*BSD News Article 72405


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.uwa.edu.au!disco.iinet.net.au!news.uoregon.edu!hunter.premier.net!news.mathworks.com!uhog.mit.edu!news!news
From: ghudson@mit.edu (Greg Hudson)
Subject: Re: Why you shouldn't run NetBSD
Message-ID: <1996Jun27.080019.19125@media.mit.edu>
Sender: news@media.mit.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.3
References: <4qssjs$f0f@voodoo.pdx.oneworld.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 08:00:19 GMT
Lines: 84

[comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc elided from newsgroups line, per Jordan's
request.]

It's very unfortunate that you chose to forge approval of your post to
comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.announce.  Regardless of whether you are right or
wrong, what you've done is an abuse of Usenet and is not acceptable.
It's especially unfortunate, though, because your post contains many
inaccuracies, which you would know if you'd been following the
discussion.  I do not believe in continuing to violate the charter of
a discussion group in order to correct the inaccuracies of someone
else who chose to do so, but it's really quite a shame.

It would be well within Chris's rights to cancel this article.  If he
does so, I sincerely hope you will choose to repost the article on
comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc only.  You're not helping your case at all
by forcing your way onto a moderated newsgroup.

In article <4qssjs$f0f@voodoo.pdx.oneworld.com>,
	downsj@threadway.teeny.org (Jason Downs) writes:
> [...] and booted him out of the project.  Regardless of the fact
> that he did nothing that other members of the sacred NetBSD Core
> Team haven't done countless times.

This claim is, at the very least, unsubstantiated.  It was certainly
not the opinion of the core team when the decision was made.

> At any rate, he moved on to other things, figured some things out,
> etc.  Eventually, he wanted to share the code he'd developed in the
> mean time with the rest of NetBSD-- something which required he be
> given CVS access to the tree back.

By no means did that require that he be given CVS access back.  It
might have saved the existing NetBSD developers some effort if he were
able to commit the changes himself, but the only reason it "required"
CVS access was that he refused to release his code without being given
CVS access (until he started OpenBSD, of course).

> Recently, various people began to criticize NetBSD on some of the
> NetBSD mailing lists.  This included Theo, who decided that he was
> not going to provide a list of the security holes that he had fixed
> in OpenBSD.  For this he was flamed, and when he attempted to defend
> himself and OpenBSD, his posts were not only censored, but he was
> summarily removed from *all* NetBSD lists (not just those, for
> example, which carry discussion), and prevented from resubscribing.

All of the posts in that conversation were censored (because they were
off-charter) except for Theo's original claim that he had fixed twenty
security holes in NetBSD.  You'd know this if you had followed the
discussion on comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc.

> This could be nothing more then the petty action of someone's
> personal vendetta against Theo de Raadt, since no one else was
> removed from the lists for participating in the discussion was was
> booted for.

Theo's latest outburst was merely the last straw.  Theo was kicked off
the mailing lists because at that point he had a history of taking
various NetBSD mailing lists off-charter.  He was quite severely
reducing the signal:noise ratio on the NetBSD lists.

You've done a some of the same yourself; if you continue to do so, you
will no doubt be barred from the NetBSD mailing lists as well.  This
is well within the rights of the list maintainers.

> I should think that it's pretty clear that NetBSD is more interested
> in politics and propogating a vendetta against Theo de Raadt and
> anything he's involved in then in managing the development of an
> operating system.

On the contrary; you and Theo seem quite interested in creating and
perpetuating politics.  The NetBSD core team is not, as demonstrated
by their lack of participation in this debate.  A few people in the
NetBSD camp have gotten involved in this flame war (myself included),
but only to respond to false accusations.

> People running other architectures might want to consider OpenBSD as
> a viable alternative; not only is it free of the politics that
> caused it's creation, but one of it's goals is to provide an easier
> to use system for everyone.

It's... amusing that you would claim that NetBSD is free of the
politics that caused its creation, especially since Theo has been
closing the OpenBSD accounts of people who do work on NetBSD.