in the most general way possible, targeting even the macos/osx/windows/aix/hpux etc. In this age of easy virtual machine installations, it seems odd that software authors of popular software are not targeting at least the BSDs.

bcoates 11y ago

More importantly, why doesn't OpenBSD have procfs? Is there something fundamentally wrong with the idea? Is there some more standard alternative that portable software should be using?

asveikau 11y ago
Trying to answer this I found this old thread: http://marc.info/?t=125341144400003&r=1&w=2 http://marc.info/?t=125341144400003&r=1&w=2 Arguments I see here: * it's old code and not maintained. * the interface has inherent race conditions (see Theo's comment about reading from procfs one byte at a time with sleep calls in between - I presume with the values changing underneath you) Unrelated to this thread I found googling that OpenBSD and NetBSD have had a small but nonzero number of security issues in procfs over the years.

anarcat 11y ago

what happened to syncthing usage since october? it seems the numbers have been dropping since the 0.12 upgrade...