Talk:OpenBSD

Merger discussion

@Lyanbox782: you should probably put the details of your proposal here at the beginning of the section, including the rationale for the merger, and an indication of which direction the merge should be done - OpenBSD Foundation into OpenBSD, or OpenBSD into OpenBSD Foundation - or an indication that you're leaving that as part of the discussion. didn't indicate into which direction the merger should be done; you should probably do that, or indicate that you're leaving that as part of the discussion. If you have a direction in mind, you should replace the {{Merge}} template in [[OpenBSD}] with a {{Merge from}} template, and replace the {{Merge}} template I put into OpenBSD Foundation (to let people reading that article know that a merger was proposed) with a {{Merge to}} template. Guy Harris (talk) 05:10, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

See WP:MERGEPROP for the process of proposing a merger. Guy Harris (talk) 05:21, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

oppose since the OpenBSD Foundation is parent of other projects, its own entity, and OpenBSD is well notable on its own, it makes little sense to me to shoehorn this established article into that stub.(updated 2 Aug 2021 to reflect Foundation->OpenBSD merge) that the foundation be mentioned here in brief passing, but the OpenBSD Foundation article itself remain separate, of course depending on notability outcome Strangerpete (talk) 03:58, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Oppose Just close this. The user has opened numerous bad merge discussions in their short editing career and they are indefinite blocked for CIR, refusal to communicate, and continuing to make disruptive edits following several previous blocks. -- ferret (talk) 14:36, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

While you're not wrong, not every edit they made was disruptive; I get the feeling that its a kid with good intentions who just wasn't getting it (either way, irrelevant)...and even though I'm not exactly on board with with merger proposal, I'm having vague second thoughts on whether or not the Foundation should in fact be merged here, and as Guy Harris pointed out that may have been their original intention (my prior oppose being based on the openbsd->foundation move specifically.) I think it would be just fine to let this discussion take the normal course. Strangerpete (talk) 14:47, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I didn't say every edit they made was disruptive. I still oppose this on the simple grounds of OpenBSD and the foundation being different topics. -- ferret (talk) 16:21, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't mean to imply that you said that, I only wanted to balance your (correct) statement for others who may read this, as not to gain the impression that this was only a malicious editor...in that case I'd have agreed totally to revert the whole proposal Strangerpete (talk) 17:03, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support Does not meet WP:GNG on its own for a standalone article. Merge into OpenBSD. PhotographyEdits (talk) 13:54, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Oppose per @Strangerpete:'s reasons Scaledish! Talkish? Statish. 17:28, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: I think the question about whether OpenBSD Foundation should be merged into this article really boils down to whether the OpenBSD Foundation is sufficiently notable like the FreeBSD Foundation to warrant its own article, or whether its notability as a standalone subject is dubious enough to warrant it being subsumed into the corresponding OS article as is the case for the NetBSD Foundation.  —PowerPCG5 (talk) 14:57, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Placing the foundation within the OpenBSD article is not appropriate imho; notability is another issue. The foundation is the parent of multiple projects, with OpenSSH arguably more popular than OpenBSD itself...so why would we put the foundation under one of it's random projects? Strangerpete (talk) 17:25, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

IMHO the OpenBSD operating system is a little more substantial than just another “one of it[]s random projects”; while I personally don’t have a strong opinion either way, if a consensus emerge that the OpenBSD Foundation doesn’t meet Wikipedia’s notability guidelines to warrant having its own article, I personally would prefer that it at least be covered in its own subsection under the OpenBSD article than not be mentioned at all on Wikipedia  —PowerPCG5 (talk) 02:47, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

@Strangerpete: (1)

"this merge is already under discussion in talk, with a majority oppose currently."

when I started to merge them there was no notice template at the articles and the last comment was written on 10 August, so I assumed that the discussion is over (2) I don't see "a majority oppose", the first oppose vote which is yours, can't be counted because per what you have stated "my prior oppose being based on the openbsd->foundation move specifically.", the second oppose vote can't be counted because it is just personal judgment about the merger opener without any comment about the discussion/merge itself, the third oppose vote is "per @Strangerpete:'s reasons" (the first oppose vote, your vote) can't be counted same as the first vote; I see a support vote with a good reason Does not meet WP:GNG on its own for a standalone article., and the last one is a "Comment" by user:PowerPCG5 which has no opposition about the merge; at the end, if you count my actions (merging) as "Support" you will see that the claim "a majority oppose" is invalid. -- FMM-1992 (talk) 02:29, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

12 hours earlier both articles had the merger banner removed with the summary, Removed "Merge with OpenBSD Foundation template" due to lack of support for the Merge, it had seemed unlikely to me at the time that you wouldn't have noticed that prior to merging. That on top of the discussion below where it was requested that you discuss merges first.

As for the votes, fair enough - my oppose wasn't clear stated since the original proposal wasn't clear, I should have updated my opposition later. The second vote was definitely valid at the time since the user was making random merge requests; but either way this discussion was never closed, though i'm in no rush to - discussion is certainly welcome Strangerpete (talk) 02:59, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

@FMM-1992: on second thought, I'll change to support for the following reasons: most people probably won't understand the difference between Openbsd and the Foundation due to the name, and end up here anyway; while the foundation article has some sources now, you're probably correct that it won't stand as notable - though I don't think it should be here, still it makes more sense than the alternatives. It couldn't hurt you to make some attempt at discussion first though in the future, your edit summary for this merge was unnecessarily confrontational; and a stub is far from harmful to anyone.

@Scaledish:'s vote is still based on my original oppose which was worded for the original OpenBSD->Foundation merge, so they should revisit their position. Sorry for the noise and confusion! Strangerpete (talk) 03:55, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

@Strangerpete: thanks for changing your vote, I just want to help the readers and editors, and also improving the article; as I said in the edit summary of the merge:

"One page with just "100 pageviews (30 days)" (according to mw:XTools) for one short paragraph?! NO, it is harmful for editors, readers, and WP -- Also it was not notable, it just had one primary source which was its announcing at the OpenBSD Journal -- same as NetBSD#The NetBSD Foundation"

perhaps using the word "harmful" was wrong, it was better to use the word "unhelpful" and the phrase "time-wasting", in any way, as I said in the following section for OpenBSD version history, WP:Article size says:

Readable prose

Readable prose is the main body of the text, excluding material such as footnotes and reference sections ("see also", "external links", bibliography, etc.), diagrams and images, tables and lists, Wikilinks and external URLs, and formatting and mark-up.

Size guideline

Some useful rules of thumb for splitting articles, and combining small pages:

Readable prose size --- What to do

> 100 kB --- Almost certainly should be divided

> 60 kB --- Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material)

> 50 kB --- May need to be divided (likelihood goes up with size)

< 40 kB --- Length alone does not justify division

< 1 kB --- If an article or list has remained this size for over a couple of months, consider combining it with a related page. Alternatively, the article could be expanded; see Wikipedia:Stub.

Please note: These rules of thumb apply only to readable prose and not to wiki markup size (as found on history lists or other means), and each kB can be equated to 1,000 characters. Number of characters in an article can be found with the help of Shubinator's DYK tool; or Prosesize.

also Wikipedia:Merging#Reasons for merger says:

(2) Overlap: There are two or more pages on related subjects that have a large overlap. Wikipedia is not a dictionary; there does not need to be a separate entry for every concept. For example, "flammable" and "non-flammable" can both be explained in an article on flammability.
(3) Short text: If a page is very short and is unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it with a page on a broader topic. For example, parents or children of a celebrity who are otherwise unremarkable are generally covered in a section of the article on the celebrity (and can be merged there).

user:Onel5969 has labeled the article as {{notability|1=Companies|date=August 2021}} which says "this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines for companies and organizations", when I read that Wikipedia's notability guidelines I found that OpenBSD Foundation fails in all aspects, just see it. I think VideoLAN can be considered as a notable organization, it is very famous and has "291 revisions since 2003-07-07, 217 editors, 75 watchers, 5,165 pageviews (30 days)" (mw:XTools), compare it with OpenBSD Foundation which had "63" pageviews from 1 April 2021 to 1 May 2021 (see Pageviews Analysis) before the merge banners increasing its pageviews.

One important note, OpenBSD Foundation is not the only unnotable, short and stub article that should be merged, The Fedora Project (my main OS) and The openSUSE Project have the same problems and I will merge them into their main articles.

Currently 8 days passed from your comment, and it seems you was the only major oppose which of course you have changed your vote, so I will restore my merge edits manually without reverting.

Regards. -- FMM-1992 (talk) 02:12, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

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Understanding cited Security criticisms

Two main criticisms are made of BSDs in general and of OpenBSD in particular, the first apparently from year 2017:

      "Bugs are still easy to find in those kernels, even in OpenBSD". 

and the other:

      "Two years later, in 2019, ... that while OpenBSD has some effective mitigations, a significant part of them are "useless at best and based on pure luck and superstition", arguing for a more rational approach when it comes to designing them.[64] 

BSD kernel function bugs shown appeared less as manifestly incorrect software(1) than as potentially troublesome edge use conditions that belong more to calling routine checks. The [64] citation did not quite relate to the second criticism which seemed to come from an off the record discussion not found in the cited slide presentation. The citation suggests nevertheless a level of futility "useless mitigation" (maybe the Xorg root exploit??) for whichever OpenBSD one the presenter had in mind but readers here shall not know which or know of.

(1) unless for say the TCP stack ipsec example the comparison (<) of xisr->sadb_x_ipsecrequest_len to sizeof(*xisr) is not of like-to-like quanitites in the struct secpolicy *key_msg2sp() function 'bug' example. Mkhomo (talk) 12:59, 1 February 2022 (UTC)