Dear JCR, > To the rest of list users; Please pardon another long email from me on > this. Helping reasonable people like Robbert understand why many people > consider "HOWTO's" to be harmful is hopefully worth the added noise and > bandwidth.
If this is a concern, why don't we take the discussion off-list? Also, I don't want to waste anyone's time with this discussion, so if you are tired of this discussion, just tell me to stop it and I will. > >> If end-users are lazy and want to take the easy way out, they should > >> go back to using linux and MS-Windows. They are not welcome here. > > > >That's a pity. I personally think OpenBSD is the _only_ operating system > >that takes security as seriously as it should be taken, and it would be > >in everybody's (well, almost everybody's) best interest if they used it. > >There is nothing wrong with the project not wanting certain users, but > >it leaves these users with a choice among evils, which is a pity. > > > > The pity is not whether or not some users are welcome. The real pity is > current technology has yet to produce a computer that the average user > can, own, operate and maintain without either significant knowledge of > their own or significant resources to pay professionals to do the dirty > work. I disagree. A Linux distro (forgive my blasphemy) like Ubuntu is easy enough for computer illiterates to use and even maintain, since security patches are automatically announced and installed with a click of the mouse. If only Ubuntu had the advanced security mechanisms of OpenBSD, it would be a very secure system, even if the users didn't know much about computers. As it stands, OpenBSD is the only operating system I am aware of that has had the full base system completely audited and has buffer overrun and other protections enabled for all software on it. This, by itself, makes it more secure than other systems, regardless of what users do with it. Even in the worst case, where users actively degrade the security of the system, I would imagine OpenBSD's security would at least not be _worse_ than that of another system. > >The reason I wrote the HOWTO is that, in my opinion of course, the > >manpages don't make it clear how to set things up. Searching the > >archives for more information came up with some contradictory messages, > >and some instances of people being misled by the way things worked and > >the way things were described in the manpages. My HOWTO is an effort to > >gather the relevant information in one place, and provide clear steps > >for getting things working. > > Therein lies a significant difference of opinion between you and I. The > steps provided by HOWTO documents do not give clarity, They do. They explain some of the things that people were having problems with, such as the fact that labeling doesn't work the same way as it does for real disks (which Mickey says I got wrong - but can you blame me, given that the manpages don't say anything about it?). No matter how much you compare my HOWTO to blindfolding people and possibly sending them off in wrong directions, it's a fact that the documentation that existed before it has led people in wrong directions and left them confused. The HOWTO is my attempt to provide instructions that work and don't leave people confused. Perhaps, instead of arguing back and forth about whether I did well to write the HOWTO, we should be working together to fix the mistakes and turn it into a document that provides correct and sufficient information? > You are legally able to copy the OpenBSD man pages, so there is really > nothing stopping you from quoting them a chunk at a time and adding your > own insight, explanations and experience. By privately contacting the > authors and maintainers of both the code and man pages, you can easily > double check your work to prevent spreading misinformation. Provide > explanations of the steps you took as well as explanations of all the > other possible steps a user might want or need to take. There's something to that, too. I didn't want to bug the developers, afraid as I was that the questions I had would annoy them, and result in a pointer back to previous misc@ threads at best. Instead, I decided to figure out for myself how I could get things to work, and document the steps, so that others might benefit. It seems that, in doing so, I've annoyed people even more. Again, I must apologize. This was not my intention. > better than a HOWTO that claims to be a short-cut way to set up > mirroring but actually provides the steps needed to possibly fry your > disks through misconfiguration. Honestly, I think that's a stretch. I'm sure you can destroy your data with ccd, but frying your disks with a pure software feature? > There might be other good ways to go about making things more accessible > to users but the methods you are currently using are really a disservice > to others in spite of your good intentions. That's assuming that my directions really do lead users in the wrong direction. If they let users set up ccd and everything works fine, I don't see the problem. Note, also, that the HOWTO does include a section that describes (albeit briefly) how ccd works, and that I have incorporated improvements suggested by the discussions here. I'm _trying_. > How would you feel if some newbie found your original HOWTO through > google, never read your mailing list post asking for validation and > followed your instructions only to lose all of his data due to your > mistakes? If that happens, too bad. The instructions work for me, so I can only assume they work for others. I'm incorporating new information as I learn. I do warn that making backups is a necessinty, and anyone with enough common sense should know to make backups before messing around with the partitioning of their harddisks. > Though I'm generally considered extremely good with information systems, > I know damn well that mickey@ could geek-slap me into tomorrow without > breaking a sweat. Trying to argue with him about your mistake only shows > your inexperience and unwillingness to do things correctly such as > actually researching the topic upon which you are trying to enlighten > others. Excuse me, but from what I can see, Mickey was wrong. The c partition is configured as 4.2BSD before one can run disklabel, and using that partition for data storage does work for me and others. This has nothing to do with insulting Mickey's intelligence or abilities as a developer, but I am not going to assume things are as he says when the facts contradict him. Just to be on the safe side, I have updated the HOWTO to tell users NOT to use the c partition. However, I am still not convinced that there is an actual problem, until I read enough of the source code to convince myself, or someone explains to me exactly how things would go wrong, why things appear to work fine for me, and why the tools set things up in a way that can (according to Mickey) destroy the partitioning on your physical drive. > If correctness was extremely important to you and you had extended the > time and effort to ensure the greatest degree of correctness you could > in your code and docs, would you be offended if I came along with an > erroneous and lethargically tossed together "HOWTO" about your hard > work? If the docs had been clear and correct, I and others would not have followed the allegedly wrong steps I documented in my HOWTO. If Mickey is right and using the c partition is disastrous, the code that sets it up as a 4.2BSD partition isn't correct. To answer your question, if somebody had written an errorneous HOWTO about my hard work, I would probably point out the mistakes and suggest improvements. I would expect them to correct the mistakes and incorporate the improvements. To the extent that improvements have been suggested, I have incorporated them. > How about if I wanted to publicly argue with you that I'm right and > you're wrong? As long as your arguments made sense, I would respond to them by pointing out why I think I'm right and you're wrong. > In a nutshell, what you have done is perform sacrilege multiple times, > on multiple fronts and against multiple people. Your insistence on > keeping your "HOWTO" publicly available on the Internet indicates both > your apologies and your claims of security being important are not > sincere. Unless you are at least dedicated to, if not obsessed with, > correctness your good intentions and amiable goals will continue to do > more damage than good. I think I have good reasons not to share that point of view. If you (all) don't appreciate my efforts, that's fine with me. I see your point of view. I just don't share it. Kind regards, Bob --- On the other hand, you have different fingers.
