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Comment by ksec | Hacker News Reader

As someone who is not following closely, did he ever mention why he is looking into alternative OS? And why OpenBSD instead of say NetBSD or FreeBSD? I assume he has many experience with linux already.

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While I can't say for sure, during a hole-up-for-a-week-to-learn a couple of years ago, he decided on neural networks and OpenBSD. He commented favorably on its opinionatedness. I'm suppose he liked the system and decided to contribute.

I feel this quote of his sums up the initial draw:

"Despite not having actually used it, I have always been fond of the idea of OpenBSD — a relatively minimal and opinionated system with a cohesive vision and an emphasis on quality and craftsmanship. Linux is a lot of things, but cohesive isn’t one of them."

He wrote awhile back about why he chose OpenBSD to get more familiar with Unix during a coding retreat. tl;dr: the offline documentation and quality of the source code were major draws for him working with slow/no internet.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2110408722...

I guess that is why I missed it. I deleted my Facebook.

I dont understand why anyone make long post on Facebook and Linkedin instead of the good old blog post. But thanks for the link.

I didn't check the link, but keep in mind he worked for Oculus, which was acquired by Facebook. Not sure it was a requirement from Facebook, but was probably some choice around that.

Considering at the time he was working for Oculus which is owned by Facebook it sort of makes sense.

Is OpenBSD considered to be an alternative OS?

With Linux, you get fewer officially supported games than Mac, but at least it's on people's radar. Few computer users know BSD is a thing, but most have heard of someone using Linux. It's strictly a techie/advanced hobbyist system.

That’s a very consumer-oriented statement.

OpenBSD powers a significant amount of internet infrastructure.

Any example? I know FreeBSD is behind majority of Internet "bandwidth". Never heard much on the usage of OpenBSD.

FogBugz / Manuscript is a relatively high-profile example: https://serverfault.com/a/33503

It's really not that uncommon, in certain areas.

It's certainly not mainstream if that is what you mean.

Yes. Even in the smaller BSD world it's an "alternative OS" compared to FreeBSD or NetBSD.

My understanding is that OpenBSD is much more popular than NetBSD, at least currently.

I think I’d swap “NetBSD” and “OpenBSD” in you public consciousness hierarchy.

I’m a (very happy) NetBSD user of nearly 20 years. It’s excellent; I stick with it for reasons. Even I, though, (with humour) think generally that OpenBSD has general audience attention for Theo, h4x0ring, and bomb proof security, while NetBSD is there in case you inherit a VAX. ;)

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