11 ms·

I'm more than surprised about the hostile tone some contributors seem to use when they talk about LibreSSL lately. LibreSSL is an OpenSSL fork done by the Open

I'm more than surprised about the hostile tone some contributors seem to use when they talk about LibreSSL lately. LibreSSL is an OpenSSL fork done by the OpenBSD team primarily because they don't think OpenSSL is the right software to include in their OS. That's their decision, if you don't use OpenBSD, you don't have to care. They have done an insane amout of work in pretty short time, and since that work might benefit the larger OS community, they kindly decided to start work on a portable version, which you don't have to use. Even if you don't use LibreSSL, you might still benefit from their work as there is a healthy collaboration between OpenBSD/LibreSSL and Google/Adam Langley/BoringSSL. Now, there's a first preview release of portable LibreSSL, and nitpicks are used to demonstrate how supposedly incapable the OpenBSD team must be. They hardcode -Werror, they obviously don't know how to write a configure script. They don't provide a PGP signature for the preview release, they obviously don't know how to distribute software securely. They use Comic Sans, they can't be taken seriously at all. If you think LibreSSL will benefit you personally, you might consider showing a little gratitude. If you don't think LibreSSL is of any use to you, why do you even bother to write about it?

ayrx 12y ago
So in your view people with valid criticisms should just shut up and be thankful? All the points in the blog posts are real problems. Pointing them out just means that fixes can be made and software can be improved.
- currysausage 12y ago
  > So in your view people with valid criticisms should just shut up and be thankful? No, sober problem reports (preferably sent to bugs@openbsd.org or openbsd-tech) are obviously exactly what the preview release is meant for. As I wrote, I am surprised about the tone. Not of any particular comment or blogpost, but there's a tendency that I perceive lately.
  - joshbaptiste 12y ago
    I didn't take the tone as condescending at all. It really was (as I read it) constructive criticism for the portability maintainers.
  - anon1385 12y ago
    You are upset that people are using the wrong tone to make criticisms of OpenBSD? The same OpenBSD run by Theo de Raadt? You reap what you sow, as they say.
    - two_cents_4u 12y ago
      Where are your patches to improve OpenSSL? Put up or shut up, some may say...
      - commenttard 12y ago
        I know, some of the commentards here are so whiny!
- oskdfjgfgg 12y ago
  No, they aren't real problems. And he would know that if he were trying to be constructive, as he would have then posted it to tech. The fact that it is a snotty and incorrect blog post indicates that he is not trying to be constructive.
- two_cents_4u 12y ago
  Don't think anyone said that. Detailed, constructive feedback is always appreciated. On the other hand, when using free software from other people, it does seem a little rude to demand anything from them. Kind of like "gee, thanks for the free cake, but I prefer my icing on the side, waahhhh sob sob sob [ throws toys from the pram ]"
- wbl 12y ago
  They aren't: -Werror is doing exactly what it is supposed to, keeping a tacit assumption from subtly causing bugs. sysctl is necessary because there is no randomness system call, and in chroots /dev/random is not available.
pygy_ 12y ago
The OpenBSD folks have set the tone. They are arrogant and dismissive, it's not surprising other people respond in kind.
- joshbaptiste 12y ago
  There's a social policy that one must adhere to when interacting with groups within certain "geekdom" domains. I learned it while idling on IRC EFNet in #Linux, #LinuxHelp in the early 2000's. To an outsider it comes off as harsh and dismissive but It really does weed out the random noobs/script kiddies who refuse to read a man page or put any effort into solving a problem themselves. I learned how to exhaust all possible search options before posting and how to formulate a question properly, by providing clear and concise examples of the problem resulting in less followup questions and quick solutions to my issues.
- two_cents_4u 12y ago
  Here's ten cents - call someone who cares!
- wyager 12y ago
  >They are arrogant and dismissive, I think they've earned that right, and this attitude may be necessary to scare away the kind of developers who might (with perfectly good intentions) end up making the job of the OpenBSD developers a lot harder. OpenBSD is amazing software. By far the best OS I've ever used in my life. If the cost of that is a bad attitude, so be it. Whatever they're doing, it's working.
  - currysausage 12y ago
    > OpenBSD is amazing software. By far the best OS I've ever used in my life. If the cost of that is a bad attitude, so be it. I like to judge a developer's attitude by reading the manpage that he or she kindly wrote for me. OpenBSD manpages are comprehensive and still concise. So the devs respect my time. I really appreciate that. (Actually, I want to throw money at them just for providing such excellent Unix documentation.) Yes, they tend to be brusque when you mail them about some issue and obviously didn't RTFM before. They are right: You show them that you don't respect their time. Why should they be nice to you?
oldmanjay 12y ago
I honestly didn't pick up on any hostility in the tone of this article. There was no insulting, for instance. It was a simple one-by-one listing of (seemingly minor) mistakes along with corrections for those mistakes. I think, in order to find hostility in that, you'd have to be looking for it.
dobbsbob 12y ago
OpenBSD can handle the hostile tone, they aren't fragile feels about criticism. The whole point is to release this early so they (and other contributors, like Adam from Google) can get feedback so it's good people are trying to port it and offering opinions however if anybody wants to constructively criticize the project or make recommendations they have to post on the mailing list because I doubt any of them will respond to some random guy's wordpress site. If you just throw up a site and blast them you're accomplishing nothing except link bait. They have a good reason to use -Werror and would explain why if this was posted to openbsd-tech

ayrx 12y ago

So in your view people with valid criticisms should just shut up and be thankful? All the points in the blog posts are real problems. Pointing them out just means that fixes can be made and software can be improved.

currysausage 12y ago
> So in your view people with valid criticisms should just shut up and be thankful? No, sober problem reports (preferably sent to bugs@openbsd.org or openbsd-tech) are obviously exactly what the preview release is meant for. As I wrote, I am surprised about the tone. Not of any particular comment or blogpost, but there's a tendency that I perceive lately.
- joshbaptiste 12y ago
  I didn't take the tone as condescending at all. It really was (as I read it) constructive criticism for the portability maintainers.
- anon1385 12y ago
  You are upset that people are using the wrong tone to make criticisms of OpenBSD? The same OpenBSD run by Theo de Raadt? You reap what you sow, as they say.
  - two_cents_4u 12y ago
    Where are your patches to improve OpenSSL? Put up or shut up, some may say...
    - commenttard 12y ago
      I know, some of the commentards here are so whiny!
oskdfjgfgg 12y ago
No, they aren't real problems. And he would know that if he were trying to be constructive, as he would have then posted it to tech. The fact that it is a snotty and incorrect blog post indicates that he is not trying to be constructive.
two_cents_4u 12y ago
Don't think anyone said that. Detailed, constructive feedback is always appreciated. On the other hand, when using free software from other people, it does seem a little rude to demand anything from them. Kind of like "gee, thanks for the free cake, but I prefer my icing on the side, waahhhh sob sob sob [ throws toys from the pram ]"
wbl 12y ago
They aren't: -Werror is doing exactly what it is supposed to, keeping a tacit assumption from subtly causing bugs. sysctl is necessary because there is no randomness system call, and in chroots /dev/random is not available.

pygy_ 12y ago

The OpenBSD folks have set the tone. They are arrogant and dismissive, it's not surprising other people respond in kind.

joshbaptiste 12y ago
There's a social policy that one must adhere to when interacting with groups within certain "geekdom" domains. I learned it while idling on IRC EFNet in #Linux, #LinuxHelp in the early 2000's. To an outsider it comes off as harsh and dismissive but It really does weed out the random noobs/script kiddies who refuse to read a man page or put any effort into solving a problem themselves. I learned how to exhaust all possible search options before posting and how to formulate a question properly, by providing clear and concise examples of the problem resulting in less followup questions and quick solutions to my issues.
two_cents_4u 12y ago
Here's ten cents - call someone who cares!
wyager 12y ago
>They are arrogant and dismissive, I think they've earned that right, and this attitude may be necessary to scare away the kind of developers who might (with perfectly good intentions) end up making the job of the OpenBSD developers a lot harder. OpenBSD is amazing software. By far the best OS I've ever used in my life. If the cost of that is a bad attitude, so be it. Whatever they're doing, it's working.
- currysausage 12y ago
  > OpenBSD is amazing software. By far the best OS I've ever used in my life. If the cost of that is a bad attitude, so be it. I like to judge a developer's attitude by reading the manpage that he or she kindly wrote for me. OpenBSD manpages are comprehensive and still concise. So the devs respect my time. I really appreciate that. (Actually, I want to throw money at them just for providing such excellent Unix documentation.) Yes, they tend to be brusque when you mail them about some issue and obviously didn't RTFM before. They are right: You show them that you don't respect their time. Why should they be nice to you?

oldmanjay 12y ago

I honestly didn't pick up on any hostility in the tone of this article. There was no insulting, for instance. It was a simple one-by-one listing of (seemingly minor) mistakes along with corrections for those mistakes. I think, in order to find hostility in that, you'd have to be looking for it.

dobbsbob 12y ago

OpenBSD can handle the hostile tone, they aren't fragile feels about criticism. The whole point is to release this early so they (and other contributors, like Adam from Google) can get feedback so it's good people are trying to port it and offering opinions however if anybody wants to constructively criticize the project or make recommendations they have to post on the mailing list because I doubt any of them will respond to some random guy's wordpress site. If you just throw up a site and blast them you're accomplishing nothing except link bait. They have a good reason to use -Werror and would explain why if this was posted to openbsd-tech