myztic

-) and just for fun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlgdvSNpi60 (I love that video for some reason :D)

-) they are a "pressure cooker" for development, if they have to brake something in order to advance they will. way different mindest when you compare it to the linux kernel or FreeBSD. this does not mean it's unstable, but from version to version they might radically change something.

-) they strip down their system, if they don't like a license they don't implement it, and if something is too complicated / too big, they don't implement it. one of the contra-zfs-in-openbsd arguments (besides the license) quite simply is: it's so much code, it's so huge, it would be such an immense amount of work to audit it and to really really understand every single part of it.

-) openbsd runs on so many architectures partly because it allows them to catch more bugs. some weird bug you might encounter only while trying to install the system over network on machine xyz that nobody really uses anymore... running on so many multiple architectures gives them more input.

-) openbsd-community is way less elitist than people say/think it is. they expect you to have read the manpages (and they made such an effort to make them as good as possible), to maybe search on the internet yourself, to have tried some things out and to know how to use mailing lists, not too much in my opinion. they probably don't even mind the stigma of being elitists, as it keeps newcomers away. getting help is a privilege, not a fundamental right of every user.

-) they want others to use their tools. while it is probably unfair considering how many tools they provide and how little funding they get, nevertheless they actually genuinely are happy that their tools are used, which is an awesome mindset. but that probably is generally a bsd-license vs gpl kind of thing.

-) run your own sh*t! while many freebsd devs are simply using macs and running freebsd on their servers, openbsd developers are heavily encouraged to run openbsd everywhere they have the chance of doing so. you will find that most (maybe all) devs run it themselves on their notebook/desktop or at least on some of their private machines, which is awesome.

Some further resources:

-) openbsd faq http://www.openbsd.org/faq/ (especially section 1, 8, 9)

-) http://www.openbsd.org/ftp.html just give it a spin, why not? run it as virtual machine and play around, some hours worth while

There are extensions/add-ons to very easily change your user-agent on the fly, on Firefox I can recommend https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-sw...

There should be an extension to randomize headers / and strings in a certain interval by itself, or maybe just based on a number of possibilities provided by the user.

So it would never (well at least not often) brake anything, because it would never say "I don't have flash, I don't have java" but it would always report different versions and mix it up. Sounds quite possible, any Firefox Add-On Developer reading this? ;)

And since they make the case with privacy, I also want to make clear, they don't loose because Google tracks us all, even if you are logged out from your account, use vpn servers, delete all of your cookies and cache, Google is just so much better and DuckDuckGo awful and some search results are just weird.

I tried once (it must have been this year) to use DuckDuckGo as my main search engine, basically whenever I did not find something quickly enough I just switched to Google and then found my object of desire often times instantly. One of my VPN-Servers is blocked by Google and because of that I am using Bing at the moment, which also seems so much better than DuckDuckGo was when I used it.

I installed LinuxMint on a non-techy person's machine a while ago (few weeks) and DuckDuckGo was set up as default search engine with Firefox, even that person used Google, because he/she wasn't happy with the search results. Used Google even though he/she had to manually go to google.com every single time

"We don't bubble you" is a unique selling point they have profited greatly from, and that's what made them well known to begin with, nothing else really.

What I originally thought about were systems like NixOS (for serious development), or something more minimalistic that offers greater control like Slackware, a *BSD (Jails, byhyve, dtrace(!)), or even just Debian (less flashy, more stable and robust).

If I am honest, I spend 90% of my time in a terminal, browser or editor (which is also in a terminal), so give me a system that allows me to easily install my most beloved programs via command line and handy binary packages, a system that is reasonably stable, runs on most hardware, and that has a big community and a lot of documentation, sounds like a good deal actually.

Why am I seeing Ubuntu on Screens of developers, experts, et cetera in Cover Stories such as these, most of the time with the 100% plain Ubuntu Desktop with all the craziness that comes with it? It feels like this is the case 90% of the time. Two more (recent) examples I can remember:

1) Fyodor (Guy behind nmap) running plain Ubuntu on a Notebook while giving a speech at a conference

2) Developers at Honda (Video was an Asimo promotional video) running plain Ubuntu

Since in my personal opinion Ubuntu is not the technically superior choice in these cases (though that can be debated), it can not simply be explained with it being backed by a company, there being support you can buy for the system if you need it.

What motivates technically extremely skilled people to use "Plain Ubuntu" instead of one of the many alternatives?

I really don't understand, please enlighten me!

(I actually think it's worth "spending" some Karma on this if I for once get a satisfying answer)

It's like pointing out that it should be GNU/Linux instead of Linux every time (I do sympathize with the GNU Project in some way though), or that Linux is not an OS but a kernel and so forth...

We all here know the truth(s) but you won't change what terminology the public uses, so we should be somewhat relaxed about it (imo)

Chrome is basically a stable release from Google of the Chromium Browser (which in itself is an Open Source Project), as such Chrome is more tightly integrated with Google Services, Chromium should be the better choice considering not wanting to be tracked.

I think some systems (*BSD, GNU/Linux distributions) even only have Chromium available through their package systems, others possibly both.

a) Acceptance, Image

The fact that they don't sell is the reason why many don't mind it as much. "So their automatic algorithms look for some key words in my mail and searches to target ads, I get better ads, they get money for clicks, what's the problem?"

Selling it would be a whole different story

b) Once you sold out, what then?

I guess that selling to thousands of companies you loose control over your information. x-many Companies have lists of high net worth investors for product category y from us, how to guarantee this information does not get out? Will be given to other companies/people? Will it be correctly used? How can we guarantee those x-many companies are storing that information securely? I can think of all kinds of issues with that business model.

But Google certainly is a company solely built upon obtaining user information and using that information as efficient as possibly, that is their right, and it is my right to not approve of this, state my opinion, and use something else / block their services :)

One Example? I have been disabling what Apps get access to on my Blackberry for I don't know how long. Forbid Whatsapp to have Access to the Camera? No Problem, if I want to make a photo from within Whatsapp it then says something that it isn't capable of doing so, just how it should be.

How a Browser behaves in private Browsing also is a browser-side issue. Whether or not the API allows Extension developers to give users the functionality NoScript for example provides to its users it also a browser-side issue.

See for example here (you won't see Google spearheading this cause) http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/14/mozilla-makes-private-brows...

The distinction between "This concerns only the Extensions" and "this concerns only the browser itself" is not as clear and easy as you say it is, especially in this case.

Since Google is all about obtaining information and using it, I don't think they are to be trusted in developing a browser that is highly concerned with user's privacy. Everybody has to make their own decision.

Think about Android Application Permissions for example, I am not sure whether or not you now can revoke permissions one by one on your own (think I read something about this), but for how long was this not possible?

I have been non-trusting of many Scripts for years now, call me paranoid, but if Facebook actually has the capability to just track you via Facebook Scripts that are executed on every site you have the option to Log in with Facebook or share via Facebook directly from the site, why would they not do it?

Google also tries to keep you logged by all means possible.

I block their Scripts, only temporarily allow if I need them, I don't keep cookies for longer than my current session except for Fastmail, I use VPN, have no DNS-Leak and WebRTC Detection turned off (last I checked you could not turn WebRTC Detection off in Chrome and the Extensions promising to do that were not working).

And that's also why I use Mozilla Firefox. Not because it's the technically better browser, but I have trust in Mozilla and their API just allows capabilities Chrome isn't capable of (that's why there is no NoScript in Chrome and no, there is no NoScript-Alternative in Chrome with the same features and capabilities, look it up).

Back when I used both Chrome and Firefox side by side, Firefox for example would turn off some Add-Ons/Extensions in Private Browsing Mode, while Chrome would not. I guess we all can grasp what most likely was the reason for it (Add-Ons/Extensions should not be able to obtain information from the user if in private browsing).

I am not saying that everyone should do it this way, I even recognize I am not the normal user and this is not for everyone, but complaining about Google because of Data Collection is like complaining about Facebook and the information they have about people while using it heavily and putting sensitive information up on it willingly. Get over it ;)

It depends of course, I would always choose FreeBSD over Linux when it comes to ZFS, but then again I would always choose a BSD-OS regardless of whether I want to use ZFS or not.

Take it certainly with a grain of salt, but the developers themselves announced ZoL to be production ready in 2013/03[1], Richard Yao (also a developer of ZoL) argued in a blog post in 2014/09[2] that ZoL was stable and production ready and elaborated on this. Some interesting comments also are here[3].

And all this also was quite a while ago, ZoL has been used by users for years now, it's come a long way, I have used it to some extent a while ago and had no bad experiences.

In the end everyone has to decide for themselves what "production ready" really means, and how high the threshold is to deserve that label. But I think that you can reasonably make the argument, that it is...

[1] https://groups.google.com/a/zfsonlinux.org/forum/m/?fromgrou...

[2] https://clusterhq.com/2014/09/11/state-zfs-on-linux/

[3] http://linux.slashdot.org/story/14/09/11/1421201/the-state-o...

I use FreeBSD and (obviously) prefer it, but:

1) ZFSonLinux has made huge steps forward and actually (at least in my opinion) is production ready and rock solid (of course it's not as good as ZFS on FreeBSD though, for example it's lacking some features and of course it's not as proven as of now)

2) Usable containers finally have come to Linux in the form of Docker and everybody is absolutely hyped about it (I would argue though that Jails has more features, is more stable and mature)

The most obvious reason for me to use FreeBSD though is just the difference in philosophy. Don't rapidly make big changes, think everything through, don't surprise users, don't make upgrades that call for massive user intervention, and it's democratically governed and yes, it's a complete OS. Code quality is also better (have you actually looked at what code makes it into the Linux Kernel?), and I would argue therefore security and stability is way better.

Just my 2 cents, nothing wrong with Linux, have used it for years, now I would not want to go back though.

And a small Side Note: No systemd, not to start a flame war, but it is taking over the linux-sphere and I find it's design just horrific

Should be general knowledge, but for all who don't know: http://www.sectools.org and http://seclists.org/ are valuable resources!

Funny Side Note: nmap is one of the most widely used "real hacker tools" in movies https://nmap.org/movies/

0) He does not respect territorial integrity of neighbour states

1) He houses international wanted terrorists, makes it possible for them to hide

2) He commits crimes against humanity (unjust prison and death sentences, violent crimes against political opponents)

3) He is ignoring UN Resolutions

Saddam Hussein was guilty of all of the above, that said:

0) There was no direct connection between Hussein and 9/11

1) There were no WMDs found

Three questions:

Should the United States (and the other opposing parties in the Gulf War) have left him in power or removed him then? Maybe they should have removed him then

Was the Iraq war based on false information, false reasoning and some deception? I would say yes it was

Was it still "just" to remove Hussein? That's the 1 million dollar question, and I am not 100% certain how I should answer...

[And to clarify: I am no fan of George W. Bush, indeed no fan of the Bush family, I do think the Iraq war was wrong, but I am always open to other arguments. Christopher Hitchens made an interesting pro-Iraq war case, you should look some of his articles from that time up]

Also very informative (about what happened at Sun in the 90s, dtrace, ...)

Quite a funny and smart guy ;)