6 ms·

Bitrig 1.0 Released – OpenBSD fork

60 points by chrismsnz 12y ago

debacle 12y ago
Why did they decide to fork OpenBSD?
- adamnemecek 12y ago
  "With the goal of bringing more experimental development to the OpenBSD code base, a few developers have announced a fork named Bitrig. According to their FAQ, Bitrig aims to build a small system targeting only modern hardware and "be a very commercially friendly code base by using non-viral licenses where possible." Their first step toward that goal was removing GCC in favor of LLVM/Clang. The project roadmap shows their future goals as adding FUSE support, improving multiprocessing, porting the system to ARM, and replacing the GNU C++ library with LLVM's." http://bsd-beta.slashdot.org/story/12/06/13/1645211/openbsd-fork-bitrig-announced http://bsd-beta.slashdot.org/story/12/06/13/1645211/openbsd-...
  - danudey 12y ago
    Portability and modernity instead of a security focus? I'm not sure why I would use a fork of OpenBSD instead of just FreeBSD though. I've always seen the primary benefits of OpenBSD as deriving from their obsessive focus on security, but if this fork isn't focussed on that I'm not sure what I gain vs. other BSDs that already have these goals and objectives in place/completed.
    - sigzero 12y ago
      Exactly. OpenBSD is very specific in what it is. That description is more a description for a fork of FreeBSD or NetBSD.
      - BBoingo 12y ago
        OpenBSD has always had a strong focus on protability. It's just the focus on portability was never restricted to "modernity" for the reason that there's few interestingly different processors anymore you can compile against to check for breaking errors. It would be interesting though if Bitrig became sort of a DragonflyBSD for OpenBSD, where weird experimental stuff can be tested in a separate playground.
    - renox 12y ago
      > Portability and modernity instead of a security focus? It is you who say "instead", can't it be "in addition to"?
  - ausjke 12y ago
    I thought this is where NetBSD shines, why not just enhance NetBSD? or why pulling OpenBSD into embedded space?
    - Danieru 12y ago
      Forking is the way of the BSDs. The BSD style is to develop the userland along with the kernel. Thus where Linux has multiple distro families BSD has full userland and kernel forks.
      - masklinn 12y ago
        That doesn't explain why you'd start from OpenBSD.
        clarry 12y ago
        The people who started the fork are ex OpenBSD developers. It makes all the sense. Why wouldn't they start with what they already know, find good, and are happy to work on?
- ukdm 12y ago
  Why did you fork OpenBSD? OpenBSD is an amazing project and has some of the best code around but some of us are of the opinion that it could use a bit of modernization. OpenBSD is a very security conscious project and, correspondingly, has to be more conservative with features. We want to be less restrictive with the codebase when it comes to experimenting with features. https://github.com/bitrig/bitrig/wiki/Faq https://github.com/bitrig/bitrig/wiki/Faq
- kchoudhu 12y ago
  https://github.com/bitrig/bitrig/wiki/Faq https://github.com/bitrig/bitrig/wiki/Faq Looks to be a desire to leave behind legacy cruft, add a better toolchain, and add virtualization.
- chrismsnz 12y ago
  If I had to take a guess... It'd be easier to carefully add specific features to a well-designed and secure codebase such as OpenBSD, rather than try and pare down and audit the huge codebase and large amount of features provided by something like FreeBSD.
Bluerise 12y ago
Bitrig developer here, feel free to shoot questions!
- yrmt 12y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the things (or maybe just the ideas?) you have implemented seems to be coming from NetBSD. If so, could you share other NetBSD stuff you'd like to see on Bitrig ? Congratulations on the 1.0 !
  - Bluerise 12y ago
    For me personally, better armv7 support. Even though many things stem from our hands, NetBSD and FreeBSD are a great resource. I have already started working on SMP support, based on their example. Otherwise I do not have any NetBSD stuff in mind. Can't speak for our other developers though. ;) I would love to have FreeBSD's bhyve on Bitrig. I will dedicate some time in January for that goal. DragonflyBSD is an inspiration for us, too. We have an experimental branch (smpns) for revamping the kernel for decent SMP support.
- technofiend 12y ago
  You guys plan to add the best bits of Solaris that everyone else has? To wit: dtrace, zfs and some kind of zone/cgroup idea?
- synchronise 12y ago
  When will you guys be working on implementing jails or another containerisation solution? Pretty much every other major OS out there like GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris offer some sort of solution like that, but OpenBSD and co sadly do not. Something like that would give me a good deal of motivation to switch.
hhw 12y ago
There was a discussion about this on the OpenBSD misc mailing archives back in 2012: http://marc.info/?t=133961305400003&r=1&w=2 http://marc.info/?t=133961305400003&r=1&w=2 Theo's initial response to the thread, which may help illuminate the situation, was: "Except for the fact that it is bullshit. They started the fork because they got kicked out because one developer (Marco) hired 5 other developers for his startup company, and attempted to hire around 10 other developers in a sneaky and underhanded way. They were told, oh i forget they were "asked", to not tell anyone else in OpenBSD that this was happening, probably because people "including Theo" would be upset. Funny thing is, I've never been upset about the 20+ OpenBSD and ex-OpenBSD developers who now work for google. Previously, many of those developers were in critical positions in the development team. As they were suddenly hired with such terms and conditions, they became more scarce in OpenBSD -- perhaps because they suddenly got real busy with work, but also to avoid telling others that this was happening. Various projects lagged. To avoid telling a lie, they instead chose to not tell the truth. It had effects. It was dishonest of them to not tell their co-developers that they were creating vacuums in the development process. So because of those decisions, they are now gone from OpenBSD. And now they miss it. So now, all these guys who work for the same company have started a fork. And it is directed by the guy who hired them in the first place. From where I stand, that is the truth. Yet none of that is in that article, because the truth hurts, doesn't it guys?"
- JJAP 12y ago
  I don't know what's worse: Theo taking a curse-laden, insult dump on everyone who opposes him, or the faithful who spread it around.
  - imanaccount247 12y ago
    >Theo taking a curse-laden, insult dump on everyone who opposes him Could you point me to the part where that happened? I thought I read the whole thing but I can't seem to find anything like that.
  - RexRollman 12y ago
    Theo's thoughts do pass through a dick-filter, there is no denying that, but he is almost always right in what he is saying. As far as Bitrig is concerned, I don't see the point in it. The FAQ doesn't say anything that makes me want to try it and, although they say they want to support only modern systems, it seems to me that what they are really doing is limiting themselves to what LLVM supports.
protomyth 12y ago
Aren't there some compiler additions to GCC that OpenBSD relies on that haven't made it into LLVM/clang?
- calvin_ 12y ago
  well, support for VAX might be one
  - protomyth 12y ago
    I was thinking -fstack-shuffle and its related changes
jakschu 12y ago
I'm super excited about this!
paulannesley 12y ago
I love this in the FAQ: > Why is the project named Bitrig? > > The name Bitrig is derived from the Latin "Bitrigus", the name of the software used by the Romans to conquer Europe. Sadly, not having zero among its numerals made traditional computer science difficult for the Romans and the project was put on hold indefinitely. Bitrigus faded into obscurity until it was recently rediscovered at a Viking archaeological site in the modern day country of Iceland. > > The Roman emperor Hadrian is rumored to have sent Bitrigus as far west as a boat could carry it to keep it from the then growing threat of religious fanaticism within the Roman Empire.
chaz72 12y ago
Will OpenBSD look to pull from their updated C++ libraries?

60 points by chrismsnz 12y ago

debacle 12y ago

Why did they decide to fork OpenBSD?

adamnemecek 12y ago
"With the goal of bringing more experimental development to the OpenBSD code base, a few developers have announced a fork named Bitrig. According to their FAQ, Bitrig aims to build a small system targeting only modern hardware and "be a very commercially friendly code base by using non-viral licenses where possible." Their first step toward that goal was removing GCC in favor of LLVM/Clang. The project roadmap shows their future goals as adding FUSE support, improving multiprocessing, porting the system to ARM, and replacing the GNU C++ library with LLVM's." http://bsd-beta.slashdot.org/story/12/06/13/1645211/openbsd-fork-bitrig-announced http://bsd-beta.slashdot.org/story/12/06/13/1645211/openbsd-...
- danudey 12y ago
  Portability and modernity instead of a security focus? I'm not sure why I would use a fork of OpenBSD instead of just FreeBSD though. I've always seen the primary benefits of OpenBSD as deriving from their obsessive focus on security, but if this fork isn't focussed on that I'm not sure what I gain vs. other BSDs that already have these goals and objectives in place/completed.
  - sigzero 12y ago
    Exactly. OpenBSD is very specific in what it is. That description is more a description for a fork of FreeBSD or NetBSD.
    - BBoingo 12y ago
      OpenBSD has always had a strong focus on protability. It's just the focus on portability was never restricted to "modernity" for the reason that there's few interestingly different processors anymore you can compile against to check for breaking errors. It would be interesting though if Bitrig became sort of a DragonflyBSD for OpenBSD, where weird experimental stuff can be tested in a separate playground.
  - renox 12y ago
    > Portability and modernity instead of a security focus? It is you who say "instead", can't it be "in addition to"?
- ausjke 12y ago
  I thought this is where NetBSD shines, why not just enhance NetBSD? or why pulling OpenBSD into embedded space?
  - Danieru 12y ago
    Forking is the way of the BSDs. The BSD style is to develop the userland along with the kernel. Thus where Linux has multiple distro families BSD has full userland and kernel forks.
    - masklinn 12y ago
      That doesn't explain why you'd start from OpenBSD.
      - clarry 12y ago
        The people who started the fork are ex OpenBSD developers. It makes all the sense. Why wouldn't they start with what they already know, find good, and are happy to work on?
ukdm 12y ago
Why did you fork OpenBSD? OpenBSD is an amazing project and has some of the best code around but some of us are of the opinion that it could use a bit of modernization. OpenBSD is a very security conscious project and, correspondingly, has to be more conservative with features. We want to be less restrictive with the codebase when it comes to experimenting with features. https://github.com/bitrig/bitrig/wiki/Faq https://github.com/bitrig/bitrig/wiki/Faq
kchoudhu 12y ago
https://github.com/bitrig/bitrig/wiki/Faq https://github.com/bitrig/bitrig/wiki/Faq Looks to be a desire to leave behind legacy cruft, add a better toolchain, and add virtualization.
chrismsnz 12y ago
If I had to take a guess... It'd be easier to carefully add specific features to a well-designed and secure codebase such as OpenBSD, rather than try and pare down and audit the huge codebase and large amount of features provided by something like FreeBSD.

Bluerise 12y ago

Bitrig developer here, feel free to shoot questions!

yrmt 12y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the things (or maybe just the ideas?) you have implemented seems to be coming from NetBSD. If so, could you share other NetBSD stuff you'd like to see on Bitrig ? Congratulations on the 1.0 !
- Bluerise 12y ago
  For me personally, better armv7 support. Even though many things stem from our hands, NetBSD and FreeBSD are a great resource. I have already started working on SMP support, based on their example. Otherwise I do not have any NetBSD stuff in mind. Can't speak for our other developers though. ;) I would love to have FreeBSD's bhyve on Bitrig. I will dedicate some time in January for that goal. DragonflyBSD is an inspiration for us, too. We have an experimental branch (smpns) for revamping the kernel for decent SMP support.
technofiend 12y ago
You guys plan to add the best bits of Solaris that everyone else has? To wit: dtrace, zfs and some kind of zone/cgroup idea?
synchronise 12y ago
When will you guys be working on implementing jails or another containerisation solution? Pretty much every other major OS out there like GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris offer some sort of solution like that, but OpenBSD and co sadly do not. Something like that would give me a good deal of motivation to switch.

hhw 12y ago

There was a discussion about this on the OpenBSD misc mailing archives back in 2012: http://marc.info/?t=133961305400003&r=1&w=2 http://marc.info/?t=133961305400003&r=1&w=2 Theo's initial response to the thread, which may help illuminate the situation, was: "Except for the fact that it is bullshit. They started the fork because they got kicked out because one developer (Marco) hired 5 other developers for his startup company, and attempted to hire around 10 other developers in a sneaky and underhanded way. They were told, oh i forget they were "asked", to not tell anyone else in OpenBSD that this was happening, probably because people "including Theo" would be upset. Funny thing is, I've never been upset about the 20+ OpenBSD and ex-OpenBSD developers who now work for google. Previously, many of those developers were in critical positions in the development team. As they were suddenly hired with such terms and conditions, they became more scarce in OpenBSD -- perhaps because they suddenly got real busy with work, but also to avoid telling others that this was happening. Various projects lagged. To avoid telling a lie, they instead chose to not tell the truth. It had effects. It was dishonest of them to not tell their co-developers that they were creating vacuums in the development process. So because of those decisions, they are now gone from OpenBSD. And now they miss it. So now, all these guys who work for the same company have started a fork. And it is directed by the guy who hired them in the first place. From where I stand, that is the truth. Yet none of that is in that article, because the truth hurts, doesn't it guys?"

JJAP 12y ago
I don't know what's worse: Theo taking a curse-laden, insult dump on everyone who opposes him, or the faithful who spread it around.
- imanaccount247 12y ago
  >Theo taking a curse-laden, insult dump on everyone who opposes him Could you point me to the part where that happened? I thought I read the whole thing but I can't seem to find anything like that.
- RexRollman 12y ago
  Theo's thoughts do pass through a dick-filter, there is no denying that, but he is almost always right in what he is saying. As far as Bitrig is concerned, I don't see the point in it. The FAQ doesn't say anything that makes me want to try it and, although they say they want to support only modern systems, it seems to me that what they are really doing is limiting themselves to what LLVM supports.

protomyth 12y ago

Aren't there some compiler additions to GCC that OpenBSD relies on that haven't made it into LLVM/clang?

calvin_ 12y ago
well, support for VAX might be one
- protomyth 12y ago
  I was thinking -fstack-shuffle and its related changes

jakschu 12y ago

I'm super excited about this!

paulannesley 12y ago

I love this in the FAQ: > Why is the project named Bitrig? > > The name Bitrig is derived from the Latin "Bitrigus", the name of the software used by the Romans to conquer Europe. Sadly, not having zero among its numerals made traditional computer science difficult for the Romans and the project was put on hold indefinitely. Bitrigus faded into obscurity until it was recently rediscovered at a Viking archaeological site in the modern day country of Iceland. > > The Roman emperor Hadrian is rumored to have sent Bitrigus as far west as a boat could carry it to keep it from the then growing threat of religious fanaticism within the Roman Empire.

chaz72 12y ago

Will OpenBSD look to pull from their updated C++ libraries?