Talk:OpenBSD/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

The Masturbating Monkeys

"Linus Torvalds has expressed the view that a security problem is no more or less important than any bug" - Actually, this is not exactly what he said. He only said security for Linux isn't less important than normal bugs, which is obviously the opposite of what he really meant in his rage against OpenBSD. Still, I'm not sure how we should encrypt Linus's stand on security bugs vs. normal bugs, which implies that security bugs aren't normal but somehow abnormal... --84.250.188.136 (talk) 14:22, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, what he said was that normal bugs are more important than security bugs ("In fact, all the boring normal bugs are _way_ more important, just because there's a lot more of them.") We should probably fix that. NicM (talk) 17:35, 22 July 2008 (UTC).

Proposal to remove date-autoformatting

Dear fellow contributors

MOSNUM no longer encourages date autoformatting, having evolved over the past year or so from the mandatory to the optional after much discussion there and elsewhere of the disadvantages of the system. Related to this, MOSNUM prescribes rules for the raw formatting, irrespective of whether or not dates are autoformatted. MOSLINK and CONTEXT are consistent with this.

There are at least six disadvantages in using date-autoformatting, which I've capped here:

Disadvantages of date-autoformatting

• (1) In-house only

• (a) It works only for the WP "elite".
• (b) To our readers out there, it displays all-too-common inconsistencies in raw formatting in bright-blue underlined text, yet conceals them from WPians who are logged in and have chosen preferences.
• (c) It causes visitors to query why dates are bright-blue and underlined.

• (2) Avoids what are merely trivial differences

• (a) It is trivial whether the order is day–month or month–day. It is more trivial than color/colour and realise/realize, yet our consistency-within-article policy on spelling (WP:ENGVAR) has worked very well. English-speakers readily recognise both date formats; all dates after our signatures are international, and no one objects.

• (3) Colour-clutter: the bright-blue underlining of all dates

• (a) It dilutes the impact of high-value links.
• (b) It makes the text slightly harder to read.
• (c) It doesn't improve the appearance of the page.

• (4) Typos and misunderstood coding

• (a) There's a disappointing error-rate in keying in the auto-function; not bracketing the year, and enclosing the whole date in one set of brackets, are examples.
• (b) Once autoformatting is removed, mixtures of US and international formats are revealed in display mode, where they are much easier for WPians to pick up than in edit mode; so is the use of the wrong format in country-related articles.
• (c) Many WPians don't understand date-autoformatting—in particular, how if differs from ordinary linking; often it's applied simply because it's part of the furniture.

• (5) Edit-mode clutter

• (a) It's more work to enter an autoformatted date, and it doesn't make the edit-mode text any easier to read for subsequent editors.

• (6) Limited application

• (a) It's incompatible with date ranges ("January 3–9, 1998", or "3–9 January 1998", and "February–April 2006") and slashed dates ("the night of May 21/22", or "... 21/22 May").
• (b) By policy, we avoid date autoformatting in such places as quotations; the removal of autoformatting avoids this inconsistency.

Removal has generally been met with positive responses by editors. Does anyone object if I remove it from the main text (using a script) in a few days’ time on a trial basis? The original input formatting would be seen by all WPians, not just the huge number of visitors; it would be plain, unobtrusive text, which would give greater prominence to the high-value links. Tony (talk) 06:42, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Will this unlink the years too? I'm not happy if it turns 1 July 2005 into 1 July 2005. Also, we should lose stuff like October 1995 as well. If it will unlink too this is probably a good step; I'd probably use US style for this article since it is already used in the references. NicM (talk) 20:15, 24 July 2008 (UTC).

Thanks for your response, Nic. Yes, it will unlink all elements of month–day–year and month–year dates, nice and clean. Tony (talk) 08:38, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Nic, running it now. Please inspect diff and let me know if there's a problem (and revert if you wish). Tony (talk) 07:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Bad implication: "security problems are less important than other bugs"

The last paragraph of the "Security and code auditing" section starts off as:

"Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds has expressed the view that—due to their smaller numbers—security problems are less important than other bugs ("all the boring normal bugs are _way_ more important, just because there's a lot more of them"[40])..."

That quote of Torvalds does not imply the view that "security problems are less important than other bugs". There are only two ways to interpret Torvalds's quote. First, he could mean that every one of the normal bugs is way more important, which is ridiculous, of course. That interpretation, however, is the only one that supports the implication given. The other interpretation, that the class of normal bugs is more important than the class of security bugs, is likelier what Torvalds meant. Of course, this does not imply the view that security problems are less important than other bugs, particularly since he explains that there are _more_ normal ones. That is, it does not follow from this likelier interpretation that Torvalds thinks a security bug matters less than some other bug.

The paragraph should be changed to something logical. Freed42 (talk) 16:29, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Huh? 74.13.56.168 (talk) 20:25, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The phrase, "security problems are less important than other bugs", misrepresents the Torvalds quote. A correct phrase would be, "the set of all security problems is less important than the set of all other bugs". See the difference? - Freed42 (talk) 21:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Nope. 74.13.56.168 (talk) 13:17, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, just consider it another way. If my "view" is, "Security problems are less important than other bugs", then someone could logically deduce that I mean any security bug is less important than any other bug. E.g., a serious security bug matters less than the most trivial typo. If you do not understand this, then could you at least explain using something other than one-word sentences how "Security problems are less important than other bugs" does not imply "Any security bug is less important than any other bug"? - Freed42 (talk) 13:41, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I must say that I agree with your interpretation of Linus' quote, insofar as we can assert anything (as you say, this interpretation is just more likely what Linus meant). I realise the quote from him is poor, but thus far I haven't found a better one.

Saying that, the article seems clear enough to me, the plural "security problems" means the set (or class, if you like) of security problems and likewise "normal bugs" means the set of normal bugs; if it said "any security problem" then I would agree it is incorrect. However, if you think it is unclear feel free to tweak the language. If you could find a different quote from Linus showing his view more clearly it would be nice, but please bear in find firstly that this article is not about Linus' view, it is about his criticism of OpenBSD (so we should not dwell on the substance of his view on security problems vs normal bugs, just express it succinctly and with a short illustrative quote); and secondly that discussion of Linus' point of view should be balanced with discussion of response from the OpenBSD developers. NicM (talk) 20:44, 1 August 2008 (UTC).

OK, I think his quote is good enough, especially since he refers to quantity of bugs. Therefore, I will add "class of" to the ambiguous inference preceding the quote. - Freed42 (talk) 22:01, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I tried to clarify it. I think the precise objection I had to the previous one is that someone could more easily take it out of context (without the "due to their smaller numbers" qualification). I hope it helped. - Freed42 (talk) 22:16, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I think "class of" is a bit unclear to the non-technical. What about:

"Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds has expressed the view that development efforts should be focused on fixing general problems rather than targeting security issues, as non-security bugs are more numerous ("all the boring normal bugs are _way_ more important, just because there's a lot more of them"); he criticised the OpenBSD policy: ..."

I'm not sure if that is putting words into his mouth though. I think that was the general point, that the focus of development should be on fixing normal bugs rather than looking for security problems, but I'm not convinced the quote backs it up. What do you think? NicM (talk) 22:59, 1 August 2008 (UTC).

OK, I like it better than the original—thanks. - Freed42 (talk) 00:23, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Personal stuff about Theo de Raadt

I've just now removed a passage about Theo de Raadt, not because I think it's inherently objectionable but because it's hardly relevant here and because it anyway appears within the article on de Raadt. -- Hoary (talk) 23:43, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Fixed a few spelling errors

Someone must have really thought license was spelled licence...

207.179.226.195 (talk) 15:22, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to English, I have corrected your nonsense. 74.13.51.199 (talk) 22:24, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Automate archiving?

Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MizaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 60 days and keep at least four threads.--Oneiros (talk) 18:51, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Spoken Wikipedia recording

Hello, I just uploaded an updated version of the audio recording. I fixed the pronunciation of "de Raadt" and made other updates. I tried to overwrite the original file (it was moved to the Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OpenBSD.ogg), but it wouldn't let me because my Commons account is too new. If someone can sort this out, that would be awesome :-).

I've uploaded an updated version of the Spoken Wikipedia audio recording. Since my Commons account is much older now, it allowed me to overwrite the file that is on the Commons. This file is no longer the most recent version. Please let me know if I've made any mistakes. Thanks. --Mangst (talk) 01:00, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

The article critical of OpenBSD

I have added it and it was reverted without good reason. The article was quite neutral and raised many interesting points worth of discussion. More than that, it made the rounds on almost every major news site and was discussed throughout the community. It is not original research or an opinion piece, it just points out the current state of the OpenBSD teams rejections of MAC with many references.

The only reason not to include this article is to try and hide criticism, which is dishonest. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.104.82.1 (talk) 07:15, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Your link does not work. The only relevant article on OpenBSD I find on Distrowatch is here.--Oneiros (talk) 11:54, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean the link does not work? The link is an edition of the DistroWatch newsletter that specifically references the article! Scroll down and you will see it! Alternatively there is an OSNews article here: http://www.osnews.com/story/22773/_quot_The_Insecurity_of_OpenBSD_quot_ 97.104.82.1 (talk) 19:36, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it works. Did you read the comments to the article? Why do you link to the summary but not to the whole article? How relevant is an anonymous blog article?--Oneiros (talk) 23:41, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I've removed it again: It fails WP:SPS—"For that reason self-published media, whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, Internet forum postings, tweets, etc., are largely not acceptable."--Oneiros (talk) 23:46, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

What crap. This is part of the reason people criticize wikipedia, when they employ double stanards in enforcing the guidelines. In this case the people in charge of the openBSD article are very pro OpenBSD, and won't let anything negative about it be placed on the wiki page.

I linked to the news site referencing the article, because I felt it allowed it to be more official. I also thought reading the comments would be interesting for many people. While the guideline you pointed to is generally good to follow, it does not apply to that article. That article made the rounds on all the news sites, slashdot, digg, linuxtoday, osnews, distrowatch etc, sparked a LOT of discussion and raised many good points. It isn't new research, just observations backed by references.

Wikipedia, and even this OpenBSD article, is full of similar articles. Opinion pieces that got carried by news sites. When the news item is prominent enough and raised points and was discussed in the community, it should be mentioned. Hell, even the MUCH larger discussion about OpenBSD vs SELinux isn't mentioned on this site, which makes me thing accuracy is not the goal, but rather putting OpenBSD in a good light.

From the guidelines you referred me to, "if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so.". The opinion piece was carried by almost every tech news source, so obviously it is worth carrying. So then, why is it not worthy of being a reference? 97.104.82.1 (talk) 07:48, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't know where you get the idea that only positive items appear in this article, as far as I am aware all of the major specific, attributable criticisms that illustrate something about OpenBSD are covered - the DJB bunfight, the Adaptec NDA brouhaha, Felix's scalability tests, Linus' process criticisms. I spent quite a lot of time finding sources for criticism of OpenBSD when this article was rewritten and as you have noted, even many of the ones included are not ideal - you may be surprised at how few criticisms there actually are, and how difficult it is to find good, citeable references, even for something that comes up "time and time again". OpenBSD is not a huge project after all.

Of course, if a new criticism is made by a reputable source, it should be added. However, until this blog article was published recently, I had not heard lack of MAC cited as a serious criticism of OpenBSD for quite some time, so pending more sources, I'm not convinced we need to expend a lot of space on this. If one good source can be found, maybe a sentence around the stuff about privilege revocation?

I think a point to remember is that this article is not a review of OpenBSD, or a complete history, it is an encyclopedia article intended to give the reader (the technical reader, hence the prerequisites) an understanding of the history of OpenBSD, where it came from, its major features and goals, and the main attributes of its culture. We can't cover everything - a big thing about the article during FA review was its length, and a lot of time was spent paring down the article to examples that give a good flavour of OpenBSD, rather than trying to be exhaustive. For example, we do not mention the fuss over the use of GPL code in OpenBSD, or over removal of copyright in Linux, because they would not really say anything not already adequately shown by the sections about DJB and about Adaptec.

There are definitely a few other things could be improved, for example to my mind there are too many lists of binaries, APIs, security features etc, and there is some criticism that actually isn't cited when it really should be (no services in the default install). NicM (talk) 00:56, 16 March 2010 (UTC).

This bit seems to be unreliable, we'd want something more significant than what comes off as an editorial. Is the writer a notable security expert? Have they published papers? Mandatory Access Controls are not a security tool really, more for administration, but if that is to be construed as security, that angle can be pursued. http://allthatiswrong.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/the-insecurity-of-openbsd/ does not look like a security site, the other articles talk of Nip/Tuck and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 74.13.38.99 (talk) 16:26, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

The blog site has a security category which has quite a few notable articles and entries. The fact that there is also an entertainment category on the blog should be irrelevant. Not really sure why you are trying to say that MAC is not a tool, but more for administration. MAC is a security technology like W^X or systrace, and should be discussed. OpenBSD is almost the only modern operating system that refuses to incorporate them without any good reason. This should be discussed or at least mentioned on the page. 174.58.203.226 (talk) 06:33, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The blog is just a random blog - it's not some security blog, or even a blog by a security expert. It leaves the blog as just a bunch of random thoughts, which are not reliable sources of citable information. This isn't Bruce Schneier, Kurt Seifried, or Colin Percival, this is random guy. Citing an opinion piece of a non-notable individual does not work, and as the article is Featured already, only citable sources can be used. If you can get this person to turn this into an article, have the data as verified by the editors of whatever security-related site you encourage them to submit it to, then it's good to go, but until then, it's not noteworthy enough to be cited. Or at least, that's my thinking. 74.13.38.99 (talk) 12:45, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Response to Third Opinion Request:

Disclaimers: I am responding to a third opinion request made at WP:3O. I have made no previous edits on OpenBSD/Archive 4 and have no known association with the editors involved in this discussion. The third opinion process (FAQ) is informal and I have no special powers or authority apart from being a fresh pair of eyes. Third opinions are not tiebreakers and should not be "counted" in determining whether or not consensus has been reached. My personal standards for issuing third opinions can be viewed here.

Opinion: While the original piece may (or may not) be completely correct blogs and news reports which merely report the contents of the blogs — or worse, like the one in question here, just quote it — are not reliable sources. I would have ordinarily preferred to see the information remain up and just be tagged as of questionable reliability, but there's no chance that this meets WP's reliability guidelines. A suggestion to 97: If this has been widely reported, then there's a chance that one of those reportings takes this blog posting and builds an bigger, independent article around it, but just doesn't report it or rely on it as the sole source of the article. If that's in a reliable publication, that article might stand a chance of surviving here.

What's next: Once you've considered this opinion click here to see what happens next.—TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 17:34, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your input. As noted when I made the request, my IP has changed. I do feel you have missed the point somewhat. I would also ask why the guideline states "if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so." but when I provide references that report the article they are ignored. The original DistroWatch article does not simply quote the article but reports on it, but it was dismissed. In any case, I think the hundreds of comments on that article substantiate it. It is not self published research, just a review of the current state that is well referenced. Wikipedia is full of these types of articles, and the double standard of when to cinlude them or not in frustrating.

As a compromise, I would like the thread on the official OpenBSD mailing list linked to, or this kernaltrap article (http://kerneltrap.org/OpenBSD/SELinux_vs_OpenBSDs_Default_Security) which also references a huge thread on the OpenBSD mailing list incorporated. OpenBSD is one of the only, if not *the* only modern operating system to not just not include, but flat our reject any form of MAC. This keeps coming up again and again with the 2007 thread and the wordpress article being the biggest examples. As such, the teams rejection of MAC merits inclusion on the OpenBSD page. 174.58.203.226 (talk) 06:33, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

You said, "Hell, even the MUCH larger discussion about OpenBSD vs SELinux isn't mentioned on this site, which makes me think accuracy is not the goal, but rather putting OpenBSD in a good light." Well, you're half right and half wrong. Verifiability, not accuracy, is indeed the bottom line for inclusion in Wikipedia. Both what you are arguing on this talk page about OpenBSD and the original piece may be god's own truth, but "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—what counts is whether readers can verify that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source...." Reliable sources are, "third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" and questionable sources "are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts, or with no editorial oversight". It's that last clause about "no editorial oversight" that prevents blogs, mailing lists, and other self–published sources from being reliable. The idea is, obviously — though I've never found anywhere here that says it outright — that Wikipedia depends on information coming from sources which have a substantial risk of financial loss through legal action or loss of reputation if they include as fact or criticism information which is not correct. That's the reason that blogs and sources like Kernaltrap are not considered reliable sources: they don't have any skin in the game. The "established expert" exception logically (though, again, not expressly, so far as I can find) is, in my opinion, really just a variation on the financial loss idea: an established expert has a reputation to maintain and risks substantial financial loss if it is tarnished. I understand your frustration at seeing something removed which you consider to be a well-documented public risk, but so far you've not come up with any source for it which, in my opinion, stands a snowball's chance of surviving a reliability review for the reasons set out above. As for the "half wrong," the position taken here about your attempted inclusion has nothing to do with bias in the OpenBSD article; the standards I've mentioned are applicable to every article here. If violations exist, it's only because either they've not been spotted or because no one who has noticed them has cared enough to mark, remove, or correct them. (We are, remember, all volunteers here; no one has to undertake tasks that they don't want to do.) If you find violations of those standards in the OpenBSD article, or in any other article here, you are free to mark, fix, or remove them, but I would strongly recommend having a very good understanding of the editing process and Wikipedia rules before you jump in. (At the very least, you should read, if you've not done so already, the Verifiability policy from which the foregoing quotes were taken and "What Wikipedia is not".) Good luck and best wishes, — TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 21:54, 15 March 2010 (UTC) P.S. You're missing the point about the statement about self-published sources which says, "if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so." What that means is that if self-published information is really worth putting in Wikipedia, then if you look hard enough you really ought to be able to also find it in some reliable source, i.e. one with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy and which has editorial oversight, and not have to rely on the self-published source, even if the author is an established expert. — TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 21:56, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think a discussion of criticism of OpenBSD with regard to MAC would be out of place, but the comments should a) be attributable to some reliable source with at least some sort of credentials to speak on the subject (well-known security authority or author, developer of security software - the PaX guys might be good to look at, I think they have made comments in the past) b) include discussion of responses from/the attitude of OpenBSD developers (their responses to this blog entry may be usable, but I don't think this piece is enough on its own). I know it can be very difficult to find good sources on open source software and its debates, and even harder with a strict interpretation of the WP guidelines, but there must be more out there than this if it is a hot issue. Although I think it is important to bear in mind that this is an article specifically about OpenBSD, not about security, MAC, or other platforms, so it has to keep to the point.

As far as reasons against MAC in OpenBSD go, ISTR that at least a few broad reasons it doesn't exist have been stated at one time or another (but don't quote me on this, you will have to dig out sources): a) it adds unnecessary complexity and tentacles all over the place b) for most installations it is futile as administrators end up turning it off c) difficulty of formulating an acceptable default policy d) the existing solutions may be less fine-grained but they are well-tested, well-understood, simple, and (importantly) can be applied by default e) nobody has done it and submitted it and spent the time necessary to get something in (generally if someone turns up with code, it gets serious consideration) NicM (talk) 23:16, 15 March 2010 (UTC).

I can't find a lot of solid stuff on this so far, so I'm not sure it is yet really a big enough issue to deserve much, if any, space in the article. The best references I can come up with are:

• seifried, back in 2001 and very sketchy, http://www.seifried.org/security/os/20011107-openbsd-linux.html, and his own rebuttal http://www.seifried.org/security/os/20011107-linux-openbsd.html
• Another blog, Joshua Brindle: http://securityblog.org/brindle/2008/03/30/secure-doesnt-mean-anything/

There are also quite a few much weaker links, including:

• This thread http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/openbsd-misc/2007/9/22/272545 is quite good for OpenBSD quotes (look at Ted Unangst, Marc Espie).
• Stephen Smalley "The security portion of the OpenBSD project is really orthogonal to the SELinux or TrustedBSD projects" http://www.nsa.gov/research/selinux/list-archive/0103/0276.shtml

It would be interesting to know if eg "Mastering FreeBSD and OpenBSD Security" says anything about this difference between the two platforms? NicM (talk) 23:49, 15 March 2010 (UTC).

More recent screenshot

The current screenshots seem to be somewhat outdated. I've taken a more recent one in the hope of showing that OpenBSD can make a pretty decent desktop too: http://devio.us/~dv/OpenBSD%20with%20GNOME%202.30.1.png. If Nobody minds I'll replace one of the existing screenshots at some point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.77.153.149 (talk) 22:39, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

May be better if it's a higher resolution, and maybe showing something other than xterm. 74.13.28.209 (talk) 16:30, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

If there are no objections, I'll replace the current screenshots with ones from OpenBSD 4.9-RELEASE. I'll replace the JWM one with GNOME so people will be able to see GNOME, Xfce, FVWM, and the boot prompt in the article. I'll also make it 1280x1024 to make it a higher resolution and the same resolution for all of the screenshots. Tonystewart14 (talk) 23:00, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Here is a link to a post I made on DaemonForums about changing the screenshots. You can see the proposed new ones and let me know if they look good or if anything needs to be changed.

http://www.daemonforums.org/showthread.php?p=38383Tonystewart14 (talk) 23:26, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Note: I replaced the screenshots, but someone else put the boot screenshot at the top to emulate FreeBSD's page and left the FVWM screenshot to make it two screenshots only. This is mentioned in the DaemonForums link above. Feel free to discuss here if you have any thoughts on the matter. Tonystewart14 (talk) 03:49, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Funding by DARPA

I suppose that the article should mention that OpenBSD was denied of a DARPA grant due to de-Ra'at's statements regarding the war in Iraq: [1]. Tzafrir (talk) 17:33, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

It would do no harm to mention that DARPA funding was cut, however it's not totally clear that this was due to Theo's anti-war comments. Only DARPA know that for sure. Unixtastic (talk) 17:21, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

It would help if you familiarize yourself with the topic before editing Wikipedia article. Whole DARPA story is pretty well documented. You just need to search for Theo's post around Internet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.3.57.226 (talk) 23:37, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Reference formatting consistency

Currently the references are bot consistent: there are custom-formatted refs, titled plain links and even plain URLs. I would like to make them uniform, but as article is stable FA, I would prefer explicit approval. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 19:10, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Nobody stepped put, so I take it as silent consensus. I'm going to convert all links to citation format, as it is supposed to be the most WP:MOS-compliant format to date. Any objections? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 21:18, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

 Done Notes:

• Access dates stripped from the mailing list refs; the idea behind the access dates is to identify the date when the link was functional, which is practical for regualr web pages but useless for mailing lists' archives, as any message could be located in another archive by author, date and title.
• I replaced DistroWatch direct link with archived one, so that figures could be verified. I had to update the figures and remove NetBSD figure, as the archived page doesn't contain one.
• I replaced a link to the comment to an OSNews news item with a message on openbsd-misc@ refering to the comment, which is much more in line with WP:SPS.
• Removed references which just pointed to homepages of wikilinked projects and pieces of software.

Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 01:45, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Removed excessive biographical discussion of de Raadt

The "History and popularity" section was weighed down with an extended dissection of Theo de Raadt's personality. I've removed it but copied it verbatim to the talk page of his biography. Although similar wording appears there, it's possible that some of the material I removed may be of use in further editing of that article. --TS 17:28, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Distrowatch

I've removed reference to hit counters on a Linux website known as Distrowatch. It's a bit like trying to assess the relative popularity of cricket and football by surveying visitors to a swimming website. --TS 17:33, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Checking the DistroWatch article I also see the very sensible comment by Ladislav Bodnar, the site's curator: "I'd like to believe that there is some truth in the figures, but in all honesty, they really don't mean all that much and should not be taken very seriously." At the moment our article contains reference to an actual survey of BSD users into which BSD Certification Group put a lot of work, and although that's not perfect it's a lot stronger than this hit counter. --TS 17:40, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

That would be an ecumenical matter

I've removed a lot of stuff about arguments on mailing lists--essentially religious wars between different flavours of BSD and between different approaches to operating system usability. If I've gone too far somewhere do please restore. The references are commented out for now. --TS 23:01, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

The Linus thing

Linus Torvalds said something in an interview and OpenBSD people were like "he's saying what we're saying". So it's established that Linus misrepresented the auditing process. And carrying the exchange in this article could only serve to exacerbate the affair, which is of no serious moment to Linux or OpenBSD. So I removed the entire piece --TS 22:53, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Rampant

I'm rampantly removing stuff that seems to be small beer. I may remove stuff you think should be here. Get back to me. --TS 22:53, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Or, indeed, just put it back there. --TS 02:57, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

m:Tier's port of Zarafa

http://www.mtier.org/solutions/os/openbsd/zarafa/

The reference to the Zarafa port seems to have been removed because of a dead link. However this alternative link indicates that this project is being actively supported by m:Tier. --TS 10:50, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Unstable releases

Would it be prudent to replace the semiannually-updated "x.y-current" for each cycle with a permanent "-current" for the unstable releases option?

--Detharonil (talk) 01:02, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Detharonil's suggestion is a good one. However, as it's yet to be implemented, or even commented on after 3 months, I just updated "5.3-current" to the recently-announced "5.4 beta". That uses a literal interpretation of the word "release," where "-current" is really a different track. Still, I'd be totally OK with anyone reverting my change, and/or removing the "5.3" prefix to "-current."

--jayseye

I still like the idea of doing it, unless we like the idea of permanently babysitting the section in question to be updated every six months like clockwork (though the stable release is the same way, so perhaps it isn't a big deal). In any case, I would like a bit more feedback before making such a relatively drastic change to the page.

--Detharonil (talk) 01:03, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Funding and FA status

I find it difficult to believe that nobody remarked the non-sequiturs and gaps in the Funding section during the FA review not so long ago. Someone not using his real name (talk) 00:14, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

portable versions

I never saw a portable version of sndio and Xenocara. Are there citation for this?--Darktrym (talk) 16:11, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Slogan and OpenBSD being "minimalistic"

One might add to the end of that section, that even though, OpenBSD's base system is pretty minimal, at lot of tasks OpenBSD is used for, like running a firewall or a simple webserver, can be achieved with the base system only, without the need of installing additional, potentially insecure software. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.175.152.0 (talk) 07:25, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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I found the first two elsewhere (the first on linux.com's archive of old NewsForge content, the second on IBM Developerworks with a different URL) and pointed them there; I didn't find the third, but the Wayback Machine link works. Guy Harris (talk) 19:03, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

FAR

In a cursory read of this article, I can't imagine that these two-sentence sections are complete, and I wouldn't call its quality of prose anywhere near "brilliant" featured article standards... If someone brings this up for FAR or wants more detailed comments, please ping me.  czar 05:08, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

@Czar: I agree with your assessment, and even thought about FAR before looking at this talk page and your comment. Sections 2-4 are almost completely bereft of any citation in addition to the lack of detail in certain areas that you point out. If you have further detailed comments, please add them below. Per WP:FAR, we can solicit any comments here to improve the article before taking it to a review. Tonystewart14 (talk) 15:05, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Repairing the unsourced sections for completeness will be enough work in itself, but beyond that, it's hard to give specific advice when the content isn't there. czar 16:04, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Kerberos removed from base

Resolved

 – There is no mention of Kerberos as of today. Michael Reed (talk) 20:24, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Kerberos has been removed from base system as described here.

-- 81.10.151.214 (talk) 08:09, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Restructure article + add content

(pinging User:Tonystewart14 User:Tony Sidaway User:Risc64, in case you're interested)

If you haven't already, I recommend seeing the FARC page, linked above.

Despite all the recent changes done to this article, I still think it has at least two fundamental flaws: its structure doesn't make much sense (I'm partial to the FreeBSD article), and its coverage isn't as feature oriented as I'd like (see FreeBSD & NetBSD).

As mentioned on the FARC page, most mention of features is light: things like rc.d, the base utilities (/bin /usr/bin /sbin /usr/sbin) and how they differ heavily from GNU, their file system layout, and their extensive networking support are completely absent. Also, there is only very light mention of their port/packages infrastructure, which could perhaps have its own subsection of a "Features" section.

As for structure, here's what I can think of at the moment:

• No dedicated features section; there are various mentions of some features throughout the article, it seems, but nothing centralized
• Package/ports management is in the "Distributed and marketing" section; I can see the relationship, but I still think it should be in its own section, or subsection of a larger "Features" section
• "Open-source and open documentation" could perhaps be split into two sections, "documentation" and "philosophy," or something like that; also, in that same section, there is mention of how "OpenBSD randomizes various behaviors of applications," which seems like it doesn't belong
• Perhaps we should merge OpenBSD security features into OpenBSD, if only in a slightly simplified form. I think the security features are a major reason (if not the primary reason) to use OpenBSD, and putting them off in a separate article makes them harder to find, and makes it seem as if they're not as important.

What do you all think? Any and all ideas would be great. Michael Reed (talk) 16:35, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

• One semantic point I want to mention is that the article is currently at FAR, not FARC. That means it's just at the review stage, not a removal candidate.
• For the security features page, I noticed that there is a Timeline of OpenBSD page as well. That page is rudimentary and should probably look more like History of FreeBSD. We could also add a version history to this article to have it be like the FreeBSD article. Tonystewart14 (talk) 04:44, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

• As you probably saw, I updated the Timeline of OpenBSD article to use the template used in History_of_FreeBSD#Version_history. As you tagged there, it still needs numerous citations, as well as "supported until" dates. For most of these, it should be one year after the release date. Once that gets done, it could get ported to the main article. Tonystewart14 (talk) 10:16, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for doing that Tony; that would be a great addition to the main article. If I have the time, I'll try to help out with the timeline. Michael Reed (talk) 16:16, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Unique kernels on reboot

This might be something to add. A new feature will regenerate the kernel on every reboot or upgrade as a security measure, called KARL (Kernel Address Randomized Link). https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/openbsd-will-get-unique-kernels-on-each-reboot-do-you-hear-that-linux-windows/ Tonystewart14 (talk) 18:12, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Security features and crypto framework pages

I'd like to know if the OpenBSD security features and OpenBSD Cryptographic Framework pages are needed. The former was mentioned in a post above suggesting it be merged into the main article, which I concur with, and I'm not sure if the crypto framework needs its own article either. Based on feedback here, I could take one or both to AFD. Tonystewart14 (talk) 02:18, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

• I would say OpenBSD Cryptographic Framework should remain its own article, because it is a separate entity. OpenBSD security features should be merged with the main article because categorically it is a property of OpenBSD. Jserio2 (talk) 02:24, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of OpenBSD security features

The article OpenBSD security features has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Redundant with main article.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Tonystewart14 (talk) 12:04, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of OpenBSD security features for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article OpenBSD security features is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/OpenBSD security features until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Tonystewart14 (talk) 06:33, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Current slogan removed

PR slogans from developers and other sources with a vested interest should not be uncritically repeated - even if they might be correct. Information about significant achievements and other promotional claims must be sourced by independent sources (per WP:SPS). GermanJoe (talk) 14:25, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

• Disagree - the slogan was here framed in such a way that it does not imply it as fact, only that the website says so. The slogan itself is not particularly strongly worded or regarded as untrue/controversial, so I don't see an issue with reporting that the developers make such a claim. If we were to report the claim directly as fact, we would need a reliable third party source. Were it regarded as a serious lie by third party sources, I would strongly suggest that we include a discussion of that opinion. Jonathan Williams (talk) 15:02, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
  • What the developers say about their own software is largely irrelevant, unless an independent source reports about it in some context (for example: when an independent expert examines such a claim in a review). Please see WP:SPS, especially #1. A promotional claim, even dressed up as "slogan", is still a promotional claim and falls under the restrictions of this policy. This particular slogan is clearly a highly promotional claim about the software's core functionality and safety. Including it without independent encyclopedic context violates WP:SPS and WP:NPOV. GermanJoe (talk) 15:37, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
    • Reading WP:SPS shows it seems to be mainly focused on articles about individuals. I fail to see that reporting the fact that OpenBSD makes this claim about themselves violates WP:ABOUTSELF. Jonathan Williams (talk) 19:21, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
      • The quoted claim is both unduly self-serving and not independently verified (per WP:EXCEPTIONAL: "surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources") - are you really disputing these simple facts about a PR slogan? If an independent source had reviewed this claim, the discussion would be moot of course. Self-published sources include press releases and other information published by companies, organisations and other topic-related entities, not only by single persons (see note 10 in the policy) - the policy is relevant here. GermanJoe (talk) 20:07, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

• Note: For now, I have restored the version without the promotional or irrelevant content that lacked independent sources - see also WP:BRD for a recommended approach. I do agree with the IP editor's (68.39.100.192) recent edit summary about the lack of encyclopedic relevance for most of this content, aside from my own concerns about promotionalism. If discussion fails to reach a consensus, we can of course also ask at WP:NPOVN for input from other editors - but let's wait for other opinions for now. GermanJoe (talk) 20:43, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

• Disagree - Feel free to add additional sources as you see fit but removing this information is not making Wikipedia better, The slogan is not regarded as untrue/controversial and serves to explain just how seriously security and code correctness is taken by the project. I also agree with Jonathan Williams that this does not seem to violate any policy. Murchison-Eye (talk) 21:49, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
  • The claim is exceptional, and such claims must be verified with an independent reliable source. That's not an optional improvement but a basic requirement to keep such content. I also disagree with the notion that the uncritical inclusion of blatant PR slogans from the topic's point of view does improve Wikipedia, which is supposed to be an uninvolved source of credible and relevant information. GermanJoe (talk) 22:42, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
    • WP:EXCEPTIONAL is not applicable here because: 1. no one disputes the claim 2. there isn't a claim that there were no security holes ever – only that there were 2 remote security holes over a long period of time. The framing in the article is as a statement from the project itself. If this claim is exceptional, it would certainly be notable to include a controversy over the veracity of the complaint. Jonathan Williams (talk) 13:20, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Agree I am agree with User:GermanJoe. First of all, it is not a slogan!! their slogan is "Free, Functional, and Secure" and there is no problem with, but another is a very promotional *claim* which needs independent and reliable source, also I remember at the past, there was a sourced paragraph in the article that harshly criticized it, but it is no longer exist in the article!

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=OpenBSD&oldid=597409043#Slogan

OpenBSD fan boys slowly removed its source and added to it various citations templates, and at the end, completely removed it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=OpenBSD&diff=623132713&oldid=621812333

Editor-1 (talk) 16:35, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

• I strongly support including the paragraph that provides a critical POV to the slogan / wording on the homepage. Thanks for pointing that out. Jonathan Williams (talk) 17:23, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

WP:NPOVN doesn't seem to have gotten any results and I don't see consensus - how about this: restoring the content and including the paragraph criticizing it here: [2] Jonathan Williams (talk) 15:16, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

GA nomination

I noticed that an IP user nominated this article for GA status, and while I think it's well short of GA at this point, perhaps the article could be improved before the review is started. We could heed the advice from a few years ago during the FAR/FARC process and model the article off of FreeBSD or other OS articles, as has already been initiated in a rewrite effort. I can contribute some myself, but would like to see if others are on board. Tonystewart14 (talk) 00:27, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:OpenBSD/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: MrLinkinPark333 (talk · contribs) 02:33, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello! Thank you for submitting this article to Good Article Nominations. Unfortunately, I will have to quick-fail this article because this article is a long way from passing the Verifiability criteria. Looking through the sections, there are at least one citation missing in the History, Uses, Third Party and Open source sections. In the Security and distribution sections, multiple sentences are missing citations. However, my main concerns are the Development and subprojects section.

With the development section, there are two full paragraphs that do not have any citations. With this section alone, there are six uncited sentences in the Development section. Similarily, with the Development section there are nine referenced statements, with eight of them being bullet points. If I were to count the other sections (History, Uses, Open source, Security, Subprojects and distribution) I see at least 9 additional unreferenced sentences.

Without taking a full depth review, I spot at least over twenty unreferenced statements. With this in mind, this article is currently not close enough to pass Verifiability. Also, I noticed that this nomination is your only edit so far. I'm not sure if you've edited under a different account, but it is preferable that the nominator should be a major contributor when nominating an article at Good Article Nominations per Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions. Please feel free to nominate again once the article is in a better shape to be reviewed, especially with making sure that every sentence has been cited with reliable sources. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 02:33, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

OpenBSD version history merger

I noticed that User:FMM-1992 merged OpenBSD version history into OpenBSD#Releases without creating a discussion. While bold merges are allowed, I'm not convinced that this would be completely uncontroversial. I think it's best to create this discussion and revert if there is not consensus.
@Guy Harris, GoingBatty, Strangerpete, Glennglazer, Comp.arch, PowerPCG5, Bumm13, and Mindmatrix: Tagging recent OpenBSD article contributors. Please comment below if you support/oppose or feel that this should be reverted before consensus is generated. Tonystewart14 (talk) 13:56, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

You can't really have a release of an OS without a new version, so this doesn't bother me. Glennglazer (talk) 14:40, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

• Hi, Tony, I completely agree with you. Even though I personally don’t have a strong opinion either way, you are completely correct that a major change like this really should have first been proposed on this talk page to solicit feedback, and then, barring any strong objections, such changes could have been made in accordance with community feedback with the benefit that doing so would have the support of fellow editors, as well as having the benefit of getting other people’s buy-in, even making fellow editors more likely, friendly, and willing to help out. Wikipedia is, after all, a collaborative endeavor, built on a sense of community and consensus. But to be honest, there have been times when I myself have been hella motivated to contribute what I saw as improvements and perhaps may not have done as good a job myself of soliciting advance feedback and attaining consensus for big edits before the fact, so it would be somewhat hypocritical of me to criticize too severely. Btw thanks for keeping an eye out on this and similar articles! :)  —PowerPCG5 (talk) 14:57, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

@Tonystewart14: My only contribution in the last few years was recently changing a link from Apple (the fruit) to Apple Inc., so I have no input on this merger. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 15:18, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Support merging the version history into the main article. PhotographyEdits (talk) 20:12, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

First of all please note that I'm not newbie to this article, my previous user name was "Editor-1" and the "Find edits by user" tool on the history page shows:

32 edits by FMM-1992 on OpenBSD (0.97% of the total edits made to the page)

the first edit was on 23 December 2015, and the current screenshot of the article was added by me on 4 October 2018 (diff).

Please read my rationale for the merge edit: Special:Diff/1037853453 and pay attention to what WP:SIZERULE and WP:Article size say to us, thanks.
To editors PhotographyEdits and Scaledish: tagging recent Talk:OpenBSD contributors -- FMM-1992 (talk) 14:48, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

• I certainly wouldn't argue that you haven't been a major contributor, and the edit summary is appreciated, but it isn't the same as community consensus. As PowerPCG5 said, it is best to discuss on the talk page before making the change. Also, thanks for tagging two additional editors, since we can get more feedback on the matter. Tonystewart14 (talk) 03:01, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

It is worth to mention:

(1) the WP:Prosesize tool shows that the current version of the article has:

Prose size (text only): 21 kB (3299 words) "readable prose size"

while WP:Article size says:

""Some useful rules of thumb for splitting articles, and combining small pages:

Readable prose size	What to do
> 100 kB	Almost certainly should be divided
> 60 kB	Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material)
> 50 kB	May need to be divided (likelihood goes up with size)
< 40 kB	Length alone does not justify division
< 1 kB	If an article or list has remained this size for over a couple of months, consider combining it with a related page. Alternatively, the article could be expanded; see Wikipedia:Stub.

Please note: These rules of thumb apply only to readable prose and not to wiki markup size (as found on history lists or other means), and each kB can be equated to 1,000 characters.""

(2) the "Pageviews Analysis" tool shows that from 9 JUL 2021 to 9 AUG 2021 the "OpenBSD version history" page had only 507 views, while the main article had 10,359 views at the same time: stats

(3) OpenBSD version history - Page History - XTools shows that user:Tonystewart14 is the page third editor by the number of edits (14 edits) and the page fourth editor by added text "1,459 (5.3%)" kB

FMM-1992 (talk) 04:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)