Carlos Fenollosa

I found this HN discussion from just under a year ago on pledge(): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10537268 (which lists this presentation: http://www.openbsd.org/papers/hackfest2015-pledge/mgp00001.html)

I couldn't help wondering that the author had somehow been bitten by something OpenBSD-related, or that he had some kind of spat with some developer(s) somewhere. I wouldn't quite call this FUD, but I don't think it has enough bullet points for the amount of "this is the end of the world" it has in it.

That said, the point about China settling for FreeBSD instead of OpenBSD for their secure computing environment is very interesting. I wonder that OpenBSD may possibly be being distracted by trying to hit some kind of academically "cute" model of functionality, instead of staying grounded and realistic. Or maybe OpenBSD is trying to stay out of the commercial limelight, so is deliberately sidestepping the mainstream enterprise ideas about MAC and so forth?

In any case, I was mildly perturbed to realize that OpenBSD's author also maintains OpenSSH, which has only just now been shaken out of its disturbingly complacent development mindset (http://lwn.net/Articles/702751/ ); OpenBSD is likely to never experience something similar, which is sad - it would be truly interesting to see the level of scurrying and fixing that would happen (and just how much OpenBSD really deserves its security track record)...

For a counterpoint, I also read this nice and positive argument…

"I have been self-hosting my email since I got my first broadband connection at home in 1999. I absolutely loved having a personal web+email server at home, paid extra for a static IP and a real router so people could connect from the outside. I felt like a first-class citizen of the Internet and I learned so much.

Over time I realized that residential IP blocks were banned on most servers. I moved my email server to a VPS. No luck. I quickly understood that self-hosting email was a lost cause. Nevertheless, I have been fighting back out of pure spite, obstinacy, and activism. In other words, because it was the right thing to do.

But my emails are just not delivered anymore. I might as well not have an email server.

(After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years I have thrown in the towel, Carlos Fenollosa, 2022)"

From the article, quoting this other article

https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-three-years-i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html

I will say something that is completely incorrect as facts, but helpful as a thought technology:

Choosing BSD over Linux is like choosing Slackware over Elementary. The differences are there, but they're very niche and subtle in the technical side and the philosophical side.

If you've never used a BSD, you can safely think of it as just another linux distro, and use the same reasoning you'd use to choose your favorite distro.

Do you need more specifics on which are those differences? Check out [1] and my own take on [2].

[1] https://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/rants/bsd4linux/01

[2] https://cfenollosa.com/blog/openbsd-from-a-veteran-linux-user-perspective.html

I said "nobody does" because nobody can. It's a practical impossibility to run your own email today. It doesn't even matter if you have the necessary advanced technical skills. It's just not possible. https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-three-years-i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html

As the owner of the same cell phone number for the last 23 years, proposing hosting your own email as an alternative to SIM cards that's available at every corner doesn't sound feasible to me at all. I don't even like cell operators, but that's just the way it is.

There was a blog posted to HN years ago describing a self hosted email setup in detail, and this was indeed the main issue. Everyone he emails is on a small number of big companies, and most of them don't like his server.

Edit:

"After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years I have thrown in the towel"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32715437

https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-three-years-i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html