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Grex > Oldcoop > #354: Member initative: Free memberships for staffers | |
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| 25 new of 42 responses total. |
steve
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response 15 of 42:
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Sep 3 17:11 UTC 2006 |
Re #13: That is an absurd statement. Please start a new item in Garage
or coop, detailing your reasons giving your thoughts. I want to hear them
in detail.
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cross
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response 16 of 42:
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Sep 3 20:02 UTC 2006 |
Why is it absurd? It's been discussed numerous times, Steve.
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naftee
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response 17 of 42:
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Sep 4 01:47 UTC 2006 |
re 15 Thank you for that blanket statement, steVE. Really.
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steve
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response 18 of 42:
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Sep 4 04:13 UTC 2006 |
It's being "discussed" doesn't alter the fact that its absurd Dan. But
I'd like to have an item where the anti-OpenBSD philosophy side of things
can be explained. Starting with that it isn't "modern"... However, that
all I want to say here about it. I'm hoping Mic creates an item soon.
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spooked
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response 19 of 42:
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Sep 4 12:43 UTC 2006 |
You will be hoping for a long time.
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steve
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response 20 of 42:
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Sep 4 14:06 UTC 2006 |
Well thats nice.
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naftee
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response 21 of 42:
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Sep 4 15:59 UTC 2006 |
Who's Mic?
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cross
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response 22 of 42:
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Sep 4 22:15 UTC 2006 |
Regarding #18; That you say it's absurd doesn't make it so. And don't
misconstrue the idea that OpenBSD isn't appropriate for grex as an
"anti-OpenBSD philosophy." You have a tendancy to take technical
disagreements as some sort of personal attack when they aren't, and I really
don't understand why.
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steve
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response 23 of 42:
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Sep 5 01:00 UTC 2006 |
*I* do? Hmmm.
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cross
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response 24 of 42:
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Sep 5 01:32 UTC 2006 |
Well, that's my impression, yes.
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spooked
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response 25 of 42:
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Sep 5 21:13 UTC 2006 |
Dan's right (that is my impression also).
OpenBSD is a relatively stable, cutdown OS -- however, I would not use
it for anything other than for a bastion host firewall. For building
conferencing systems and/or systems offering services of any type, there
are much more appropriate (and most importantly
flexible/configurable/customisable) alternatives.
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remmers
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response 26 of 42:
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Sep 6 13:27 UTC 2006 |
Re #24, #25: It's not my impression. I've expressed disagreements with
STeve from time to time, and have seen others do so in various meetings,
but have yet to see him take it personally.
A look at the heading reminds me that this item is about free
memberships for staffers. I think it's a bad idea. It might be
reasonable to give staffers who need it outbound internet access
however, even though that's a perk normally restricted to members.
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aruba
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response 27 of 42:
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Sep 6 14:55 UTC 2006 |
We have in fact done that in the past for staffers who needed to test
internet services.
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nharmon
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response 28 of 42:
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Sep 6 15:46 UTC 2006 |
John, why do you think it is a bad idea?
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cross
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response 29 of 42:
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Sep 7 23:44 UTC 2006 |
Regarding #26; I've never meet Steve in real life, so I can't *really* say
(a lot of grexers who think I'm crusty would be - I think - pleasantly
surprised to meet me in real life. A lot of the impression one gives online
revolves around written communication styles, but a lot of human interaction
is lost in writing). But I digress.... I see Steve as very quick, and I
would go so far as to say too quick, to step in and speak up for things he's
pushed. Like OpenBSD. It's like he feels that he has a personal stake in
it.
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naftee
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response 30 of 42:
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Sep 8 03:04 UTC 2006 |
He may be quick, but I doubt that he's very fast. :(
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scholar
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response 31 of 42:
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Sep 8 03:34 UTC 2006 |
Fat's the truth.
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other
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response 32 of 42:
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Sep 9 16:39 UTC 2006 |
My impression is that STeve has a very protective attitude toward Grex,
and probably a deeper understanding of the threats it is faced with on a
daily basis than any other user of the system, and that his ideas of an
appropriate OS for Grex center around what is most likely to keep Grex
functioning and available for the users for the largest proportion of
time in the face of those threats.
Frankly, all the flexibility and softfware base we want won't do any
good if system downtime goes up to the point where no one can use it anyway.
And as for free memberships for staff (rememeber? the actual TOPIC of
this item...), there is no reason I can think of that this would be a
valuable change to make. Staff have easy access to all the benefits of
membership, and the requirements of membership (id verification,
evidence of some commitement to the idea of supporting Grex) are useful
indicators of the potential of an individual to be a responsible
contributor to the system rather than a powerful abuser. (At this
point, I suspect some people will bring up Valerie as a counterpoint, so
I'll say that though I do not approve of what she did when she left, her
contributions up to that point were undeniable and significant.)
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tod
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response 33 of 42:
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Sep 10 02:05 UTC 2006 |
re #32
I don't dispute the intentions of staff. I do question the lack of interest
and respect given to fresh volunteers, though.
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other
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response 34 of 42:
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Sep 10 06:12 UTC 2006 |
It's a thankless job, and no non-financial compensation can really
change that. In addition, selecting people to entrust to manage the
system is a really daunting challenge. The system lies or dies on the
good will of the user base and a bad choice can have really damaging
effects.
We're not a large enough player in the internet world to attract people
for prestige reasons, and our complete non-commerciality limits the
resources we have available to lure good people by other means.
The status quo may not be ideal, but there just aren't many options
available, especially without compromising some fundamental aspect of
Grex's present character.
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cross
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response 35 of 42:
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Sep 13 22:30 UTC 2006 |
I think the status quo *is* the problem. People aren't motivated to join
staff because it's perceived (rightfully so) as elitist and cliche-ish, with
certain members being "chosen" over certain others. That said, I'd work on
staff again if needed, but I really think grex needs to do a better job of
self-promotion and changing its image to attract new blood.
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steve
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response 36 of 42:
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Sep 14 03:33 UTC 2006 |
No Dan, I really don't think I have a "personal" stake in the usage
of OpenBSD, but Eric is quite right that I feel protective of Grex. I
see and deal with the vandals that attack the system, and while I have
said before that I think FreeBSD is a very good operating system, I feel
that OpenBSD offers more in terms of security. Thanks Eric for your
comments.
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cross
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response 37 of 42:
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Sep 14 11:39 UTC 2006 |
Could you expand on that, Steve? Hopefully in some sort of quantifiable
manner? Is that just your intuition, or do you have data to back that up?
I saw many of the script kiddies who tried to crack grex's security, too.
Some of them were successful (the tty attack). I don't think that would have
worked under FreeBSD, but it certainly did on OpenBSD. Did anyone ever
investigate *where* that attack came from? Can you conceed that another
system might handle things better, and if not, why not?
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steve
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response 38 of 42:
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Sep 14 16:43 UTC 2006 |
That last question can't be answered completely and you know it. If
some horrid new problem was discovered in OpenBSD and not the other BSDs
then we could have a problem. As for the specifics of the tty problem,
I'm not sure about Free/NetBSD either--it definitely was a problem here
and I should still look into that more.
I could reverse the question at the beginning of your post and ask
you why OpenBSD is *less* secure. Not less good in terms of things
that you've mentioned (smp support, kernel threads, ...), but in specific
terms of security. We're getting into philosphy here, and I'm not
certain that anything I say is going to have any effect your thoughts,
at all, and take time that I could be spending on other grex stuff.
But I'm a sucker and will probably try to come up with stuff as I
can (taking a break at work at the moment).
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cross
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response 39 of 42:
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Sep 14 17:26 UTC 2006 |
I think that OpenBSD and FreeBSD are roughly comparable in terms of security.
Certainly, OpenBSD is better at self-promotion in this regard, but that's just
promotion, and may or may not reflect reality.
I would posit that OpenBSD's tendancy to be less reliable makes it less
appropriate for grex, versus OpenBSD that is used in this sort of environment
more often (there were a number of BBS's in China running on FreeBSD:
thousands of interactive users using them at a time). I'd say that being less
reliable really is being less secure in a way.
My data is that grex has crashed multiple times due to bugs in OpenBSD, the
tty problem, the attacks against the system logger, and other things just
not working as advertised.
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