General questions about OpenBSD source code and release dates

historyopenbsd

Looking into doing analysis of the lifespan of a line of code, and via another question on stackexchange I was pointed to a research paper on OpenBSD that I've got a few questions about.

That being:

When was OpenBSD source code release as opensource?
In this sentence, "We learn that 61% of the lines of code in today’s OpenBSD are foundational: they were introduced prior to the release of the initial version we studied and have not been altered since."
- does that mean that OpenBSD released the very first batch of source code in "19 May 1998" (see next question for date info),
- or that's just the release they decided to start the 7.5 years of source code review?
- If "19 May 1998" was the first release, where did the other 61% of the code base come from,
- and was that never posted to an open source version control system?
When that 7.5 years was appears be stated in this sentence: "We compiled a database of 140 vulnerabilities reported in the 7.5 years between 19 May 1998 and 17 November 2005."
- where would I find the source code for the patches in those 7.5 years,
- do those dates match releases dates,
- if so, how to I figure that out on my own?

Reason I ask all of this is in part because I can't find the information on OpenBSD or Chuck Cranor's website, which states:

I also hosted and helped create the
first Anonymous CVS server on the
Internet (the original
anoncvs.openbsd.org, which was also
know as eap.ccrc.wustl.edu).

Wikipedia states "Initial release: 1 October 1996", but I'm unable to tell if that release was open source.

Best Answer

does that mean that OpenBSD released the very first batch of source code in "19 May 1998"

No, the first public release of OpenBSD was made in July 1996. (Source 1)

19 May 1998 means your paper's authors used OpenBSD 2.3 as their starting point. (Source 2) I don't see any special reason to begin with this release. The explanation is probably something trivial; perhaps that was the oldest version they could readily lay hands on.

where did the other 61% of the code base come from,

NetBSD. (Same sources as above.)

was that never posted to an open source version control system?

The OpenBSD CVS repository appears to have been in continuous operation for the ~15 years of the project. I fully expect that you could check out OpenBSD 1.x from there if you wanted.

where would I find the source code for the patches in those 7.5 years,

The CVS repository.

do those dates match releases dates,

See Source 2.

I'm unable to tell if that release was open source.

OpenBSD has always been Open Source. It was a fork of NetBSD, which was itself Open Source.

Related Solutions

Linux Kernel – How Did the Project Track Bugs in the Early Days?

In the beginning, if you had something to contribute (a patch or a bug report), you mailed it to Linus. This evolved into mailing it to the list (which was linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu before kernel.org was created).

There was no version control. From time to time, Linus put a tarball on the FTP server. This was the equivalent of a "tag". The available tools at the beginning were RCS and CVS, and Linus hates those, so everybody just mailed patches. (There is an explanation from Linus about why he didn't want to use CVS.)

There were other pre-Bitkeeper proprietary version control systems, but the decentralized, volunteer-based development of Linux made it impossible to use them. A random person who just found a bug will never send a patch if it has to go through a proprietary version control system with licenses starting in the thousands of dollars.

Bitkeeper got around both of those problems: it wasn't centralized like CVS, and while it was not Free Software, kernel contributors were allowed to use it without paying. That made it good enough for a while.

Even with today's git-based development, the mailing lists are still where the action is. When you want to contribute something, you'll prepare it with git of course, but you'll have to discuss it on the relevant mailing list before it gets merged. Bugzilla is there to look "professional" and soak up half-baked bug reports from people who don't really want to get involved.

To see some of the old bug-reporting instructions, get the historical Linux repository. (This is a git repository containing all the versions from before git existed; mostly it contains one commit per release since it was reconstructed from the tarballs). Files of interest include README, MAINTAINERS, and REPORTING-BUGS.

One of the interesting things you can find there is this from the Linux-0.99.12 README:

 - if you have problems that seem to be due to kernel bugs, please mail
   them to me (Linus.Torvalds@Helsinki.FI), and possibly to any other
   relevant mailing-list or to the newsgroup.  The mailing-lists are
   useful especially for SCSI and NETworking problems, as I can't test
   either of those personally anyway.

Shell – Delay termination of script

So, since you don't really want an interrupt, how about disabling it on the terminal level, with stty intr ""? That would make the ^C appear in the input buffer as any ordinary character, and we can read it from there.

This works for me on Linux:

#!/bin/bash

t=$(stty -g)
stty intr ""
echo please hold
sleep 5
stty "$t"

# short timeout, just check if there was any input earlier
read -n1 -t0.1 a
[[ "$a" = $'\003' ]] && echo "you hit ^C"

(I can't test on OpenBSD, but I suppose the terminal setup stuff is standard.)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Linux Kernel – How Did the Project Track Bugs in the Early Days?

Shell – Delay termination of script

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