Re: Planned obsolescence ? (OpenBSD)

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On Sun, Nov 02, 2025 at 09:35:49PM +0000, [email protected] wrote:
>OpenBSD has the express goal of supporting ancient hardware.

OpenBSD and Debian share many ideals. We both believe in a secure, open
baseline for humanity to stop making the same mistakes. There are some=20
differences; Debian places a huge emphasis on end-user freedom in a way=20
OpenBSD hasn't historically, which, fine. We also share many upstreams=20
(at least within ports). We even have some shared developers.

Debian has no corperate entity -- it's only people, working together. We=20
have a few nonprofits that sponsor Debian resources in a few countries,=20
but none are "Debian". OpenBSD is in similar shape. I respect that.

I have a few OpenBSD boxes at home. I ensure my software I write ports=20
cleanly to OpenBSD (not any of the others, FWIW). I enjoy OpenBSD a=20
great deal. I find it nice to work with.

I'm very envious of OpenBSD's ability to break ABI between releases as=20
part of the explicit contract. I like the security features (pledge and=20
unveil are very nice things to have), and I really like the hard work=20
that goes into the OS. I've sent a few (fairly minor and not very=20
important) patches to misc@.

The idea that OpenBSD would continue to support an old CPU at the=20
expense of a meaningful security change is an interesting take. I would=20
expect the reaction there to be "fix the broken arch" not "refuse the=20
security change", which, isn't far off from where my perspective here=20
is. I find the view that OepnBSD supports old CPUs at great expense hard=20
to square with things like[1]. There are no doubt active porters within=20
OpenBSD, as there are within Debian.

There is disagreement between OpenBSD's view on Rust's cost/benefit with=20
a stable, reviewed and maintained C codebase and most of the rest of the=20
industry, (and within apt) -- but again, that's not important here.

I see no reason that this fairly obvious trolling has any weight here.=20
If folks are interested in OpenBSD for what it does (very) well, they=20
should use it, not because of an implementation language (what a hot=20
take).

   paultag


[1]: https://www.openbsd.org/i386.html

     Due to the increased usage of OpenBSD/amd64, as well as the age and=20
     practicality of most i386 hardware, only easy and critical security=20
     fixes are backported to i386. The project has more important things to=
=20
     focus on.

--=20
   =E2=A2=80=E2=A3=B4=E2=A0=BE=E2=A0=BB=E2=A2=B6=E2=A3=A6=E2=A0=80         =
      Paul Tagliamonte <paultag>
   =E2=A3=BE=E2=A0=81=E2=A2=A0=E2=A0=92=E2=A0=80=E2=A3=BF=E2=A1=81  https:/=
/people.debian.org/~paultag | https://pault.ag/
   =E2=A2=BF=E2=A1=84=E2=A0=98=E2=A0=B7=E2=A0=9A=E2=A0=8B        Debian, th=
e universal operating system.
   =E2=A0=88=E2=A0=B3=E2=A3=84=E2=A0=80=E2=A0=80  4096R / FEF2 EB20 16E6 A8=
56 B98C  E820 2DCD 6B5D E858 ADF3

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