AsiaBSDCon 2009:The OpenBSD Release Process: A Success Story

[Evi1M4chine]

So to say it in one short sentence: They simply keep the code in release quality *all the time*. Every day.

And since that means the code is always tested right after being changed, there is no need for big testing before releases.

I think I always worked like this. I basically write in the morning, test in the evening, and never go home before the thing works properly with high certainty.

[bootiack]

capitalism all the way down with software patents

[atoponce]

Is this a talk about OpenBSD or criticizing other projects?

[bobdole57]

is it just me or was that Kirk McKusick asking that question around 27 minutes?

[bootiack]

outstanding

[guaqua]

Good stuff. Other projects have a lot to learn from OpenBSD's process.

[asasakra]

I agree with the idea of running latest code. That is why I use Debian testing on my desktop and non-production-critical servers. For the production servers, I'm more than happy that the stable release cycle is 3 years. In the Linux world there will be always bugs and security issues and maintaining more releases will be waste of time and resources like Theo said. This is what happened to Ubuntu.

[bootiack]

I am smarter for having watched this. inspiring.

[kovertopz]

I think everyone has taken Google talks for granted and how well setup they are.

[robo45h]

HORRIBLE video technique. Theo is not visible, because it's too dark. That's OK -- no need to really see him. HOWEVER, they keep the camera backed out so he is in frame. As a result, you can't read the slides most of the time. They should have just focused on the slides.

[tylermenezes]

Your monitor is crap. I could see him, and with HQ turned on I could read everything.

[Mo6eB]

Damn. Using Comic Sans MS for slides detailing OpenBSD's successful release model. Truly, I have seen the greatest troll of this generation.

[clogmaestro]

Replying to your comment makes you the greatest troll of all. As if a certain font matters for the message. Tsk tsk tsk.

[mokumvonAmsterdam]

Brilliant. This should be a good lesson to many develop teams. Thanks for sharing this, Theo.

[chabych]

This sounds a lot like Debian's release process. Debian's primary release delays in the past have been infrastructure issues rather than software stability issues -- things like getting the right set of architectures on their mirrors, and getting security infrastructure set up for the new release.

I may very well be that the thing that makes this work is not only the release management practices, but also whatever they do to avoid security problems in the first place.

[petrus4]

No, Debian isn't similar at all. Debian's release process, as Theo says here, takes years.

Debian is blatantly, vastly inferior to any of the BSDs in just about every respect, and I'm getting deeply tired of hearing Debian fanboys talk about how great it is.

It's excessively intricate, over-engineered garbage that takes virtually no notice of established UNIX philosophy. If Debian really wants to move forward as a project, the first thing it needs to do is admit just how deeply it sucks.

[kashzone]

Yeah, I tried to introduce FreeBSD at work to replace Solaris (on a V880) and have a stable environment that remained friendly to my linux fanatic boss. He says he hates it, but gives no reason why except that "debian is better". When I bring up that the SPARC release has more bugs than an anthill, he told me I could become the new maintainer; I said I refuse to maintain something for free that I hate with most of my heart.

[MeshugenahScientist]

We need more people like you; people who put their heart in it.

Without a heart, where would we be? Dead I suppose, and with more bugs than the SPARC release.

[caitsithcat]

Unix takes virtually no notice of established Debian philosophy.

[petrus4]

Ah, yes; the new habit of Debian or GNU trolls to do simple syntactic reversals of statements they disagree with.

You think it makes you look intelligent. In reality it makes you look like exactly what you are; brainwashed drones.

[caitsithcat]

I'm sorry my attempt at humor was lost at your ignorant, unfounded rage toward Debian. Frankly, I learned *nix on FreeBSD and loved the coherence of it all, but have since taken to using Ubuntu and Debian for my home server and laptop.

I'm open to hearing discussions on the matter of OpenBSD vs. Debian (which would be off-topic of Theo's video), but it seems you're more content throwing attacks at Debian with no citation or even ATTEMPTS at anecdotal evidence, followed by unabashed trolling.

[MeshugenahScientist]

People like that tend to come to pages like this with the mindset of "I'm a seriously intelligent dude, as evidenced by my interest in 'Operating System Technology'." And reading with frowny foreheads, they're unable to see any humor here, so rigid and determined is their need to appear so very intelligent.

I guess a showy display of rage toward Debian is what he believes will make him look "intelligent". **LOL**

[tcadroas]

I agree, the OS you use doesn't make you any more intelligent, nor do the degrees you have, jobs/titles you've held, country you were born/live in, color of your skin, or the languages that you speak.

I meet many people who speak more than one language and they think it makes them geniuses. It's unimpressive. Then they insult me in three word sentences in anything but English. What I really find funny is those who believe reading books makes them smarter than everyone else.

[neb967]

@tcadroas Are you really serious... so if you have a crap Operating System, low level unchallenging job, come from a poor country with poor a education system, and speak badly in one language - u can still be intelligent ? huh - go figure...

Then again intelligence is an overrated characteristic that guarantess absolutely nothing... alot massive losers out there who are "intelligent"... weird...

[Evi1M4chine]

@neb967: Uuum,. no idea what you’re implying or what planet you’re from, but intelligence has nothing to do with all this stuff you listed. Intelligence is based on neurological properties, which are only dependent on your genetics, and later on your food & co. What you mean, is *knowledge*. And I guess with your shitty schools that reward training by heart and punish self-thinking, you stopped knowing the difference.

Indian slum kids took <2 weeks from illiteracy to surfing the web on a tablet.

[neb967]

@Evi1M4chine If u have no idea what I'm implying then why are u commenting dude ??? I'm confused...

Anyway I was making a sarcastic comment which doesn't really translate well over the net... Dont get where on earth the shitty schools comments come from... I'm pretty multi-racial so I figure your comment could apply to about 6 different countries. Also what relevance do Indian slum kids have to do with this ? If they can learn to do that in 2 weeks - I figure they must be pretty smart. Peace

[MeshugenahScientist]

Damn brainwashed drones!

Come the Revolution, we'll have them all hanging off telegraph poles, along with Real Estate Agents, Bankers, Credit Card Compan CEOs and the like.

[tcadroas]

@MeshugenahScientist

And the best part is, you can pretend the world is like this, give up cars that were ever new, your home built by corporations, payed for by the loan taken from a bank, and the rights you had protected by real estate agents, you have to farm now, because you don't own anything.

You are the stupidest person in the entire world.

I truly hope you die a painful death.

[MeshugenahScientist]

I was making fun of "Revolutionaries" and the kinds of things they say. Gee, you're not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, are you?

You remind me of that saying that the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the ILLUSION of knowledge.

U regard things like "cars" in a superficial sense, settling on the premise that they're unquestionably desirable to our lives. But you're blind to the reality that they kill more people in the developed nations than all the conflicts in the world

[tcadroas]

I thought you were serious, there are plenty of people who think like that, and you should know by now that neither sarcasm nor satire transfer over the internet.

I don't believe myself smarter than anyone whose not a complete imbecile to begin with -- you're the one quoting and obsessing about intelligence. not that I'm any better. I'm about to reply to another of your comments. ^^

I don't drive. I don't drive cars. I see I'm not the only one here to make assumptions.

[tcadroas]

@MeshugenahScientist

Let's follow your extremely broken logic.

No lawyers. No legal representation. No trials.

No CEO's, no companies, no jobs, no money, no government. No computers, no internet, nothing, no buying food.

No banks. No loans, no homes. Rich investors buy and rent out homes.

No Real Estate agents mean that only people with real estate training can buy homes. That happens to be rich INVESTORS.

[MeshugenahScientist]

The logic of humor tends to be broken; it's what makes it humor

But since you've taken it seriously: Many people can't afford lawyers, CEOs vote themselves enormous salaries that have nothing to do with the market rate for their skill, computers and the internet threaten to be wonderful facilities for the authorities to track and control people, facilities that will give them unprecedented power, which will inevitably be abused.

Put your brain into high gear, mate, (it that's at all possible)

[MeshugenahScientist]

*PS This was my attempt at humor; i.e. making fun of "Revolutionary talk."

*LOL*

Well, I had to laugh at my own joke, if nobody else will.

:)

[MeshugenahScientist]

Yeah, and we should have it written in the new Constitution to make it illegal to flout such established philosophies.

[jquast01]

I did my best to use debian at work, because it gets tiring to port linux, but I put over 12 hours effort in trying to get debian-stable's statd to not freeze up on start-up, including source code diving (which is not anywhere near as elegant as in bsd, I can find the source code with my eyes closed in /usr/src). I gave up and installed bsd, I've already lost more time than I would porting software that isn't compatible in BSD.

[MeshugenahScientist]

Thass right mate. That damn Debian does deepthroat, that's how deeply it sucks.

Thank you for your, um, "deep" comments.

[raider8654]

Is that... COMIC SANS????!!!

You ought to know better!

[zurtle]

Count the average number of words per slide buddy - he's obviously a release engineer... not a marketeer!

[MeshugenahScientist]

"We are summoning forth the proletariat around the globe to aid us in this revolution [to ban Comic Sans]. We call on the common man to rise up in revolt against this evil of typographical ignorance. By banding together to eradicate this font from the face of the earth we strive to ensure that future generations will be liberated from this epidemic and never suffer this scourge that is the plague of our time."

--Revolutionary Group for the Eradication of Comic Sans from the Face of the Earth

[24oscar24]

sure theo love his comic sans.

[neb967]

@MeshugenahScientist LOLZ awesome

[carterson2]

Please subtitle this. We are all at work!

[JamesManes]

Theo kicks arse

[MeshugenahScientist]

Who's Theo? I'd like to hire him to kick a few arses.