From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 09:12:04 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA13352 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 09:12:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from freenet.hamilton.on.ca (0@main.freenet.hamilton.on.ca [199.212.94.65]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA13332 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 09:11:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca [199.212.94.66]) by freenet.hamilton.on.ca (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id MAA06303; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 12:11:48 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost (ac199@localhost) by james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA08244; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 12:13:51 -0500 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca: ac199 owned process doing -bs Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 12:13:50 -0500 (EST) From: Tim Vanderhoek To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Security Advisory - Recent compromise of freefall.freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <12361.855722820@time.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 11 Feb 1997, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > mail to me . I'll be working over the next 2 days on > dividing /usr/src into reasonable, prioritized, chunks (there, I used > "prioritized" in a sentence - I've always wanted to do that) and The word is "priorized" and any dictionary that tells you otherwise is a silly little word-of-the-month "per" version that should be tossed at first opportunity. :) -- Outnumbered? Maybe. Outspoken? Never! tIM...HOEk From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 11:11:09 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA20485 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 11:11:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from news1.gtn.com (news1.gtn.com [194.77.0.15]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA20473 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 11:10:50 -0800 (PST) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by news1.gtn.com (8.7.2/8.7.2) with UUCP id UAA11904; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:01:16 +0100 (MET) Received: (from andreas@localhost) by klemm.gtn.com (8.8.5/8.8.2) id TAA09324; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:40:14 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <19970216194013.MC54875@klemm.gtn.com> Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:40:13 +0100 From: andreas@klemm.gtn.com (Andreas Klemm) To: fn@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu (faried nawaz) Cc: tphilips@cedar.netten.net, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Does anyone use Qmail? References: <330201A7.49B7@cedar.netten.net> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.60-PL0 Mime-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: ; from "faried nawaz" on Feb 12, 1997 17:54:33 -0800 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk faried nawaz writes: > On Wed, 12 Feb 1997, Tracy E. Phillips wrote: > > > Just wanting to get your opinion about using Qmail with FreeBSD. > > i'm running it on a 2.1.5 machine right now, with about 50 users > who use pop3, imap, pine, or Mail. it works great. What about making a port ? Andreas /// -- andreas@klemm.gtn.com /\/\___ Wiechers & Partner Datentechnik GmbH Andreas Klemm ___/\/\/ Support Unix -- andreas.klemm@wup.de pgp p-key http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~bal/pks-toplev.html >>> powered by <<< ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/Printing/aps-491.tgz >>> FreeBSD <<< From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 14:22:29 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA01328 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 14:22:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA01321 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 14:22:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id OAA15401; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 14:22:04 -0800 (PST) To: Tim Vanderhoek cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Security Advisory - Recent compromise of freefall.freebsd.org In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 16 Feb 1997 12:13:50 EST." Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 14:22:04 -0800 Message-ID: <15397.856131724@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > The word is "priorized" and any dictionary that tells you > otherwise is a silly little word-of-the-month "per" version that > should be tossed at first opportunity. I know. Why do you think I've always wanted to use it? :-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 14:32:38 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA02056 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 14:32:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from freenet.hamilton.on.ca (0@main.freenet.hamilton.on.ca [199.212.94.65]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA02039 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 14:32:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca [199.212.94.66]) by freenet.hamilton.on.ca (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id RAA19586; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 17:32:24 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost (ac199@localhost) by james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id RAA07006; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 17:34:27 -0500 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca: ac199 owned process doing -bs Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 17:34:26 -0500 (EST) From: Tim Vanderhoek To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" cc: Tim Vanderhoek , chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Security Advisory - Recent compromise of freefall.freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <15397.856131724@time.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > > The word is "priorized" and any dictionary that tells you > > otherwise is a silly little word-of-the-month "per" version that > > should be tossed at first opportunity. > > I know. Why do you think I've always wanted to use it? :-) Jordan! I never took you for a rebel until now! I'm impressed. ;) -- Outnumbered? Maybe. Outspoken? Never! tIM...HOEk From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 16:33:52 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA09460 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 16:33:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from sax.sax.de (sax.sax.de [193.175.26.33]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA09185; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 16:27:09 -0800 (PST) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by sax.sax.de (8.6.12/8.6.12-s1) with UUCP id BAA27862; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 01:26:34 +0100 Received: (from j@localhost) by uriah.heep.sax.de (8.8.5/8.6.9) id AAA27892; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 00:56:33 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 00:56:33 +0100 From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch) To: torstenb@freebsd.org Cc: terry@lambert.org (Terry Lambert), chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: boot messages (Was: Sun Workshop compiler vs. GCC?) References: <199702161809.LAA07588@phaeton.artisoft.com> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.55-PL10 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Phone: +49-351-2012 669 X-PGP-Fingerprint: DC 47 E6 E4 FF A6 E9 8F 93 21 E0 7D F9 12 D6 4E Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) In-Reply-To: ; from Torsten Blum on Feb 16, 1997 22:19:49 +0100 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk (Moved to where this belongs to. :) As Torsten Blum wrote: > > Did you ever see the original "Die Hard" movie? > > > > The computer system they had to break into had a nive graphical login. > > > > It also claimed to be "BSD 9.2". > [Logo] CEO Workstation > > Nakatomi Socrates BSD 9.2 > Z-Level Central Core > Unfortunately I don't have a grabber card. If I can find someone here in > Munich with a Mattrox Meteor... Ha! I'm much better off here! I don't even have a TV, so i don't know of *any* stinking videos! (seriously) -- cheers, J"org joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-) From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 17:14:00 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA11092 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 17:14:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from oldman.steinkamm.com (arne@OldMan.Steinkamm.COM [194.127.175.225]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA11074; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 17:13:37 -0800 (PST) Received: (from arne@localhost) by oldman.steinkamm.com (8.8.3/8.8.3) id CAA04147; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 02:13:15 +0100 (MET) From: Arne Steinkamm Message-Id: <199702170113.CAA04147@oldman.steinkamm.com> Subject: Re: boot messages (Was: Sun Workshop compiler vs. GCC?) To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 02:13:14 +0100 (MET) Cc: torstenb@freebsd.org, terry@lambert.org, chat@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: from "J Wunsch" at Feb 17, 97 00:56:33 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > (Moved to where this belongs to. :) > > As Torsten Blum wrote: > > > > Did you ever see the original "Die Hard" movie? > > > > > > The computer system they had to break into had a nive graphical login. > > > > > > It also claimed to be "BSD 9.2". > > > [Logo] CEO Workstation > > > > Nakatomi Socrates BSD 9.2 > > Z-Level Central Core > > > Unfortunately I don't have a grabber card. If I can find someone here in > > Munich with a Mattrox Meteor... > > Ha! I'm much better off here! I don't even have a TV, so i don't > know of *any* stinking videos! > > (seriously) > -- > cheers, J"org I'm pretty sure, Torsten hasn't Die Hard on Video... He is so proud to have a laserdisc player :-) Sorry, couldn't resist... .//. Arne -- Arne Steinkamm | Mail (MIME): Arne@Steinkamm.COM IRC: Arne Tel.: +49.89.299.756 | URL: http://WWW.Steinkamm.COM/ NIC-Handle: AS306 Robert-Koch-Str. 4 | "There's coffee in that nebula" D-80538 Muenchen | Cptn. Kathryn Janeway, ST:VOY - The Cloud From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 17:35:51 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA12266 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 17:35:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from darkstar (dialin1.anlw.anl.gov [141.221.252.101]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA12257 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 17:35:45 -0800 (PST) Received: (from cmott@localhost) by darkstar (8.6.12/8.6.12) id SAA01498; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 18:35:40 -0700 Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 18:35:39 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: boot messages (Was: Sun Workshop compiler vs. GCC?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk moved to -chat I concur with others that high quality graphics during boot up would help build up the FreeBSD user base (should this be a goal?). One thing that distinguishes Walnut Creek is that they have a better sense of graphical design and packaging than the other cdrom outfits. If graphics and aesthetics weren't important, then we would mostly be using monochrome monitors. As long as the splash screen can be disabled with and escape, I think it should be fine. The device probes are useful when bringing up a news system (mainly to see where things hang up), but after that, the dmesg command is how I look at that information. Charles Mott From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 18:22:42 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA14686 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 18:22:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from darkstar (dialin1.anlw.anl.gov [141.221.252.101]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA14681 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 18:22:39 -0800 (PST) Received: (from cmott@localhost) by darkstar (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA01542; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:22:32 -0700 Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:22:31 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Countering stack overflow Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk What I have noticed running test programs is that the top of the stack always appears to be at or near 0xffffffff. I am interested in generating an experimental kernel patch (for 2.1.0-R) which would randomly change the top stack address over a range of 0x4fffffff 0xffffffff when a a new process (not a fork) is started. My guess is that this will practically shut down any stack overflow attacks which gain root privilege. They may still cause crashes or process termination, though. Please advise if there is a conceptual error in what I want to do. I have to stop at the library and check out a copy of Leffler et al to get an overview, but I seem to remember that I might have to do something with the exec() call. Does an executable a.out format specify how the stack pointer is initialized, or does the OS do this? Charles Mott From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 18:29:52 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA15021 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 18:29:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from scanner.worldgate.com (scanner.worldgate.com [198.161.84.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA15013 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 18:29:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from znep.com (uucp@localhost) by scanner.worldgate.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) with UUCP id TAA25660 for chat@freebsd.org; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:29:44 -0700 (MST) Received: from localhost (marcs@localhost) by alive.znep.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id TAA06099 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:29:20 -0700 (MST) Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:29:19 -0700 (MST) From: Marc Slemko To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: CRL <--> MCI at pacbell NAP Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Part of a traceroute to wcarchive: 9 pacbell-nap-atm.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.1.202) 48.998 ms 50.476 ms 49.367 ms 10 pacbell-nap-atm.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.1.202) 53.675 ms 47.162 ms 61.408 ms 11 pb-nap.crl.net (198.32.128.20) 1513.402 ms * * 12 * wcarchive.cdrom.com (165.113.58.253) 483.625 ms * Not so hot; can't get more than 1 kbyte/sec from wcarchive when normally I can get over 200. Anyone have any idea whose fault it is (looks like CRL to me, but could be something else at the NAP) and when it will be fixed? Guess I could manually route around it but that's annoying. From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 18:50:09 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA16072 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 18:50:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from who.cdrom.com (who.cdrom.com [204.216.27.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA16067 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 18:50:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by who.cdrom.com (8.7.5/8.6.11) with ESMTP id SAA17504 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 18:46:50 -0800 (PST) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.2/8.7.3) id NAA07044; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 13:13:25 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199702170243.NAA07044@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-Reply-To: from Charles Mott at "Feb 16, 97 07:22:31 pm" To: cmott@srv.net (Charles Mott) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 13:13:24 +1030 (CST) Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Charles Mott stands accused of saying: > What I have noticed running test programs is that the top of the stack > always appears to be at or near 0xffffffff. I am interested in generating > an experimental kernel patch (for 2.1.0-R) which would randomly change the > top stack address over a range of 0x4fffffff 0xffffffff when a a new > process (not a fork) is started. > > My guess is that this will practically shut down any stack overflow > attacks which gain root privilege. They may still cause crashes or > process termination, though. > > Please advise if there is a conceptual error in what I want to do. I have There is a conceptual error in what you want to do. Stack accesses are _relative_. > Charles Mott -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[ From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 18:55:39 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA16296 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 18:55:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from darkstar (dialin1.anlw.anl.gov [141.221.252.101]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA16290 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 18:55:36 -0800 (PST) Received: (from cmott@localhost) by darkstar (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA01572; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:55:12 -0700 Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:55:12 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar To: Michael Smith cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-Reply-To: <199702170243.NAA07044@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 17 Feb 1997, Michael Smith wrote: > Charles Mott stands accused of saying: > > What I have noticed running test programs is that the top of the stack > > always appears to be at or near 0xffffffff. I am interested in generating > > an experimental kernel patch (for 2.1.0-R) which would randomly change the > > top stack address over a range of 0x4fffffff 0xffffffff when a a new > > process (not a fork) is started. > > > > My guess is that this will practically shut down any stack overflow > > attacks which gain root privilege. They may still cause crashes or > > process termination, though. > > > > Please advise if there is a conceptual error in what I want to do. I have > > There is a conceptual error in what you want to do. > > Stack accesses are _relative_. My understanding is that the overflow attack must have an approximate idea (within a few kilobytes) of how to modify the return address. It has to know the absolute address of the code which is dumped in the overflow area of the stack. A few kilobytes of no-ops are added so the modified return address can have a little slop. Does anyone have a working example of something that exploits the old setlocale() security hole. I think this will settle any questions for me and stop having these imprecise discussions on the newsgroups. I remember getting similar garbage thrown at me when I started the packet aliasing project, which works just fine and is useful to quite a few people now. I may be wrong here, but in any event I need more intelligent responses than what has just been lobbed out by Mr. Smith. Charles Mott From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 19:06:51 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA16853 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:06:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from darkstar (dialin1.anlw.anl.gov [141.221.252.101]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA16842 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:06:45 -0800 (PST) Received: (from cmott@localhost) by darkstar (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA01586; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:06:29 -0700 Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:06:28 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar To: Marc Slemko cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: CRL <--> MCI at pacbell NAP In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, Marc Slemko wrote: > Part of a traceroute to wcarchive: > > 9 pacbell-nap-atm.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.1.202) 48.998 ms 50.476 ms 49.367 ms > 10 pacbell-nap-atm.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.1.202) 53.675 ms 47.162 ms 61.408 ms > 11 pb-nap.crl.net (198.32.128.20) 1513.402 ms * * > 12 * wcarchive.cdrom.com (165.113.58.253) 483.625 ms * > > Not so hot; can't get more than 1 kbyte/sec from wcarchive when normally > I can get over 200. > > Anyone have any idea whose fault it is (looks like CRL to me, but could > be something else at the NAP) and when it will be fixed? Guess I could > manually route around it but that's annoying. Very interesting. The networking expert I know says this can result from a router advertising an incorrect "cost" number. If this parameter, whatever it is, is set incorrectly, a huge amount of traffic can be drawn into a small pipe. Generally speaking you hear phrases like, "it was real bad, we very quickly fixed the problem". Another possibility is that a major link is down and they are going through a T1 backup path. It is also apparently pretty easy to mess up BGP configuration. In any event, you might want to send some e-mail the backbone provider(s). Often noc@.... works prety well. (noc = network operations center). A whois may also give some e-mail addresses. Charles Mott From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 19:13:22 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA17391 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:13:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA17377 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:13:16 -0800 (PST) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.2/8.7.3) id NAA07248; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 13:42:18 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199702170312.NAA07248@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-Reply-To: from Charles Mott at "Feb 16, 97 07:55:12 pm" To: cmott@srv.net (Charles Mott) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 13:42:17 +1030 (CST) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Charles Mott stands accused of saying: > > My understanding is that the overflow attack must have an approximate > idea (within a few kilobytes) of how to modify the return address. It > has to know the absolute address of the code which is dumped in the > overflow area of the stack. A few kilobytes of no-ops are added so the > modified return address can have a little slop. Ah, I'm with you now, sorry. Unless the domain of the randomness was large, this might not be more than a minor impediment, but it'd certainly slow some things down. Is the plan to pad the stack with unmapped pages, or to actually try to relocate the stack? You could start by modifying the definition of USRSTACK in i386/include/vmparam.h and see if the kernel still runs (I suspect some subtle problems with assumptions about the adjacency of the user stack and the per-process kernel stack per the comment in locore.s). Bear in mind, though, that stack overruns smashing the return address are only one of a family of hole sources; I think that the audit process (find the holes and fix them for good) is a better long-term solution. > Charles Mott -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[ From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 19:31:16 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA18247 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:31:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from darkstar (ras514.srv.net [205.180.127.14]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA18236 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:31:06 -0800 (PST) Received: (from cmott@localhost) by darkstar (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA01620; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:30:48 -0700 Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:30:46 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar To: Michael Smith cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-Reply-To: <199702170312.NAA07248@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > My understanding is that the overflow attack must have an approximate > > idea (within a few kilobytes) of how to modify the return address. It > > has to know the absolute address of the code which is dumped in the > > overflow area of the stack. A few kilobytes of no-ops are added so the > > modified return address can have a little slop. > > Ah, I'm with you now, sorry. Unless the domain of the randomness was > large, this might not be more than a minor impediment, but it'd certainly > slow some things down. I think one gigabyte would be a fairly large domain of randomness. > Is the plan to pad the stack with unmapped pages, or to actually try to > relocate the stack? I am thinking just to change the initial value of the stack pointer. I don't know what the interaction with the memory manager will be. > You could start by modifying the definition of USRSTACK in > i386/include/vmparam.h and see if the kernel still runs (I suspect > some subtle problems with assumptions about the adjacency of the user > stack and the per-process kernel stack per the comment in locore.s). I'll start looking at the source code. Mainly, I just want to modify the initial value of the stack pointer for a user process, which should have a completely independent address space. > Bear in mind, though, that stack overruns smashing the return address > are only one of a family of hole sources; I think that the audit process > (find the holes and fix them for good) is a better long-term solution. The long term strategy is sound, but subject to human error. I think it isn't a bad idea to also overlay some general approaches which combat a class of security vulnerabilities. In any event, I just want to experiment a little with my own kernel. In the same vein, I don't think it would be such a bad idea to modify strcpy, so that if it thinks it is working on a stack variable, it will not overrun the frame pointer. I think someone may already have done this. There is a tendency among the freebsd team to look for perfect solutions. These security holes seem so severe, that I think some redundant overlay schemes are advised, even if they are not perfect. Charles Mott From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 19:51:53 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA19279 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:51:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu (qmailr@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu [129.101.191.123]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA19273 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:51:49 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 23115 invoked by uid 1003); 17 Feb 1997 03:51:36 -0000 Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:51:36 -0800 (PST) From: faried nawaz To: Andreas Klemm cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Does anyone use Qmail? In-Reply-To: <19970216194013.MC54875@klemm.gtn.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, Andreas Klemm wrote: > What about making a port ? a problem i have is that my freebsd hard drive died a few weeks ago. it was under warranty, so i will get a replacement next week. while i do have access to machines locally running freebsd, i doubt that i'll be able to test out a qmail port completely w/o causing users some alarm (losing mail is not fun). that's not really all that much of a problem, because qmail 1.0 comes out in a few days (expected release date is feb 21). the author asks that people not distribute pre-release versions since he doesn't want to deal with bug reports for them (see ftp://koobera.math.uic.edu/www/qmaildist.html). since i really won't be worrying about sendmail at home, i probably will install qmail soon after installing 2.2-gamma, and might have enough time to submit the port before 2.2-release ships. timing will be tight, though. when i installed qmail, i had to manually go through user home directories and change .forward files, move aliases from /etc/aliases to individual files in /var/qmail/aliases, move /var/mail/$USER to /home/$USER/Mailbox, etc. in the process of installing qmail, i had to read the install/readme/faq files many times, and that helped _a lot_. perhaps it would be better to have both a qmail port and a qmail section in the handbook? time to re-read the handbook sgml files. thanks for the suggestion. faried. -- faried nawaz WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY BACKSPACE IS DELETE box 3582, moscow, id 83843-1914, usa linux, the ms-dos of the nineties PIGLET loves you if at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you not a system janitor. People's Front Against WWW From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 20:35:26 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA21707 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:35:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA21694 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:35:21 -0800 (PST) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.2/8.7.3) id PAA07811; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 15:04:56 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199702170434.PAA07811@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-Reply-To: from Charles Mott at "Feb 16, 97 08:30:46 pm" To: cmott@srv.net (Charles Mott) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 15:04:54 +1030 (CST) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Charles Mott stands accused of saying: > > > > Ah, I'm with you now, sorry. Unless the domain of the randomness was > > large, this might not be more than a minor impediment, but it'd certainly > > slow some things down. > > I think one gigabyte would be a fairly large domain of randomness. Indeed, although you'd probaly want to page-align the stack, which reduces the search space somewhat. When you say that 'only new processes, not forked processes' would get a random stack, you're aware that this significantly reduces the effectiveness of this protection? (A long-running process like a webserver or MTA that forks to handle new connections becomes vulnerable to a walking search, or a binary serach if its behaviour differs on high/low misses). (I'm aware that the alternative would involve copying the stack to a new location on fork, which would be expensive.) > I am thinking just to change the initial value of the stack pointer. I > don't know what the interaction with the memory manager will be. I would be worried about the initial stack page not being mapped, but it (should) be fairly easy to track this down. > I'll start looking at the source code. Mainly, I just want to modify the > initial value of the stack pointer for a user process, which should have a > completely independent address space. Not quite sure what you mean here; the stack has to be in the same virtual address space as the rest of the program, othewise it wouldn't be possible to indirectly reference automatic variables or execute trampolies on the stack. > The long term strategy is sound, but subject to human error. I think it > isn't a bad idea to also overlay some general approaches which combat a > class of security vulnerabilities. In any event, I just want to > experiment a little with my own kernel. That's fair enough. > In the same vein, I don't think it would be such a bad idea to modify > strcpy, so that if it thinks it is working on a stack variable, it will > not overrun the frame pointer. I think someone may already have done > this. I certainly wouldn't be willing to buy this as a useful device, particularly as the frame pointer isn't guaranteed. > There is a tendency among the freebsd team to look for perfect solutions. > These security holes seem so severe, that I think some redundant overlay > schemes are advised, even if they are not perfect. I think that in general the FreeBSD team does a good job of tempering expediency with experience and perspective. There has been a great deal of largely unwarranted noise and fuss about security of late, and I commend the core team for keeping their heads while lesser mortals have made fools of themselves. > Charles Mott -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[ From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 20:43:23 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA22439 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:43:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from root.com (implode.root.com [198.145.90.17]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA22425 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:43:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by root.com (8.7.6/8.6.5) with SMTP id UAA04626; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:44:02 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199702170444.UAA04626@root.com> X-Authentication-Warning: implode.root.com: Host localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: Marc Slemko cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: CRL <--> MCI at pacbell NAP In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:29:19 MST." From: David Greenman Reply-To: dg@root.com Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:44:02 -0800 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >Part of a traceroute to wcarchive: > > 9 pacbell-nap-atm.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.1.202) 48.998 ms 50.476 ms 49.367 ms >10 pacbell-nap-atm.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.1.202) 53.675 ms 47.162 ms 61.408 ms >11 pb-nap.crl.net (198.32.128.20) 1513.402 ms * * >12 * wcarchive.cdrom.com (165.113.58.253) 483.625 ms * > >Not so hot; can't get more than 1 kbyte/sec from wcarchive when normally >I can get over 200. > >Anyone have any idea whose fault it is (looks like CRL to me, but could >be something else at the NAP) and when it will be fixed? Guess I could >manually route around it but that's annoying. Yes, it's MCI's fault. Their connection to the PB-NAP is overloaded (by at least a factor of 2 as near as I can tell). CRL has been bugging them about it, but the word from MCI is that there is no plan to upgrade their connection to the NAP to OC3 (155Mbps); I believe it is currently only 34Mbps, but might be DS3. It appears that this policy is an attempt to force larger service providers into doing 'private' peering (i.e. via a private point-to-point connection between the providers, bypassing the NAP). CRL has requested that such a connection be established and has not yet heard back from MCI on it. If MCI does agree to this, each provider will purchase a DS3 connection to the other and the traffic will be load balanced between the two - providing a total bandwidth of 90Mbps in each direction. -DG David Greenman Core-team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 20:46:06 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA22671 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:46:06 -0800 (PST) Received: from root.com (implode.root.com [198.145.90.17]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA22663 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:46:01 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by root.com (8.7.6/8.6.5) with SMTP id UAA04655; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:46:46 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199702170446.UAA04655@root.com> X-Authentication-Warning: implode.root.com: Host localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: Charles Mott cc: Marc Slemko , chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: CRL <--> MCI at pacbell NAP In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:06:28 MST." From: David Greenman Reply-To: dg@root.com Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:46:46 -0800 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >Another possibility is that a major link is down and they are going >through a T1 backup path. It is also apparently pretty easy to mess up >BGP configuration. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that MCI has apparantly turned down their connection to the CIX-SMDS, so traffic that was being sent there is now going to their already overloaded PB-NAP and MAE-west connections. -DG David Greenman Core-team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 21:07:50 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA24169 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 21:07:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from darkstar (ras514.srv.net [205.180.127.14]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA24159 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 21:07:34 -0800 (PST) Received: (from cmott@localhost) by darkstar (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA01713; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 22:07:12 -0700 Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 22:07:11 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar To: Michael Smith cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-Reply-To: <199702170434.PAA07811@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Not quite sure what you mean here; the stack has to be in the same > virtual address space as the rest of the program, othewise it wouldn't > be possible to indirectly reference automatic variables or execute > trampolies on the stack. I thought you were talking about stacks existing in kernel space, as opposed to user space. Initially, I just want to deal with user space vulnerabilities. What I don't understand is what block of addresses is reserved in a process for the stack. The calls to malloc() have to know how to avoid this space. Are a fixed number of stack pages allocated at process creation? Don't worry about answering these questions. I am just thinking aloud and can work out the details myself. > > In the same vein, I don't think it would be such a bad idea to modify > > strcpy, so that if it thinks it is working on a stack variable, it will > > not overrun the frame pointer. I think someone may already have done > > this. > > I certainly wouldn't be willing to buy this as a useful device, > particularly as the frame pointer isn't guaranteed. I think strcpy() can tell whether it is working on an automatic variable by looking for proximity to the stack pointer. However, it the frame pointer isn't guaranteed, then strcpy() would not be able to determine an upper bound for the length of the copy. In any event, there would be other copy functions to work on also. > > > There is a tendency among the freebsd team to look for perfect solutions. > > These security holes seem so severe, that I think some redundant overlay > > schemes are advised, even if they are not perfect. > > I think that in general the FreeBSD team does a good job of tempering > expediency with experience and perspective. There has been a great > deal of largely unwarranted noise and fuss about security of late, and > I commend the core team for keeping their heads while lesser mortals > have made fools of themselves. I don't necessarily think an emergency code audit is the way to go. However, it is a good idea to have a lot of people looking over the code. My tendency would be to identify security holes but not have a load of individual fixes. A few broad strategic moves are preferable in my view. What other security holes exist, other than stack overflow variations, which allow an intruder to take over a machine? Charles Mott From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 21:25:49 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA24914 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 21:25:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from darkstar (ras514.srv.net [205.180.127.14]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA24908 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 21:25:43 -0800 (PST) Received: (from cmott@localhost) by darkstar (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA01735; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 22:25:30 -0700 Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 22:25:28 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: CRL <--> MCI at pacbell NAP In-Reply-To: <199702170444.UAA04626@root.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, David Greenman wrote: > >Part of a traceroute to wcarchive: > > > > 9 pacbell-nap-atm.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.1.202) 48.998 ms 50.476 ms 49.367 ms > >10 pacbell-nap-atm.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.1.202) 53.675 ms 47.162 ms 61.408 ms > >11 pb-nap.crl.net (198.32.128.20) 1513.402 ms * * > >12 * wcarchive.cdrom.com (165.113.58.253) 483.625 ms * > > > >Not so hot; can't get more than 1 kbyte/sec from wcarchive when normally > >I can get over 200. > > > >Anyone have any idea whose fault it is (looks like CRL to me, but could > >be something else at the NAP) and when it will be fixed? Guess I could > >manually route around it but that's annoying. > > Yes, it's MCI's fault. Their connection to the PB-NAP is overloaded (by at > least a factor of 2 as near as I can tell). CRL has been bugging them about it, > but the word from MCI is that there is no plan to upgrade their connection > to the NAP to OC3 (155Mbps); I believe it is currently only 34Mbps, but might > be DS3. It appears that this policy is an attempt to force larger service > providers into doing 'private' peering (i.e. via a private point-to-point > connection between the providers, bypassing the NAP). It appears that MCI is pushing some of the routing burden back towards the service providers. This seems to be the direction a lot of networking is taking. I wonder if their goal is forcing customers to buy more bandwidth than they really need by making it less efficiently used. Not to be too trite here, but there is an old saying that when elephants fight, the grass beneath their feet suffers. 1 kbyte/sec is pretty slow. Charles Mott From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 21:45:39 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA25629 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 21:45:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA25619 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 21:45:31 -0800 (PST) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.2/8.7.3) id QAA08355; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:15:19 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199702170545.QAA08355@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-Reply-To: from Charles Mott at "Feb 16, 97 10:07:11 pm" To: cmott@srv.net (Charles Mott) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:15:18 +1030 (CST) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Charles Mott stands accused of saying: > > Not quite sure what you mean here; the stack has to be in the same > > virtual address space as the rest of the program, othewise it wouldn't > > be possible to indirectly reference automatic variables or execute > > trampolies on the stack. > > I thought you were talking about stacks existing in kernel space, as > opposed to user space. Initially, I just want to deal with user space > vulnerabilities. I was, I thought, talking about the user-space stacks. The issue I was referring to was that there are kernel-used data structures mapped just after the user stack, and that the user stack location is used in a number of places for locating this data. (look for the 'kstack' symbol usage in i386/i386) > I think strcpy() can tell whether it is working on an automatic variable > by looking for proximity to the stack pointer. However, it the frame > pointer isn't guaranteed, then strcpy() would not be able to determine an > upper bound for the length of the copy. My point exactly. Even so, it may not be necessary to write that far to cause the program to malfunction/ > In any event, there would be other copy functions to work on also. This would be a particular nuisance with the large volume of third-party source regularly used by FreeBSD users. > What other security holes exist, other than stack overflow variations, > which allow an intruder to take over a machine? That's a restatement of the halting problem. Various examples of common hole-providing behaviour have been discussed on the lists over the last few months. Buffer overflow (rather than stack overflow) errors comprise a large part of the problem, but there have been others (eg. remote login daemons leaking environment variables) which only come to light as the result of a comprehensive code review. > Charles Mott -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[ From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 21:59:03 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA26019 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 21:59:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from darkstar (ras514.srv.net [205.180.127.14]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA26014 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 21:58:57 -0800 (PST) Received: (from cmott@localhost) by darkstar (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA01761; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 22:58:33 -0700 Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 22:58:32 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar To: Michael Smith cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-Reply-To: <199702170545.QAA08355@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > What other security holes exist, other than stack overflow variations, > > which allow an intruder to take over a machine? > > That's a restatement of the halting problem. Various examples of > common hole-providing behaviour have been discussed on the lists over > the last few months. Buffer overflow (rather than stack overflow) > errors comprise a large part of the problem, but there have been > others (eg. remote login daemons leaking environment variables) which > only come to light as the result of a comprehensive code review. The only mechanism I have seen for an intruder to gain control of the executable stream is to rewrite a return address on the stack. I don't see how an overflow of a malloc()'ed buffer can allow someone to gain control of your machine. They may crash it or corrupt operation, but not gain control. Crashing seems to me a much less serious problem. Also it is possible to keep network connection logs to see where intruders came from before the machine died. Charles Mott From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 22:08:05 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA26437 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 22:08:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA26422 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 22:07:59 -0800 (PST) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.2/8.7.3) id QAA08532; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:37:51 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199702170607.QAA08532@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-Reply-To: from Charles Mott at "Feb 16, 97 10:58:32 pm" To: cmott@srv.net (Charles Mott) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:37:50 +1030 (CST) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Charles Mott stands accused of saying: > > The only mechanism I have seen for an intruder to gain control of the > executable stream is to rewrite a return address on the stack. I don't > see how an overflow of a malloc()'ed buffer can allow someone to gain > control of your machine. Think "change the behaviour of a function by altering its local variables". As I stated, this is dependant entirely on the nature of the application in question, and is thus a restatement of the halting problem. No practical guard against this is possible outside of the specific domain of each application. > They may crash it or corrupt operation, but not > gain control. Crashing seems to me a much less serious problem. Also it > is possible to keep network connection logs to see where intruders came > from before the machine died. There was a very clear and succint description of the basic procedure for an attack overwriting local variables posted a week or so ago. > Charles Mott -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[ From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 16 22:29:59 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA27064 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 22:29:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA27055 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 1997 22:29:52 -0800 (PST) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.2/8.7.3) id QAA08745; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:59:38 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199702170629.QAA08745@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-Reply-To: <199702170607.QAA08532@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> from Michael Smith at "Feb 17, 97 04:37:50 pm" To: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au (Michael Smith) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:59:37 +1030 (CST) Cc: cmott@srv.net, msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Michael Smith stands accused of saying: > Charles Mott stands accused of saying: > > > > The only mechanism I have seen for an intruder to gain control of the > > executable stream is to rewrite a return address on the stack. I don't > > see how an overflow of a malloc()'ed buffer can allow someone to gain > > control of your machine. > > Think "change the behaviour of a function by altering its local > variables". I should have pointed out here that munging values on the heap is also quite rewarding. Try spewing "///////////////////.../path/filename" over the heap on an application that you know writes a private logfile and keeps the path to said logfile on the heap. If you can provide bogus input that gets logged as part of the message, you may even be able to control what gets put into the file, again, depending on the application in question. You don't have to 'take control' of a program to use it to compromise system security. -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[ From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 04:58:28 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id EAA13503 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 04:58:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au (daemon@bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au [130.102.2.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id EAA13497 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 04:58:25 -0800 (PST) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA23826; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 22:58:13 +1000 Received: by ogre.devetir.qld.gov.au (8.7.5/DEVETIR-E0.3a) id UAA16812; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 20:54:23 +1000 (EST) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 20:54:23 +1000 (EST) From: Stephen McKay Message-Id: <199702171054.UAA16812@ogre.devetir.qld.gov.au> To: Charles Mott cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org, syssgm@devetir.qld.gov.au Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #1 (NOV) Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Charles Mott wrote: >I think strcpy() can tell whether it is working on an automatic variable >by looking for proximity to the stack pointer. However, it the frame >pointer isn't guaranteed, then strcpy() would not be able to determine an >upper bound for the length of the copy. Putting a bunch of arbitrary limits in strcpy() to try to second guess hackers will lead to 1) slower code 2) bugs. There aren't any other alternatives. >> > There is a tendency among the freebsd team to look for perfect solutions. >> > These security holes seem so severe, that I think some redundant overlay >> > schemes are advised, even if they are not perfect. Looking for perfection means you sometimes find it. I like this idea. It sure beats the hell out of a truck load of half solutions. Kinda like the one film a year that moves you, vs the regular slop on the TV. >I don't necessarily think an emergency code audit is the way to go. >However, it is a good idea to have a lot of people looking over the code. >My tendency would be to identify security holes but not have a load of >individual fixes. A few broad strategic moves are preferable in my view. The code audit is the best thing I've heard of in a long time. Independent code review is the best tool I've seen for producing quality code. The security beat-up has been a great motivator. The audit will reduce the quantity of all bugs, not just security holes. In all the time I've used computers (17 years now) I've lost data to butter fingers, application errors, OS errors, and hardware failures, never to hacker attacks. At the end of the audit, fewer programs will fail or corrupt data, so the chances of my data being safe will have increased. I'll probably have increased protection against the hackers, too, but that's a bonus. >What other security holes exist, other than stack overflow variations, >which allow an intruder to take over a machine? Other security holes? The whole of Unix is a security hole in one sense. It was designed to make adding things easy, and it succeeded. Easy change implies policy corruption over time. The way to make a secure OS is to make it bloody difficult to change anything. You build in data security classification from the start. You make sure nothing depends on anything with a lower security classification. You spend lots of time worrying about whether a high security class program can signal data to a low security class program by out of band channels like varying the cpu load or playing busily with a disk drive. Armed guards on the machine room door help too. :-) In short, right now you have a wonderfully productive, open, and free operating system that is full of holes and that will never be 100% secure. For every feature added you run the risk of a new security hole. That's life. Don't connect it to your pacemaker. Do keep backups. Don't make bizarre changes to the internals because it might stop a hacker attack you heard of the day before. Don't trust anything just because it works under DOS. Keep a level head. Brush your teeth. Don't accept lifts from strangers. Stephen. From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 06:31:13 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id GAA17983 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 06:31:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from darkstar (dialin2.anlw.anl.gov [141.221.252.102]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id GAA17977 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 06:31:10 -0800 (PST) Received: (from cmott@localhost) by darkstar (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA02252; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 07:30:54 -0700 Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 07:30:43 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar To: Michael Smith cc: Michael Smith , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-Reply-To: <199702170629.QAA08745@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 17 Feb 1997, Michael Smith wrote: > Michael Smith stands accused of saying: > > Charles Mott stands accused of saying: > > > > > > The only mechanism I have seen for an intruder to gain control of the > > > executable stream is to rewrite a return address on the stack. I don't > > > see how an overflow of a malloc()'ed buffer can allow someone to gain > > > control of your machine. > > > > Think "change the behaviour of a function by altering its local > > variables". > > I should have pointed out here that munging values on the heap is also > quite rewarding. Try spewing "///////////////////.../path/filename" over > the heap on an application that you know writes a private logfile and keeps > the path to said logfile on the heap. > > If you can provide bogus input that gets logged as part of the > message, you may even be able to control what gets put into the file, > again, depending on the application in question. > > You don't have to 'take control' of a program to use it to compromise > system security. I see two major categories of security vulnerabilities: (1) A backdoor which trivially allows someone to become a superuser, bypassing all the normal passwords, security and authentication. (2) Data and file manipulation/corruption leading to either poor system reliability or compromise of privacy Category (1) is far more serious, and seems to warrant some broad and swift moves. The only way that (1) can be achieved, to my knowledge, is through stack overflow. This excepts deliberate back doors or trojan horses placed in the source tree. What is amazing about stack overflow, and really surprised me, is that it is a vulnerability that has been known at least since the Robert Morris Jr. internet Worm attack, almost ten years ago. Yes, a code review is worthwhile, but the OS and basic system calls should provide a layer of defense against stack overflow. It is astonishing that this has not been done yet over the past 5 to 10 years. My own view is that Robert Morris Jr. was not such a bad person, and what he did was actually very instructive. Walking into unix, as I have, really only two years ago, it puzzles me that there have not been more comprehensive solutions. I guess since people working in software think in binary, they see only two states: perfection and everything else. Mathematicians sometimes have the same difficulties when they shift to science or engineering. Charles Mott From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 10:06:17 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA02020 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 10:06:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from darkstar (dialin2.anlw.anl.gov [141.221.252.102]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA02015 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 10:06:11 -0800 (PST) Received: (from cmott@localhost) by darkstar (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA02498; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 11:05:38 -0700 Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 11:05:36 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: A Parable Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk A physicist is sleeping in his bedroom. He sees a fire burning in one corner of the room and a bucket of water in another corner. He puts out the fire and goes back to sleep. The mathemetician wakes up and says, "Ah, a solution!" He then goes back to sleep without doing anything. The FreeBSD team wakes up and says, "Let's audit the entire house for fires, termite damage, worn carpet, and scratches in the walls -- starting first in the kitchen." They then go back to sleep. From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 10:39:54 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA05015 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 10:39:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from narcissus.ml.org (root@brosenga.Pitzer.edu [134.173.120.201]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA05010 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 10:39:51 -0800 (PST) Received: (from ben@localhost) by narcissus.ml.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id KAA23726; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 10:39:52 -0800 (PST) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 10:39:52 -0800 (PST) From: Snob Art Genre To: Charles Mott cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: A Parable In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 17 Feb 1997, Charles Mott wrote: > A physicist is sleeping in his bedroom. He sees a fire burning in one > corner of the room and a bucket of water in another corner. He puts out > the fire and goes back to sleep. > > The mathemetician wakes up and says, "Ah, a solution!" He then goes > back to sleep without doing anything. > > The FreeBSD team wakes up and says, "Let's audit the entire house for > fires, termite damage, worn carpet, and scratches in the walls -- starting > first in the kitchen." They then go back to sleep. > What, giving up their quantum?! Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems." From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 11:14:45 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA07596 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 11:14:45 -0800 (PST) Received: from nic.follonett.no (nic.follonett.no [194.198.43.10]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA07572 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 11:14:28 -0800 (PST) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by nic.follonett.no (8.8.5/8.8.3) with UUCP id UAA07089; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 20:12:05 +0100 (MET) Received: from oo7 (oo7.dimaga.com [192.0.0.65]) by dimaga.com (8.7.5/8.7.2) with SMTP id UAA17348; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 20:07:12 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <3.0.32.19970217200713.00c2f920@dimaga.com> X-Sender: eivind@dimaga.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 20:07:14 +0100 To: Charles Mott From: Eivind Eklund Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow Cc: Michael Smith , msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk [Michael Smith] >> I commend the core team for keeping their heads while lesser mortals >> have made fools of themselves. [Charles Mott] >I don't necessarily think an emergency code audit is the way to go. >However, it is a good idea to have a lot of people looking over the code. >My tendency would be to identify security holes but not have a load of >individual fixes. A few broad strategic moves are preferable in my view. I don't agree that this is an 'emergency code audit.' It was triggered by an emergence, yes, but that wasn't the main cause. The audit is done because a lot of people felt it was a generally 'good thing.' Personally, believe in both doing the audit (getting bugs out of the sources won't hurt) _and_ doing what we can to make exploiting any remaining holes as difficult as possible. You idea is a good one for that, as it probably means a custom exploit would have to be written for each buffer overrun. (I think exploits still would be possible for many holes; we can take the actual techniques in private mail if of interest.) >What other security holes exist, other than stack overflow variations, >which allow an intruder to take over a machine? Symlink following for tempfiles, executing shell code which can be manipulated by an attacker (used to be a fairly common hole, but is mostly closed nowadays), sensitive information being accessable (eg, can give error message containing part of file symlinked to, or can core dump sensitive information like todays/yesterdays strange rlogin-hole), manipulation of where code is loaded from (the LDPATH trick against login on Linux), misuse of features (eg, use the route command of IIJ-PPP to redirect packets to a hostile host), creation of files in a user-configurable way, etc. There is a whole host of problems. Eivind Eklund perhaps@yes.no http://maybe.yes.no/perhaps/ eivind@freebsd.org From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 12:10:08 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA11207 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 12:10:08 -0800 (PST) Received: (from jmb@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA11200; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 12:10:02 -0800 (PST) From: "Jonathan M. Bresler" Message-Id: <199702172010.MAA11200@freefall.freebsd.org> Subject: Re: A Parable To: cmott@srv.net (Charles Mott) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 12:10:02 -0800 (PST) Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: from "Charles Mott" at Feb 17, 97 11:05:36 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Charles Mott wrote: > > A physicist is sleeping in his bedroom. He sees a fire burning in one > corner of the room and a bucket of water in another corner. He puts out > the fire and goes back to sleep. > > The mathemetician wakes up and says, "Ah, a solution!" He then goes > back to sleep without doing anything. > > The FreeBSD team wakes up and says, "Let's audit the entire house for > fires, termite damage, worn carpet, and scratches in the walls -- starting > first in the kitchen." They then go back to sleep. http://www.freebsd.org/auditors.html pay no attention to the men behind the curtain. ;) jmb From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 12:20:35 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA11951 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 12:20:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from relay.nuxi.com (nuxi.ucdavis.edu [128.120.37.176]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA11946 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 12:20:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from dragon.nuxi.com (reqd-003.ucdavis.edu [128.120.251.123]) by relay.nuxi.com (8.8.4/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA06715; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 12:20:31 -0800 (PST) Received: (from obrien@localhost) by dragon.nuxi.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) id UAA24162; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 20:20:23 GMT Message-ID: <19970217122022.XX15588@dragon.nuxi.com> Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 12:20:22 -0800 From: obrien@NUXI.com (David O'Brien) To: cmott@srv.net (Charles Mott) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au (Michael Smith), freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow References: <199702170629.QAA08745@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.60_p2-3,5,8-9 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Disclaimer: Mutt Bites! Organization: The NUXI *BSD group X-PGP-Fingerprint: B7 4D 3E E9 11 39 5F A3 90 76 5D 69 58 D9 98 7A X-Pgp-Keyid: 34F9F9D5 In-Reply-To: ; from Charles Mott on Feb 17, 1997 07:30:43 -0700 Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Charles Mott writes: > I see two major categories of security vulnerabilities: > > (1) A backdoor which trivially allows someone to become > a superuser, bypassing all the normal passwords, security > and authentication. > > (2) Data and file manipulation/corruption leading to either > poor system reliability or compromise of privacy > > Category (1) is far more serious, and seems to warrant some broad and (1) is NOT a vulnerability (as you've stated it). A "backdoor" is something purposely installed, and is doing what it intended to do. Vulnerabilities are things like race conditions, buffer overflows, etc. Please do your homework first, then write back. Security researchers have classified vulnerabilities into several categories. The results of the two seminal ones are: Protection Analysis -- R. Bisbey II and D. Hollingsworth, ISI/RR-78-13, DTIC AD A056816, USC/Information Sciences Institute (May, 1978) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. Improper protection (initialization and enforcement) 1a. improper choice of initial protection domain -- "incorrect initial assignment of security or integrity level at system initialization or generation; a security critical function manipulating critical data directly accessible to the user" 1b. improper isolation of implementation detail -- allowing users to bypass operating system controls and write to absolute input/output addresses; direct manipulation of a "hidden" data structure such as a directory file being written to as if it were a regular file; drawing inferences from paging activity 1c. improper change -- the "time-of-check to time-of-use" flaw (ie. race condition); changing a parameter unexpectedly 1d. improper naming -- allowing two different objects to have the same name, resulting in confusion over which is referenced (ie. symlink vulnerabilities) 1e. improper deallocation or deletion -- leaving old data in memory deallocated by one process and reallocated to another process, enabling the second process to access the information used by the first; failing to end a session properly 2. Improper validation -- not checking critical conditions and parameters, leading to a process' addressing memory no in its memory space by referencing thru an out-of-bounds pointer value; allowing type clashes; overflows (ie. the setlocale vulnerability) 3. Improper synchronization 3a. improper indivisibility -- interrupting atomic operations (e.g. locking); cache inconsistancey (ex. old v7 mkdir vulnerability, no mkdir(), so mknod() and chown() was used --> allowed you to own any file you wanted). 3b. improper sequencing -- allowing actions in an incorrect order (e.g. reading during writing) 4. Improper choice of operand or operation -- using unfair scheduling algorithms that block certain processes or users from running; using the wrong function or wrong arguments. RISOS -- R.P. Abbott, J.S. Chin, J.E. Donnelley, et al., "Security Analysis and Enhancements of Computer Operating Systems", NBSIR 76-1041, Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology, National Bureau of Standards (Apr. 1976) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. Incomplete parameter validation -- failing to check that a parameter used as an array index in the range of the array 2. Inconsistent parameter validation -- if a routine allowing shared access to files accepts blanks in a file name, but no other file manipulation routine (such as a routine to revoke shared accesses) will accept them. 3. Implicit share of privileged/confidential data -- sending information by modulating the load average of the system 4. Asynchronous validation/Inadequate serialization -- checking a file for access permission and opening it non-atomically, thereby allowing another process to change the binding of the name to the data between the check and the open 5. inadequate identification/authentication/authorization -- running a system program identified only by name, and having a different program with the same name executed 6. Violable prohibition/limit -- being able to manipulate data outside one's protection domain 7. Exploitable logic error -- preventing a program from opening a critical file, causing the program to execute an error routine that gives the user unauthorized rights. > What is amazing about stack overflow, and really surprised me, is that it > is a vulnerability that has been known at least since the Robert Morris > Jr. internet Worm attack, almost ten years ago. Very good -- we just *DONT* learn from history. Features sell OS's, not security. When was the last time you went to the store and asked for the most secure OS you could buy? Now when was the last time you went to the store and asked "which OS runs Doom?", and let that influence your buying decision? We live in a capitalistic buying market. > Yes, a code review is worthwhile, but the OS and basic system calls should > provide a layer of defense against stack overflow. It is astonishing > that this has not been done yet over the past 5 to 10 years. And it can, but such a system is not Unix, nor will Unix *ever* be such a system. And most don't want it to be such a system. Have *YOU* ever used a B classed machine (from the Orange Book). Did you *enjoy* your experience with it??? -- -- David (obrien@NUXI.com -or- obrien@FreeBSD.org) From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 12:34:06 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA12697 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 12:34:06 -0800 (PST) Received: from darkstar (ras617.srv.net [205.180.127.117]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA12688 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 12:33:53 -0800 (PST) Received: (from cmott@localhost) by darkstar (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA02628; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 13:28:54 -0700 Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 13:28:52 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar To: "David O'Brien" cc: Michael Smith , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-Reply-To: <19970217122022.XX15588@dragon.nuxi.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 17 Feb 1997, David O'Brien wrote: > Charles Mott writes: > > I see two major categories of security vulnerabilities: > > > > (1) A backdoor which trivially allows someone to become > > a superuser, bypassing all the normal passwords, security > > and authentication. > > > > (2) Data and file manipulation/corruption leading to either > > poor system reliability or compromise of privacy > > > > Category (1) is far more serious, and seems to warrant some broad and > > (1) is NOT a vulnerability (as you've stated it). A "backdoor" is > something purposely installed, and is doing what it intended to do. > Vulnerabilities are things like race conditions, buffer overflows, etc. > > Please do your homework first, then write back. This is the final post of a long back and forth exchange. I'm sorry my terminology is not up to your standards, but I think if you read the entire thread, you will see that my understanding is fairly clear. Do your homework before making an obnoxious statement. The fact that FreeBSD is so easily exploited by stack overflow techniques, when the method has been widely known for probably a decade is the real tragedy here. I have to laugh at people like you a little bit. I got the same garbage thrown in my face when I started the ppp packet aliasing project. From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 12:59:34 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA14229 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 12:59:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from relay.nuxi.com (nuxi.ucdavis.edu [128.120.37.176]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA14224 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 12:59:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from dragon.nuxi.com (reqd-003.ucdavis.edu [128.120.251.123]) by relay.nuxi.com (8.8.4/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA06816; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 12:59:34 -0800 (PST) Received: (from obrien@localhost) by dragon.nuxi.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) id UAA24359; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 20:59:29 GMT Message-ID: <19970217125928.YK32485@dragon.nuxi.com> Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 12:59:28 -0800 From: obrien@NUXI.com (David O'Brien) To: cmott@srv.net (Charles Mott) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au (Michael Smith), freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow References: <19970217122022.XX15588@dragon.nuxi.com> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.60_p2-3,5,8-9 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Disclaimer: Mutt Bites! Organization: The NUXI *BSD group X-PGP-Fingerprint: B7 4D 3E E9 11 39 5F A3 90 76 5D 69 58 D9 98 7A X-Pgp-Keyid: 34F9F9D5 In-Reply-To: ; from Charles Mott on Feb 17, 1997 13:28:52 -0700 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Charles Mott writes: > This is the final post of a long back and forth exchange. I'm sorry my > terminology is not up to your standards, but I think if you read the > entire thread, you will see that my understanding is fairly clear. Do > your homework before making an obnoxious statement. Aggg. The real vulnerability here is not checking array bounds. Playing with the postion of the stack is simply masking the problem, not fixing. If you really want to fix the problem, then lets change the language we use for development... or use the bounds checking enhanced GCC. Remember, C is a high-level assembly language, and by that nature means it allows unchecked references. > The fact that FreeBSD is so easily exploited by stack overflow > techniques, when the method has been widely known for probably a decade > is the real tragedy here. Not just FreeBSD, but *ALL* commerial Unixes. AND it is also a problem on other machines.. it just leads to a core dump/crash rather than gained access. The real tragedy here is we are still using C, on an OS that is used by some in a security concious environment. -- -- David (obrien@NUXI.com -or- obrien@FreeBSD.org) From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 13:12:16 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA15368 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 13:12:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from xmission.xmission.com (softweyr@xmission.xmission.com [198.60.22.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA15362 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 13:12:12 -0800 (PST) Received: (from softweyr@localhost) by xmission.xmission.com (8.8.5/8.7.5) id OAA15136; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 14:12:00 -0700 (MST) From: Softweyr LLC Message-Id: <199702172112.OAA15136@xmission.xmission.com> Subject: Re: A Parable To: cmott@srv.net (Charles Mott) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 14:11:59 -0700 (MST) Cc: chat@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: from "Charles Mott" at Feb 17, 97 11:05:36 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > A physicist is sleeping in his bedroom. He sees a fire burning in one > corner of the room and a bucket of water in another corner. He puts out > the fire and goes back to sleep. > > The mathemetician wakes up and says, "Ah, a solution!" He then goes > back to sleep without doing anything. > > The FreeBSD team wakes up and says, "Let's audit the entire house for > fires, termite damage, worn carpet, and scratches in the walls -- starting > first in the kitchen." They then go back to sleep. A group of FreeBSD users wake up and say "There seems to be a fire burning, let's ask -questions what to do about it." Moments later, Doug White replies "Calm down. Carefully shutdown your FreeBSD machines and move them to a safe location. Now go get a bucket of water and throw the water onto the fire." The house is demolished, but the FreeBSD machines are saved. Several FreeBSD -stable users wake up and say "A fire! This must have been caused by the incompetence of the core team. I demand that each of you leave whatever you are doing and come over here to put out *my* fire immediately! And, as homage to our user base, you must first burn Nate alive in the fire, while preventing any additional damage from the flames emanating from his body." The rest of the FreeBSD user base wonders what is going on, and why FreeBSD 2.2 (or 3.0-current, or whatever) doesn't cause fires. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 13:19:21 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA15807 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 13:19:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from darkstar (ras617.srv.net [205.180.127.117]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA15800 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 13:19:16 -0800 (PST) Received: (from cmott@localhost) by darkstar (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA02697; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 14:17:29 -0700 Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 14:17:28 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar To: Softweyr LLC cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: A Parable In-Reply-To: <199702172112.OAA15136@xmission.xmission.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Several FreeBSD -stable users wake up and say "A fire! This must have > been caused by the incompetence of the core team. I demand that each > of you leave whatever you are doing and come over here to put out *my* > fire immediately! And, as homage to our user base, you must first burn > Nate alive in the fire, while preventing any additional damage from the > flames emanating from his body." If you are talking about Nate Williams, he might appreciate a fire. It was *seriously* cold in Montana earlier this year. From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 14:10:53 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA19324 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 14:10:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA19301 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 14:10:43 -0800 (PST) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.2/8.7.3) id IAA14296; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 08:40:29 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199702172210.IAA14296@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: A Parable In-Reply-To: from Charles Mott at "Feb 17, 97 11:05:36 am" To: cmott@srv.net (Charles Mott) Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 08:40:27 +1030 (CST) Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Charles Mott stands accused of saying: > A physicist is sleeping in his bedroom. He sees a fire burning in one > corner of the room and a bucket of water in another corner. He puts out > the fire and goes back to sleep. > > The mathemetician wakes up and says, "Ah, a solution!" He then goes > back to sleep without doing anything. > > The FreeBSD team wakes up and says, "Let's audit the entire house for > fires, termite damage, worn carpet, and scratches in the walls -- starting > first in the kitchen." They then go back to sleep. The resident paranoid, lurking in the hall with a bad case of the munchies, decides that the combustion of the atmosphere within the house is imminent and tries to fill every cubic millimetre with a hydrocarbon-propelled filling material. (eg. Space Invader) -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[ From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 15:11:52 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA23056 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 15:11:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA23048 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 15:11:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id PAA27871; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 15:11:10 -0800 (PST) To: Charles Mott cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: A Parable In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 17 Feb 1997 11:05:36 MST." Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 15:11:10 -0800 Message-ID: <27867.856221070@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > The FreeBSD team wakes up and says, "Let's audit the entire house for > fires, termite damage, worn carpet, and scratches in the walls -- starting > first in the kitchen." They then go back to sleep. A cute parable, but unfortunately somewhat inaccurate since I can assure you that few people are getting lots of sleep these days. It actually goes somewhat more like this: The FreeBSD team wakes up and says, "Let's audit the entire house for fires, termite damage, worn carpet, and scratches in the walls -- starting first in the kitchen. Oh, but before that, we also should probably note that the godzilla/mothra war on the front lawn will undoubtedly destroy the entire house if we don't put a stop to it first. If a couple of you could get started on the refrigerator, the rest of us are going to go outside with some hoses and rakes to get those pesky critters off our lawn before one of them picks the other up and slam dunks him on this house, like they're always doing in the movies. We'll be back soon!" [they file out, rakes at port-arms, while the remaining volunteers open the regrigerator and peer cautiously inside it. "Hey! I saw something move in there! It's.. It's holding up a crude sign, written in mustard, which says ``free the freezer five!'' And it's got a knife! Aigh!! OK, so who wants to go in there first?" (nobody moves a muscle) ] From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 15:23:18 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA23748 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 15:23:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from rocky.mt.sri.com (rocky.mt.sri.com [206.127.76.100]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA23717 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 15:23:10 -0800 (PST) Received: (from nate@localhost) by rocky.mt.sri.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id QAA13839; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:22:34 -0700 (MST) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:22:34 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <199702172322.QAA13839@rocky.mt.sri.com> From: Nate Williams MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Softweyr LLC Cc: cmott@srv.net (Charles Mott), chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: A Parable In-Reply-To: <199702172112.OAA15136@xmission.xmission.com> References: <199702172112.OAA15136@xmission.xmission.com> Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Several FreeBSD -stable users wake up and say "A fire! This must have > been caused by the incompetence of the core team. I demand that each > of you leave whatever you are doing and come over here to put out *my* > fire immediately! And, as homage to our user base, you must first > burn Nate alive in the fire, while preventing any additional damage > from the flames emanating from his body." Umm, why burn me alive? Am I missing out on some inside joke where I need to be burned alive? Nate From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 16:10:22 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA26617 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:10:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.31]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA26603 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:10:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu by albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id TAA05563; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 19:12:02 -0500 Received: by kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/4.0) id ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 19:09:54 -0500 Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 19:09:54 -0500 Message-Id: <199702180009.TAA06361@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: cmott@srv.net CC: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-reply-to: (message from Charles Mott on Sat, 15 Feb 1997 16:35:14 -0700 (MST)) Subject: Re: Public Relations From: Joel Ray Holveck Reply-to: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >Someday I will learn how to use emacs. I use still use vi, which I >learned in the late 70s at Berkeley, forgot completely over 15 years, and >then relearned with with Linux and FreeBSD. Before I had easy access to a Real Computer with paging, et al. the best editor I had for my college apps was teco. Not one of the visual ones like MIT and DEC had, I mean the line-oriented teletype-friendly one. And it was good. Say, does anybody have a *complete* teco command set? I've yet to find a complete implementation on the net. -- http://www.wp.com/piquan --- Joel Ray Holveck --- joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu All my opinions are my own, not the FSF's, my employer's, or my dog's. Second law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi sendmail: segmentation violation -- core dumped From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 16:12:12 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA26793 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:12:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA26787 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:12:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id QAA28131; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:08:37 -0800 (PST) To: Charles Mott cc: "David O'Brien" , Michael Smith , freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 17 Feb 1997 13:28:52 MST." Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:08:37 -0800 Message-ID: <28127.856224517@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > This is the final post of a long back and forth exchange. I'm sorry my > terminology is not up to your standards, but I think if you read the > entire thread, you will see that my understanding is fairly clear. Do > your homework before making an obnoxious statement. > > The fact that FreeBSD is so easily exploited by stack overflow > techniques, when the method has been widely known for probably a decade > is the real tragedy here. Boys, boys, please calm down! :-) To put the matter even more in perspective, RTFM (Robert T Fuckin' Morris) did not invent the exploits used in his worm, they came from security advisory information he became privy to through his *father's* involvement as head of ARPAnet security, or whatever the exact title of Bob Morris's position was. I don't think that the father was actually tossing this kind of stuff down in front of his son directly, but sone somehow got ahold of it and the rest is history. My point? These sorts of problems have been around since the 70's, when Bob Morris was collecting his security advisories. They've probably popped up in TOPS, ITS, Twenex, VMS and every OS in-between, and I daresay that many are probably *still there*. This is a problem as old as programming, and to castigate the FreeBSD team specifically for it is just silly. Sure, everyone knows about the famous fingerd hole and the problem of stack overflow in general - why do you think gets() started spewing out that obnoxious warning a long time back? Knowing about a problem, like stack overflow or goto abuse or improper indentation or any of a thousand different programmer evils does NOT somehow automatically prevent such problems from reoccuring in the future, and I don't care who the programmer is or what the operating system under discussion might be - as long as humans are doing the programming, all are vulnerable to a repetition of history. Jordan From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 16:59:14 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA00185 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:59:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from darkstar (dialin1.anlw.anl.gov [141.221.252.101]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA00174 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:59:11 -0800 (PST) Received: (from cmott@localhost) by darkstar (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA02975; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 17:57:47 -0700 Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 17:57:46 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-Reply-To: <28127.856224517@time.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 17 Feb 1997, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: [snip] > This is a problem as old as programming, and to castigate the FreeBSD > team specifically for it is just silly. Sure, everyone knows about > the famous fingerd hole and the problem of stack overflow in general - > why do you think gets() started spewing out that obnoxious warning a > long time back? Knowing about a problem, like stack overflow or goto > abuse or improper indentation or any of a thousand different > programmer evils does NOT somehow automatically prevent such problems > from reoccuring in the future, and I don't care who the programmer is > or what the operating system under discussion might be - as long as > humans are doing the programming, all are vulnerable to a repetition > of history. > > Jordan Thanks for the history. I shouldn't have castigated FreeBSD as if this were the only unix variant vulnerable, but since the all of the source code is available, this increases the need for defensive countermeasures. I think most people, when the stack overflow problem is first explained to them, are quite astounded. I am no exception here. To summarize my view (which not everyone wants to hear), I think there are two possible defenses which should be considered: (1) Randomly adjusting the initial value of the stack pointer when a new process (not fork) is created. The adjustment range might be between 0xr4fffffff and 0xffffffff. (2) A smart version of strcpy() which would try to guess whether it is working on stack variable and try not to overrun the frame pointer. It has been objected that the frame pointer is not guaranteed, but I still think this concept, or a variant, bears some looking at. Arguments against (1) are basically that it is not perfect, that there are still viable attacks. Arguments against (2) [if it is actually feasible -- I though I had seen a post from someone who had done something similar] are that it adds instruction cycles and possibly makes the software less reliable. My instincts tell me these arguments are not strong. I don't actually care too much about naysayers (and those who make unkind comments in private e-mail). I'm not asking anyone to do any work -- I like doing my own programming. I am just trying understand more about the problem. Charles Mott P.S. I think that Jordan is getting angry less often now that the position of President has been eliminated. He is losing the habits of a General Secretary. From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 17:32:09 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA02055 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 17:32:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from relay.nuxi.com (nuxi.ucdavis.edu [128.120.37.176]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA02050 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 17:32:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from dragon.nuxi.com (reqd-004.ucdavis.edu [128.120.251.124]) by relay.nuxi.com (8.8.4/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA07532; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 17:32:18 -0800 (PST) Received: (from obrien@localhost) by dragon.nuxi.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) id BAA25362; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 01:32:09 GMT Message-ID: <19970217173207.DF31352@dragon.nuxi.com> Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 17:32:07 -0800 From: obrien@NUXI.com (David O'Brien) To: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Teco (was Public Relations) References: <199702180009.TAA06361@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.60_p2-3,5,8-9 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Disclaimer: Mutt Bites! Organization: The NUXI *BSD group X-PGP-Fingerprint: B7 4D 3E E9 11 39 5F A3 90 76 5D 69 58 D9 98 7A X-Pgp-Keyid: 34F9F9D5 In-Reply-To: <199702180009.TAA06361@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu>; from Joel Ray Holveck on Feb 17, 1997 19:09:54 -0500 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Joel Ray Holveck writes: > > Say, does anybody have a *complete* teco command set? I've yet to > find a complete implementation on the net. Have you looked at the Teco archive at: ftp://usc.edu/pub/teco/ -- -- David (obrien@NUXI.com -or- obrien@FreeBSD.org) From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 17:46:03 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA02988 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 17:46:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from dyson.iquest.net (dyson.iquest.net [198.70.144.127]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA02974 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 17:45:51 -0800 (PST) Received: (from root@localhost) by dyson.iquest.net (8.8.4/8.6.9) id UAA02589; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 20:44:57 -0500 (EST) From: "John S. Dyson" Message-Id: <199702180144.UAA02589@dyson.iquest.net> Subject: Re: Public Relations To: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 20:44:57 -0500 (EST) Cc: cmott@srv.net, joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <199702180009.TAA06361@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> from "Joel Ray Holveck" at Feb 17, 97 07:09:54 pm Reply-To: dyson@freebsd.org X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME8] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > Say, does anybody have a *complete* teco command set? I've yet to > find a complete implementation on the net. > ftp://usc.edu/pub/teco is very much your friend :-). Teco is still my favorite editor, and there is even one with screen mode editing. I am tired of learning editors now, and have committed to learning one vi command per year. Sure hate to invest so much into an editor, and find it to be deprecated :-(. John From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 18:04:30 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA03847 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 18:04:30 -0800 (PST) Received: from darkstar (dialin1.anlw.anl.gov [141.221.252.101]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA03842 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 18:04:25 -0800 (PST) Received: (from cmott@localhost) by darkstar (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA03230; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 19:03:50 -0700 Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 19:03:49 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: GPL Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk I have seen a number of back handed comments towards the GNU public license. For individualistic (not particularly rational) reasons, I prefer not to attach the GPL to any piece of free software I write. What is the complaint that others have with GPL? That being said, I still have the highest respect for Stallman and the Free Software Foundation. FreeBSD could not exist were it not for gcc. I haven't checked, but I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't quite a bit of other GNU software on the FreeBSD cdrom. Charles Mott From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 19:41:59 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA10536 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 19:41:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from root.com (implode.root.com [198.145.90.17]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA10529 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 19:41:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by root.com (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id TAA03412; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 19:43:09 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199702180343.TAA03412@root.com> X-Authentication-Warning: implode.root.com: localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: Charles Mott cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" , freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 17 Feb 1997 17:57:46 MST." From: David Greenman Reply-To: dg@root.com Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 19:43:09 -0800 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >To summarize my view (which not everyone wants to hear), I think there are >two possible defenses which should be considered: > > (1) Randomly adjusting the initial value of the stack pointer when > a new process (not fork) is created. The adjustment range might > be between 0xr4fffffff and 0xffffffff. > > (2) A smart version of strcpy() which would try to guess whether it > is working on stack variable and try not to overrun the frame > pointer. It has been objected that the frame pointer is not > guaranteed, but I still think this concept, or a variant, bears > some looking at. > >Arguments against (1) are basically that it is not perfect, that there are >still viable attacks. Arguments against (2) [if it is actually feasible >-- I though I had seen a post from someone who had done something similar] >are that it adds instruction cycles and possibly makes the software less >reliable. My instincts tell me these arguments are not strong. > >I don't actually care too much about naysayers (and those who make unkind >comments in private e-mail). I'm not asking anyone to do any work -- I >like doing my own programming. I am just trying understand more about the >problem. I really don't see how any of this is going to affect the problem. You can use relative addressing/position independant code to get around any differences in stack addresses. The idea of putting guard pages* in the stack doesn't buy much, either, since one can still seriously affect the operation of a program by being able to change only local variables (pointers, loop variables, etc, etc). It makes the exploit somewhat more complex, but certainly not outside the ability of the people doing these attacks. As for frame pointer checks, adding something like that would simply break applications that expect to be able to access the stack variables of the caller (&local_variable to a sub function). In any case, I think people will be lulled into a false sense of security with such "fixes" for the stack overflow exploits. The only fixes that actually _work_ are the ones we are doing (e.g. using limited copy functions like strncpy and strncat, etc.). *) It's actually impossible to have sparse unmapped stack pages in the current architecture of the kernel. One of the many reasons is that there is no API for doing such creative things with the stack...and adding one would not only make applications *extremely* slow for doing procedure calls, but it would also dramtically increase the complexity of dynamic stack growth management in the kernel. -DG David Greenman Core-team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 19:52:28 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA11187 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 19:52:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from dyson.iquest.net (dyson.iquest.net [198.70.144.127]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA11148 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 19:52:14 -0800 (PST) Received: (from root@localhost) by dyson.iquest.net (8.8.4/8.6.9) id WAA03008; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 22:52:00 -0500 (EST) From: "John S. Dyson" Message-Id: <199702180352.WAA03008@dyson.iquest.net> Subject: Re: GPL To: cmott@srv.net (Charles Mott) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 22:52:00 -0500 (EST) Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: from "Charles Mott" at Feb 17, 97 07:03:49 pm Reply-To: dyson@freebsd.org X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME8] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > I have seen a number of back handed comments towards the GNU public > license. For individualistic (not particularly rational) reasons, I > prefer not to attach the GPL to any piece of free software I write. What > is the complaint that others have with GPL? > (Note that I am not a lawyer, and I have tried NOT to flame in this message, and is probably not the entirety of my opinion, but is generally my position on GPL -- it is NOT the opinion of anybody or group, but my own.) I have a couple of complaints about GPL, that basically if people didn't question the terms, then it would have become the default "free license." (Some people might say that indeed it IS the default free license.) The first (and simplest) complaint is the use of the word freedom in it's preamble (haven't looked at it in a long time, so I might be missing a bit.) It first innocuously looks like a "good" default free license. Well, it is a good license, but it's use has severe consequences. Sometimes my tirades are to remind new people coming online that they should read the license terms carefully AND also look at the ramifications of the license. The second (and more substantial) complaint, is that derived works using GPLed code end up being encumbered by the terms of the GPL. This kind of makes GPL self replicating. The negative ramifications of that don't come apparent until one of my other complaints about the license. This self-replicating nature hasn't been tested in court (AFAIK), but the risk is there. Frankly, even if it isn't illegal, I still believe that one should follow the wishes of the original software developer who placed their code under GPL. Note: Imagine a situation where all of the BSD networking code was released under GPL instead of the BSD license. That networking code would infect the rest of the software with GPL, and perhaps make the code relatively useless due to the encumberances with GPL. The third (and yet more substantial) complaint, is that the original author who releases code to the world under GPL, is also bound by the GPL that is applied to the modifications of his original source code. In essense, if the GPL is inappropriate for a given application, there is a large number of authors that need to be negotiated with to release the code from GPL and allow distribution under terms other than GPL. The fourth (and the basis for the above points being of concern) complaint, is that if you distribute binaries of a program under GPL, then you are obligated to make sure that the receiver of your distribution is able to get the source code of the program. If you haven't made any modifications to that GPLed code, you will likely be able to point them in the direction of an FTP site. However, if you have put many hard hours into improving and enhancing the GPLed code, your modifications most likely come under GPL. With that, you will be divulging ideas that were potentially time consuming (expensive) to create. You will then be compelled to give that hard fought work to the person that you gave the binary to. The cost of using (binding and redistribution) of even portions GPLed code with your own is that your code will likely be likewise encumbered. In many cases, that cost is indeed high, and might not be considered when incorporating GPLed code into a product until it is too late. The fifth (and probably not very important point) is that it is commonly misunderstood that the person who has distributed a GPLed program has to give it to anyone who asks. They don't have to. They only have to give source code away to those that have negotiated access to the binaries. That access to the binaries is often limited to those who have paid $$$ for the necessary "support" that will allow them to "properly" use the software. Of course, for various reasons, it is not likely in the interest of the receiver of the GPLed code to "give away" that code to other parties. One reason for a receiver of GPLed code to give away the code might be to do so in order to get support from the new party. My complaint here is primarily to show that the GPL doesn't provide a guaranteed redistribution of source code. Of course, many other license terms don't either, but this point was made just to show that there are ways around the intent of GPL. Summing it all up, the above describe a set of "controls" and "limitations" that seem to be quite contrary with the notion of freedom. The key in the use of GPL (or any other license or contract) is to read and understand it's ramifications. Frankly, many people who take license terms seriously (and also have strong ethical feelings) might not think that GPL is an appropriate license to encumber their software with. (That statement can also be true regarding the "Artistic License" or the "BSD license or its variants".) > > That being said, I still have the highest respect for Stallman and the > Free Software Foundation. FreeBSD could not exist were it not for gcc. > I haven't checked, but I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't quite a bit > of other GNU software on the FreeBSD cdrom. > There is a lot of wonderful software under the GPL, however, there is alot of wonderful software under BSD and or more restrictive license terms than GPL also. IMO, the quality of software is pretty much orthogonal to the terms of software use and redistribution. Caveat License-chooser!!! :-). John From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 20:11:41 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA12521 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 20:11:41 -0800 (PST) Received: from darkstar (ras517.srv.net [205.180.127.17]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA12498 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 20:11:32 -0800 (PST) Received: (from cmott@localhost) by darkstar (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA03599; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:10:18 -0700 Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:10:17 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar To: David Greenman cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" , freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-Reply-To: <199702180343.TAA03412@root.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > I really don't see how any of this is going to affect the problem. You > can use relative addressing/position independant code to get around any > differences in stack addresses. The whole point of the stack overflow attack, as it has been explained to me, is that the return address has to be modified to point to the overflow region of the stack (with maybe a kilobyte or two of slack). This requires an approximate knowledge of where, in absolute address space, the stack overflow region is. I am mainly interested in this vulnerability since it seems to allow an outsider to waltz into your machine and gain root privilege immediately. It seems to be much more serious than the other security problems. If there is an uncertainty of a few hundred megabytes of where the top of the stack is, then this would make compromise much more difficult, especially for a network based (rather than shell based) attack. I agree that going to strncpy's is a good idea, I am just personally curious about adding an extra layer of security. This is just sound strategy in my view. I will work on this offline, since I think I have received as much information as I can from this venue. I'm sort of tired of arguing with everybody on this. No more responses, please. I will just understand things on my own. Charles Mott From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 20:46:18 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA16125 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 20:46:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from darkstar (ras517.srv.net [205.180.127.17]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA16105; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 20:46:01 -0800 (PST) Received: (from cmott@localhost) by darkstar (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA03635; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:45:26 -0700 Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:45:22 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar To: dyson@freebsd.org cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL In-Reply-To: <199702180352.WAA03008@dyson.iquest.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Summing it all up, the above describe a set of "controls" and "limitations" > that seem to be quite contrary with the notion of freedom. The key in the > use of GPL (or any other license or contract) is to read and understand it's > ramifications. Frankly, many people who take license terms seriously (and > also have strong ethical feelings) might not think that GPL is an appropriate > license to encumber their software with. (That statement can also be true > regarding the "Artistic License" or the "BSD license or its variants".) I agree with your comments. The self-replicating nature and potential legal complexity bothered me. The GPL is somehow a faint attempt to remake the world in a GNU image. As near as I can tell, the BSD copyright is only self replicating with respect to the notice, but people can do what they wish with the software. I am actually a little puzzled as to the original motivation for the BSD copyright. The Regents of the University of California had no profit motives, nor did they want to impose the concept of free software on others. Charles Mott From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 21:09:48 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA17711 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:09:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from obie.softweyr.ml.org ([199.104.124.49]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA17705 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:09:44 -0800 (PST) Received: (from wes@localhost) by obie.softweyr.ml.org (8.7.5/8.6.12) id WAA17000; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 22:17:13 -0700 (MST) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 22:17:13 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <199702180517.WAA17000@obie.softweyr.ml.org> From: Wes Peters To: Charles Mott CC: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL In-Reply-To: References: Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Charles Mott writes: > I have seen a number of back handed comments towards the GNU public > license. For individualistic (not particularly rational) reasons, I > prefer not to attach the GPL to any piece of free software I write. What > is the complaint that others have with GPL? The major complaint is that it restricts the use of the software extensively. You cannot, for instance, distribute binary-only copies of GPL'ed software. Nor can you sell derivative works of GPL'ed software. The Berkeley licensing is so much less restrictive; if BSD had been GPL'ed, SunOS would never have existed and UNIX would probably have slid quietly by the wayside along with other good operating systems. > That being said, I still have the highest respect for Stallman and the > Free Software Foundation. Ditto. > FreeBSD could not exist were it not for gcc. I'm not so sure about that. GCC is certainly the best freely available C compiler, but it isn't the only one, and probably isn't the only good one. Minix existed for quite some time without GCC, because the creators of the Amsterdam Compiler Kit had the foresight of allowing royalty free binary-only distributions. Quite the opposite of the GPL, actually. ;^) FreeBSD (& NetBSD & OpenBSD & BSDI & Linux) may have grown without GCC, but probably would have required more work on the compiler, which would have ultimately distracted work on the kernel and utilities. > I haven't checked, but I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't quite a bit > of other GNU software on the FreeBSD cdrom. Some, but FreeBSD people make every effort to not put GPL'ed code into the kernel and/or the essential kernel utilities. It is generally possible to have a running FreeBSD system that does not rely on GPL'ed code unless you need to rebuild the system; then you have to use the compiler. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 21:14:22 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA17990 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:14:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA17984 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:14:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id VAA29516; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:14:03 -0800 (PST) To: Charles Mott cc: David Greenman , freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:10:17 MST." Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:14:03 -0800 Message-ID: <29512.856242843@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > I am mainly interested in this vulnerability since it seems to allow an > outsider to waltz into your machine and gain root privilege immediately. > It seems to be much more serious than the other security problems. Actually, it is no more powerful than any other security hole and I would hardly say that it's tantamount to allowing outsiders to waltz in as root - a whole cascade of errors, of which insufficient bounds checking is only one part, is required before that can happen. I'm sorry that you're tired of discussing this, but you did sort of put your foot in it by jumping in with a lot of proposals for "fixing" the problem before you fully understood the principles and ramifications of it yourself, having only become recently acquainted with the problem at all (by your own admission). Because you were so shocked at the significance of this "new" knowledge, you naturally also wanted to do something about it right away and that's commendable. Just simply be aware that this is a not a new problem and that if there were easy fixes for it, they'd be widely adopted by now. It's just not that easy though, and a panacea is not likely to emerge from this discussion. As regards the stack checking, I have to agree with David. It'd be like having a rent-a-cop on duty at your apartment complex. He might catch some truly blatant burglers, and maybe he also keeps the vandals from spray-painting your car occasionally, but if some truly motivated burgler really wants to get into your house then that rent-a-cop might as well not even be there, and the ONLY thing which is going to save you is your own security. The locks on your door, the bars on your window and having intelligence enough not to leave the key under the matt. Doing proper strncpy()s and such all fall under the category of "proper precautions" and we should simply make sure that all past and future code takes them, just as we'd expect it to verify its arguments and not core dump just because the user passed in a bogus flag. And now I'd be more than happy to join you in a vow of silence on this topic. Jordan From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 21:32:18 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA20009 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:32:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from dyson.iquest.net (dyson.iquest.net [198.70.144.127]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA19961; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:32:05 -0800 (PST) Received: (from root@localhost) by dyson.iquest.net (8.8.4/8.6.9) id AAA03195; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 00:31:58 -0500 (EST) From: "John S. Dyson" Message-Id: <199702180531.AAA03195@dyson.iquest.net> Subject: Re: GPL To: cmott@srv.net (Charles Mott) Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 00:31:58 -0500 (EST) Cc: dyson@freebsd.org, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: from "Charles Mott" at Feb 17, 97 09:45:22 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME8] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > As near as I can tell, the BSD copyright is only self replicating with > respect to the notice, but people can do what they wish with the software. > I am actually a little puzzled as to the original motivation for the BSD > copyright. The Regents of the University of California had no profit > motives, nor did they want to impose the concept of free software on > others. > It *might* have been done that way due to alot of the work being gov't funded???? Question: Anyone out there know for real? John From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 21:38:15 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA22450 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:38:15 -0800 (PST) Received: from lightside.com (hamby1.lightside.net [207.67.176.17]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA22368; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:38:02 -0800 (PST) Received: by lightside.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id VAA00777; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:38:42 -0800 Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:38:42 -0800 From: jehamby@lightside.com (Jake Hamby) Message-Id: <199702180538.VAA00777@lightside.com> To: dyson@freebsd.org, cmott@srv.net Subject: Re: GPL Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-MD5: w5Ga58aDHOGhqG6L6DW7mA== Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Charles Mott writes: > I agree with your comments. The self-replicating nature and potential > legal complexity bothered me. The GPL is somehow a faint attempt to > remake the world in a GNU image. > > As near as I can tell, the BSD copyright is only self replicating with > respect to the notice, but people can do what they wish with the software. > I am actually a little puzzled as to the original motivation for the BSD > copyright. The Regents of the University of California had no profit > motives, nor did they want to impose the concept of free software on > others. I agree with the previous comments on the GPL. One additional thing to remember: Stallman wrote the GPL to go with the GNU project, whose original goal was to create a completely free UNIX-compatible OS and tools. They have made remarkable progress, starting with Emacs and GCC, and moving on to all of the shell commands you see in Linux today. If HURD is completed, then you will truly be able to work in an environment using GNU, and only GNU tools. In such a context, the self-replicating nature isn't an issue, because everything you're using is already GNU ... *unless* you plan to use this system in a commercial environment, or develop non-free software with it. RMS refuses to use ANY non-free program if he has the choice, including Netscape and the others that are "free" but not "Free" software (don't have source code). But also remember that RMS has said repeatedly that he believes ALL software should be free, and refuses to be convinced that in some scenarios this is not economically viable. He believes that somehow programmers will be able to make money from supporting software because grateful users will be willing to pay for support, even though they are under no obligation to. This is actually true for some companies, like Cygnus, which provide paid support for GNU development tools, but these are isolated cases compared to the software industry as a whole. What about embedded systems, like the software controlling your car? Why should Ford give away their proprietary engine-control software so Honda, GM, and others could use it in their cars (of course they'd have to give you the source code ;) ? Software developed on corporate time, or under contract, is just like any other resource, and you don't let your competitors into your office to look through your filing cabinets, so why should they get your in-house software under GPL? It just doesn't make sense, yet this is EXACTLY what RMS proposes in his GNU manifesto. Even military software should be free, he argues! Just lovely... As for the motivation behind the BSD license, it's quite simple, and not tied up with anyone's idealistic, unrealistic, anti-commercial philosophy (sorry for the harsh words, but really, ALL software should be free? :). Berkeley is a university, therefore they really CAN'T make money. I work at JPL, which is managed by Caltech, and it's the exact same situation. Having said that, they don't want to release the code into the public domain, because then they don't get credit for the wonderful work they've done, and they don't want to be responsible if somebody else takes the code and puts his own name on it. On the other hand, they don't want to be liable if somebody uses the code and loses all their data. So the BSD license is basically the simplest possible legally binding license which gives Berkeley the recognition they deserve, dissolves them from any legal liability, and allows free usage of the software for any purpose as long as the license is preserved. Simple, eh? -- Jake From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 23:43:17 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA01479 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 23:43:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from relay.nuxi.com (nuxi.ucdavis.edu [128.120.37.176]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA01467 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 23:43:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from dragon.nuxi.com (reqd-047.ucdavis.edu [128.120.251.167]) by relay.nuxi.com (8.8.4/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA08601; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 23:43:32 -0800 (PST) Received: (from obrien@localhost) by dragon.nuxi.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) id HAA16932; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 07:43:06 GMT Message-ID: <19970217234305.NF08438@dragon.nuxi.com> Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 23:43:05 -0800 From: obrien@NUXI.com (David O'Brien) To: cmott@srv.net (Charles Mott) Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow References: <199702180343.TAA03412@root.com> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.60_p2-3,5,8-9 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Disclaimer: Mutt Bites! Organization: The NUXI *BSD group X-PGP-Fingerprint: B7 4D 3E E9 11 39 5F A3 90 76 5D 69 58 D9 98 7A X-Pgp-Keyid: 34F9F9D5 In-Reply-To: ; from Charles Mott on Feb 17, 1997 21:10:17 -0700 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Charles Mott writes: > The whole point of the stack overflow attack, as it has been explained to ... > I am mainly interested in this vulnerability since it seems to allow an > outsider to waltz into your machine and gain root privilege immediately. > It seems to be much more serious than the other security problems. Not so. It is just the vulnerability of the quarter (I'm a grad student). Over the summer, I was seeing tons of symlink vulnerabilities. My favorate "get root" exploit is the /bin/mail race on SunOS and Ultrix. Works beautifully. My favorate sendmail bug, was when the "debug" array indexes weren't checked and you could write outside the "debug" array to replace "/etc/sendmail.cf" with "/tmp/sendmail.cf". Thus running your own sendmail.cf file in trusted mode (ie. didn't drop permissions like it usually does if you provide it with a non-default sendmail.cf file). So what I'm trying to say, is stack overflow attacks are not the most serious. They are all equally serious. And many other vulnerabilities are easier to expliot than the stack overflow vulnerability. > I agree that going to strncpy's is a good idea, I am just personally > curious about adding an extra layer of security. ^^^^^^^^ obscurity -- -- David (obrien@NUXI.com -or- obrien@FreeBSD.org) From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 17 23:51:48 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA03070 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 23:51:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from relay.nuxi.com (nuxi.ucdavis.edu [128.120.37.176]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA03037 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 23:51:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from dragon.nuxi.com (reqd-047.ucdavis.edu [128.120.251.167]) by relay.nuxi.com (8.8.4/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA08613 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 23:52:01 -0800 (PST) Received: (from obrien@localhost) by dragon.nuxi.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) id HAA16946; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 07:51:36 GMT Message-ID: <19970217235135.LP40831@dragon.nuxi.com> Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 23:51:35 -0800 From: obrien@NUXI.com (David O'Brien) To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL References: <199702180517.WAA17000@obie.softweyr.ml.org> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.60_p2-3,5,8-9 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Disclaimer: Mutt Bites! Organization: The NUXI *BSD group X-PGP-Fingerprint: B7 4D 3E E9 11 39 5F A3 90 76 5D 69 58 D9 98 7A X-Pgp-Keyid: 34F9F9D5 In-Reply-To: <199702180517.WAA17000@obie.softweyr.ml.org>; from Wes Peters on Feb 17, 1997 22:17:13 -0700 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > The major complaint is that it restricts the use of the software > extensively. You cannot, for instance, distribute binary-only copies of > GPL'ed software. Nor can you sell derivative works of GPL'ed software. Here is a [real life] question for you. Say someone has written fooquix and from version 0.01 to 0.49 it was GPL'ed. Then they decided they wanted to make some $$$ from it. So the next release (say 0.50) was binary only. Now obiviously 0.50 is derived work based on the GPL'ed code of 0.49. Is this allowable, or once software is under GLP it stays there? -- -- David (obrien@NUXI.com -or- obrien@FreeBSD.org) From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 00:51:04 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id AAA12948 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 00:51:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from sax.sax.de (sax.sax.de [193.175.26.33]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA12921 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 00:51:00 -0800 (PST) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by sax.sax.de (8.6.12/8.6.12-s1) with UUCP id JAA02988 for chat@freebsd.org; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 09:50:58 +0100 Received: (from j@localhost) by uriah.heep.sax.de (8.8.5/8.6.9) id JAA16624; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 09:50:33 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 09:50:33 +0100 From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch) To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL References: <199702180517.WAA17000@obie.softweyr.ml.org> <19970217235135.LP40831@dragon.nuxi.com> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.55-PL10 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Phone: +49-351-2012 669 X-PGP-Fingerprint: DC 47 E6 E4 FF A6 E9 8F 93 21 E0 7D F9 12 D6 4E Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) In-Reply-To: <19970217235135.LP40831@dragon.nuxi.com>; from David O'Brien on Feb 17, 1997 23:51:35 -0800 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk As David O'Brien wrote: > Say someone has written fooquix and from version 0.01 to 0.49 it was > GPL'ed. Then they decided they wanted to make some $$$ from it. So the > next release (say 0.50) was binary only. Now obiviously 0.50 is derived > work based on the GPL'ed code of 0.49. > > Is this allowable, or once software is under GLP it stays there? It's allowable as far as the original work is concerned (since the author is free to distribute it under another copyright). It gets problematic for everything that other contributed under the terms of GPL from version 0.01 through 0.49. Either they all agree in the new copyright, or you've got a problem. :) -- cheers, J"org joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-) From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 01:15:33 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA17667 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 01:15:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from carlton.innotts.co.uk (root@carlton.innotts.co.uk [194.176.128.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id BAA17646 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 01:15:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from [194.176.130.48] (serialA2f.innotts.co.uk [194.176.130.48]) by carlton.innotts.co.uk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA11504; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 09:15:04 GMT X-Sender: robmel@mailhost.innotts.co.uk Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <29512.856242843@time.cdrom.com> References: Your message of "Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:10:17 MST." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 08:59:27 +0000 To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" , Charles Mott From: Robin Melville Subject: Re: Countering stack overflow Cc: David Greenman , freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk At 9:14 pm -0800 17/2/97, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: >...As regards the stack checking, I have to agree with David. It'd be >like having a rent-a-cop on duty at your apartment complex. He might >catch some truly blatant burglers, and maybe he also keeps the vandals >from spray-painting your car occasionally, but if some truly motivated >burgler really wants to get into your house then that rent-a-cop might >as well not even be there... I like this analogy. For all the spilt ink on the Unix (lack) of security it needs to be remembered that even banks get broken into. Although it's important to take reasonable measures to secure the premises, the real problem is not the lack of the newest electronic locks but the determination of the burglars. Much though it grieves me to say it, those extra-bright people who make it their business to break in and do damage to other people's equipment and data (viz the recent attack on the FreeBSD repository) need to be tracked down and dealt with by the law in the same way as burglars are. If the "blame" for unauthorised access rests on the victim, then we might as well all turn our homes into fortresses, wear suits of armour to go shopping, drive tanks, and give up using networked computers. While I can see that hackers gain intellectual satisfaction from their exploits, and maybe dweeb-macho acclamation from their peers, the majority of us use computers to do socially required work. Unix is an elegant, robust solution to a whole set of problems, and its longness in the tooth actually enhances that since generations of programmers have combed through it teasing out the bugs and enhancing it. We could throw it away in favour of something that would be hack-proof for a few weeks or months until new exploits were found, but it would be a long time before the new solutions would run a busy network machine for 100 days without crashing. Regards Robin. From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 01:34:37 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA21012 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 01:34:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from narcissus.ml.org (root@brosenga.Pitzer.edu [134.173.120.201]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA21003 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 01:34:32 -0800 (PST) Received: (from ben@localhost) by narcissus.ml.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id BAA01802; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 01:34:29 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 01:34:29 -0800 (PST) From: Snob Art Genre To: "David O'Brien" cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL In-Reply-To: <19970217235135.LP40831@dragon.nuxi.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 17 Feb 1997, David O'Brien wrote: > > The major complaint is that it restricts the use of the software > > extensively. You cannot, for instance, distribute binary-only copies of > > GPL'ed software. Nor can you sell derivative works of GPL'ed software. > > Here is a [real life] question for you. > Say someone has written fooquix and from version 0.01 to 0.49 it was > GPL'ed. Then they decided they wanted to make some $$$ from it. So the > next release (say 0.50) was binary only. Now obiviously 0.50 is derived > work based on the GPL'ed code of 0.49. > > Is this allowable, or once software is under GLP it stays there? It's allowable, because you, as the author of the GPL'd code, have the right to release yourself from the GPL, I believe. > -- > -- David (obrien@NUXI.com -or- obrien@FreeBSD.org) > Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems." From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 01:56:16 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA22971 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 01:56:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from root.com (implode.root.com [198.145.90.17]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA22964 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 01:56:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by root.com (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id BAA05064; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 01:57:19 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199702180957.BAA05064@root.com> X-Authentication-Warning: implode.root.com: localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: Snob Art Genre cc: "David O'Brien" , chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 18 Feb 1997 01:34:29 PST." From: David Greenman Reply-To: dg@root.com Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 01:57:19 -0800 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >> Say someone has written fooquix and from version 0.01 to 0.49 it was >> GPL'ed. Then they decided they wanted to make some $$$ from it. So the >> next release (say 0.50) was binary only. Now obiviously 0.50 is derived >> work based on the GPL'ed code of 0.49. >> >> Is this allowable, or once software is under GLP it stays there? > >It's allowable, because you, as the author of the GPL'd code, have the >right to release yourself from the GPL, I believe. Suppose that 20 other people contributed patches to it during the time it was under GPL? ...you'd have to get written permission from all of those people before you could put a different copyright on it. -DG David Greenman Core-team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 02:07:48 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id CAA23686 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 02:07:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from relay.nuxi.com (nuxi.ucdavis.edu [128.120.37.176]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA23681 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 02:07:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from dragon.nuxi.com ([207.211.82.14]) by relay.nuxi.com (8.8.4/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA09244 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 02:07:35 -0800 (PST) Received: (from obrien@localhost) by dragon.nuxi.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) id KAA17680; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 10:07:32 GMT Message-ID: <19970218020731.GM57190@dragon.nuxi.com> Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 02:07:31 -0800 From: obrien@NUXI.com (David O'Brien) To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL References: <199702180517.WAA17000@obie.softweyr.ml.org> <19970217235135.LP40831@dragon.nuxi.com> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.60_p2-3,5,8-9 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Disclaimer: Mutt Bites! Organization: The NUXI *BSD group X-PGP-Fingerprint: B7 4D 3E E9 11 39 5F A3 90 76 5D 69 58 D9 98 7A X-Pgp-Keyid: 34F9F9D5 In-Reply-To: ; from J Wunsch on Feb 18, 1997 09:50:33 +0100 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk J Wunsch writes: > As David O'Brien wrote: > > Say someone has written fooquix and from version 0.01 to 0.49 it was > > GPL'ed. Then they decided they wanted to make some $$$ from it. So the > > next release (say 0.50) was binary only. Now obiviously 0.50 is derived > > work based on the GPL'ed code of 0.49. > > > > Is this allowable, or once software is under GLP it stays there? > > It gets problematic for everything that other contributed under the > terms of GPL from version 0.01 through 0.49. Either they all agree in > the new copyright, or you've got a problem. :) So in theory, the author of every little patch needs to be consulted? Hum... :-) -- -- David (obrien@NUXI.com -or- obrien@FreeBSD.org) From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 07:07:58 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA08616 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 07:07:58 -0800 (PST) Received: from horst.bfd.com (horst.bfd.com [204.160.242.10]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA08599 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 07:07:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from harlie (bastion.bfd.com [204.160.242.14]) by horst.bfd.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id HAA15744; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 07:07:22 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 07:07:22 -0800 (PST) From: "Eric J. Schwertfeger" X-Sender: ejs@harlie To: "David O'Brien" cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL In-Reply-To: <19970217235135.LP40831@dragon.nuxi.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 17 Feb 1997, David O'Brien wrote: > Here is a [real life] question for you. > Say someone has written fooquix and from version 0.01 to 0.49 it was > GPL'ed. Then they decided they wanted to make some $$$ from it. So the > next release (say 0.50) was binary only. Now obiviously 0.50 is derived > work based on the GPL'ed code of 0.49. > > Is this allowable, or once software is under GLP it stays there? The way I've seen this situation described is as this: It's the release of the code that is licensed (under GPL or other), so you can release the exact same code under two different licenses. This is how AFS went commercial. If you can find a copy of the pre-commercial version, you can still use it. On the other hand, if 0.49 was GPLed because of the inclusion of GPL code, 0.50 could only be non-GPL if the GPL'ed code was replaced by something not derived from GPLed code. From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 09:33:53 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA17195 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 09:33:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from nic.follonett.no (nic.follonett.no [194.198.43.10]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA17188 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 09:33:43 -0800 (PST) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by nic.follonett.no (8.8.5/8.8.3) with UUCP id SAA14079; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 18:32:10 +0100 (MET) Received: from oo7 (oo7.dimaga.com [192.0.0.65]) by dimaga.com (8.8.5/8.7.2) with SMTP id SAA00576; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 18:11:00 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <3.0.32.19970218181059.00afa7d0@dimaga.com> X-Sender: eivind@dimaga.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 18:11:01 +0100 To: Mikael Karpberg From: Eivind Eklund Subject: Re: blowfish passwords in FreeBSD Cc: chat@FreeBSD.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk At 03:11 PM 2/18/97 +0100, Mikael Karpberg wrote: >According to Warner Losh: >> In message <199702172225.XAA21874@ocean.campus.luth.se> Mikael Karpberg writes: >> : install from a site called .edu/.us or .org/.com known to be US, or so. >> >> .EDU, .COM and .ORG are international. Do a whois on msi-uk.com >> sometime :-) > >I know there are .com and .org addresses outside US, which is why I said >"or .org/.com known to be US"... but .edu and .us should be us only, no? >(Hmm.. Maybe .edu in canada too?) whois nuts.edu (Moved to from -security to -chat) Eivind Eklund perhaps@yes.no http://maybe.yes.no/perhaps/ eivind@freebsd.org From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 10:03:18 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA18770 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 10:03:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from dyson.iquest.net (dyson.iquest.net [198.70.144.127]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA18760 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 10:03:04 -0800 (PST) Received: (from root@localhost) by dyson.iquest.net (8.8.4/8.6.9) id NAA04246; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 13:02:45 -0500 (EST) From: "John S. Dyson" Message-Id: <199702181802.NAA04246@dyson.iquest.net> Subject: Re: GPL To: obrien@NUXI.com (David O'Brien) Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 13:02:45 -0500 (EST) Cc: chat@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <19970218020731.GM57190@dragon.nuxi.com> from "David O'Brien" at Feb 18, 97 02:07:31 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME8] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > J Wunsch writes: > > As David O'Brien wrote: > > > Say someone has written fooquix and from version 0.01 to 0.49 it was > > > GPL'ed. Then they decided they wanted to make some $$$ from it. So the > > > next release (say 0.50) was binary only. Now obiviously 0.50 is derived > > > work based on the GPL'ed code of 0.49. > > > > > > Is this allowable, or once software is under GLP it stays there? > > > > It gets problematic for everything that other contributed under the > > terms of GPL from version 0.01 through 0.49. Either they all agree in > > the new copyright, or you've got a problem. :) > > So in theory, the author of every little patch needs to be consulted? > Hum... :-) > (This is not an opinion of -core, and none of my opinions unless specifically stated are that of -core or any other body, except mine :-)). That is where the original author looses -- he started a waterfall of GPL, that he ends up being in the same boat as the other contributors (and looses the freedom to make other arrangements for the derived works.) Everyone is pretty much in the same boat with GPL when it becomes net-owned. It is mostly the big changes and patches that need to be cleared the the other authors for a change in licensing terms. Imagine if you write a kernel, for example, and declare it to be under GPL. Imagine also that lots of other people add to that kernel, under GPL. You (the original owner) would have difficulty making the parallel licensing terms for other use, without either chasing down each individual author and get their okay, or stripping out the other GPLed code. Note, however, that alot of people use GPL for philosophical reasons. You (the author of that kernel) are at their mercy, and likely out of luck. The only way that the author of the kernel can keep control is to get written assignment of the code. Just because you might add the code yourself doesn't free the contributed code from GPL. (In that case, you are just acting as a repository maintainer.) There are cases where GPL can be useful, and seems to me to be a reasonable usage of it. Imagine that you have written a cool set of drivers for MSDOS machines. You are also agressively maintaining the source code, and accept modifications with written assignment of ownership or copyright. You, the author, maintains control so that you can also distribute under other license terms. In this case, GPL is much better than Shareware, because you can safely give away the source AND can accept payment to relieve the customer of redistribution encumberances. The original author of the package might even give such relief to those who contribute significantly to the package. There are not-so-subtile ways to subvert some of the intent of GPL, and frankly my opinion is that one should try to follow the INTENT of the original author. If an author really meant for the source code and all of it's derivatives to be redistributed, I think that it should be done. GPL is not such a bad thing that one should ignore it (and perhaps suffer legal consequences.) GPL should be applied, understood, and followed carefully like any other license. Note that it is the INTENT and desire for the code that I add to BSD be used in any ethical and legal way that the user desires. I don't feel the need for someone to have to disclose their derived works, but it is in the spirit of good will that those who use the code, when it wouldn't hurt their business, will contribute back to the original distribution. In fact, it might even make their code maintenence easier. John From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 10:45:51 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA21056 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 10:45:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from rocky.mt.sri.com (rocky.mt.sri.com [206.127.76.100]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA21033 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 10:45:43 -0800 (PST) Received: (from nate@localhost) by rocky.mt.sri.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id LAA18064; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 11:45:34 -0700 (MST) Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 11:45:34 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <199702181845.LAA18064@rocky.mt.sri.com> From: Nate Williams MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: dg@root.com Cc: Snob Art Genre , "David O'Brien" , chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL In-Reply-To: <199702180957.BAA05064@root.com> References: <199702180957.BAA05064@root.com> Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > >> Say someone has written fooquix and from version 0.01 to 0.49 it was > >> GPL'ed. Then they decided they wanted to make some $$$ from it. So the > >> next release (say 0.50) was binary only. Now obiviously 0.50 is derived > >> work based on the GPL'ed code of 0.49. > >> > >> Is this allowable, or once software is under GLP it stays there? > > > >It's allowable, because you, as the author of the GPL'd code, have the > >right to release yourself from the GPL, I believe. > > Suppose that 20 other people contributed patches to it during the time > it was under GPL? ...you'd have to get written permission from all of those > people before you could put a different copyright on it. This is why the FSF requires that all submitters of code to their tools sign over the Copyright to the FSF, which apparently will make sure the code is always free. (Although last night I had a interesting discussion on that point where it would be possible that the code could become 'non-free') Nate From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 15:50:26 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA10739 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 15:50:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.31]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA10672; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 15:48:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu by albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id SAA03227; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 18:50:43 -0500 Received: by kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/4.0) id ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 18:48:33 -0500 Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 18:48:33 -0500 Message-Id: <199702182348.SAA09936@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: dyson@freebsd.org CC: cmott@srv.net, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-reply-to: <199702180352.WAA03008@dyson.iquest.net> (toor@dyson.iquest.net) Subject: Re: GPL From: Joel Ray Holveck Reply-to: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk #include #include #include >> I have seen a number of back handed comments towards the GNU public >> license. For individualistic (not particularly rational) reasons, I >> prefer not to attach the GPL to any piece of free software I write. What >> is the complaint that others have with GPL? >The first (and simplest) complaint is the use of the word freedom in it's >preamble (haven't looked at it in a long time, so I might be missing a bit.) >It first innocuously looks like a "good" default free license. Well, it >is a good license, but it's use has severe consequences. Sometimes my >tirades are to remind new people coming online that they >should read the license terms carefully AND also look at the ramifications >of the license. For a user, the GPL is as much of a carte blanche as you want. You can use it, you can distribute it, you can sell it, whatever you want, just so long as it stays GPL'd. >The second (and more substantial) complaint, is that derived works >using GPLed code end up being encumbered by the terms of the GPL. This is a feature, not a bug. It was designed that way intentionally, to keep GNU's works from becoming tools for the proprietary software people. >The third (and yet more substantial) complaint, is that the original >author who releases code to the world under GPL, is also bound by the >GPL that is applied to the modifications of his original source code. This is misleading. An author can write code, release it under GPL, modify it, and release it non-GPL'd. (Example: ICS chess server) If somebody else writes modifications, and signs the copyright over to the original author (as most people do), then the author is still free to release it non-GPL'd. If somebody else writes modifications, copyrights and GPLs them, and shows them to the author for inclusion without signing over the copyright, then either work can only come out of GPL if all involved parties agree. >In essense, if the GPL is inappropriate for a given application, there >is a large number of authors that need to be negotiated with to release >the code from GPL and allow distribution under terms other than GPL. This is assuming there is such a case. >The fourth (and the basis for the above points being of concern) complaint, >is that if you distribute binaries of a program under GPL, then you are >obligated to make sure that the receiver of your distribution is able >to get the source code of the program. Assuming that you don't mind giving out your source, this isn't a problem. I realize that you didn't do this, but I'll point it out before somebody brings it up. Some people have interpreted that section of the GPL to mean that you must, in perpetua, provide your customers and their friends and neighbors with source. It doesn't. It means you just stick the source code on the end of the tape with your binaries, and your obligations are fulfilled. >However, if you have put many hard hours into improving >and enhancing the GPLed code, your modifications most likely come >under GPL. We were discussing putting original code under various copyrights, not modifying previously copyrighted code. >With that, you will be divulging ideas that were potentially time consuming >(expensive) to create. You will then be compelled to give that hard fought >work to the person that you gave the binary to. That is the basis of the GPL. I work as a contract programmer on occasion. My customer asks me to write a program to help him track his oil production. (I live in West Texas, not Boston, despite my address.) I write that program. He now can track his oil. If his neighbor wants to keep track of oil, then my customer can give this to him. My efforts can help his neighbor as well, and it was good. This is the idea behind free software. This point is very well explained in the Emacs distribution and installation, in the file etc/WHY-FREE. >The fifth (and probably not very important point) is that it is commonly >misunderstood that the person who has distributed a GPLed program has >to give it to anyone who asks. They don't have to. >My complaint here >is primarily to show that the GPL doesn't provide a guaranteed >redistribution of source code. Of course, many other license terms don't >either, but this point was made just to show that there are ways around >the intent of GPL. This was not the intent of the GPL, in my interpretation. The intent was for me to prevent my code from falling into proprietary control. If I want the world to have access, I will publish it myself, or ask an interested university or the FSF or somebody to. >> That being said, I still have the highest respect for Stallman and the >> Free Software Foundation. FreeBSD could not exist were it not for gcc. >> I haven't checked, but I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't quite a bit >> of other GNU software on the FreeBSD cdrom. >There is a lot of wonderful software under the GPL, however, there is >alot of wonderful software under BSD and or more restrictive license terms >than GPL also. IMO, the quality of software is pretty much orthogonal to >the terms of software use and redistribution. Not entirely orthogonal. The ability to make source-level modifications to the code is often extremely useful. Best, joelh -- http://www.wp.com/piquan --- Joel Ray Holveck --- joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu All my opinions are my own, not the FSF's, my employer's, or my dog's. Second law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi sendmail: segmentation violation -- core dumped From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 15:53:07 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA10863 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 15:53:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.31]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA10849 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 15:52:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu by albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id SAA03316; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 18:54:38 -0500 Received: by kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/4.0) id ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 18:52:29 -0500 Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 18:52:29 -0500 Message-Id: <199702182352.SAA09940@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: softweyr@xmission.com CC: cmott@srv.net, chat@freebsd.org In-reply-to: <199702180517.WAA17000@obie.softweyr.ml.org> (message from Wes Peters on Mon, 17 Feb 1997 22:17:13 -0700 (MST)) Subject: Re: GPL From: Joel Ray Holveck Reply-to: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > I have seen a number of back handed comments towards the GNU public > > license. For individualistic (not particularly rational) reasons, I > > prefer not to attach the GPL to any piece of free software I write. What > > is the complaint that others have with GPL? >The major complaint is that it restricts the use of the software >extensively. You cannot, for instance, distribute binary-only copies of >GPL'ed software. Nor can you sell derivative works of GPL'ed >software. Point of order: You can sell derivative works of GPL'ed software, as well as GPL'ed software itself. Walnut Creek does so, NeXT did (does?). -- http://www.wp.com/piquan --- Joel Ray Holveck --- joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu All my opinions are my own, not the FSF's, my employer's, or my dog's. Second law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi sendmail: segmentation violation -- core dumped From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 16:06:55 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA11774 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 16:06:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.31]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA11759 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 16:06:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu by albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id TAA03691; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 19:08:25 -0500 Received: by kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/4.0) id ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 19:06:15 -0500 Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 19:06:15 -0500 Message-Id: <199702190006.TAA09986@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: nate@mt.sri.com CC: dg@root.com, ben@narcissus.ml.org, obrien@nuxi.com, chat@freebsd.org In-reply-to: <199702181845.LAA18064@rocky.mt.sri.com> (message from Nate Williams on Tue, 18 Feb 1997 11:45:34 -0700 (MST)) Subject: Re: GPL From: Joel Ray Holveck Reply-to: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >> Suppose that 20 other people contributed patches to it during the time >> it was under GPL? ...you'd have to get written permission from all of those >> people before you could put a different copyright on it. >This is why the FSF requires that all submitters of code to their tools >sign over the Copyright to the FSF, which apparently will make sure the >code is always free. (Although last night I had a interesting >discussion on that point where it would be possible that the code could >become 'non-free') ENQ? Point: The FSF has accepted large amounts of code (ie, I believe all of the code from its major hackers) on the stipulation that it will be forever free. -- http://www.wp.com/piquan --- Joel Ray Holveck --- joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu All my opinions are my own, not the FSF's, my employer's, or my dog's. Second law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi sendmail: segmentation violation -- core dumped From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 16:20:19 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA13015 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 16:20:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from rocky.mt.sri.com (rocky.mt.sri.com [206.127.76.100]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA13008 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 16:20:14 -0800 (PST) Received: (from nate@localhost) by rocky.mt.sri.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id RAA19825; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 17:19:54 -0700 (MST) Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 17:19:54 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <199702190019.RAA19825@rocky.mt.sri.com> From: Nate Williams MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Cc: nate@mt.sri.com, dg@root.com, ben@narcissus.ml.org, obrien@nuxi.com, chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL In-Reply-To: <199702190006.TAA09986@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> References: <199702181845.LAA18064@rocky.mt.sri.com> <199702190006.TAA09986@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > >> Suppose that 20 other people contributed patches to it during the time > >> it was under GPL? ...you'd have to get written permission from all of those > >> people before you could put a different copyright on it. > >This is why the FSF requires that all submitters of code to their tools > >sign over the Copyright to the FSF, which apparently will make sure the > >code is always free. (Although last night I had a interesting > >discussion on that point where it would be possible that the code could > >become 'non-free') > > ENQ? Point: The FSF has accepted large amounts of code (ie, I believe > all of the code from its major hackers) on the stipulation that it > will be forever free. What if the FSF were 'dissolved' for some reason (say due to the death of RMS), and a commercial company bought the assets (which includes all of the existing GPL code). The code at that point would be the property of this company, who could decide to 'take it propriatary'. When a company/corporation no longer exists, it's assets and contractual obligations are up in the ari. Nate From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 17:37:33 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA19589 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 17:37:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA19509; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 17:36:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id RAA07506; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 17:35:25 -0800 (PST) To: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu cc: dyson@freebsd.org, cmott@srv.net, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 18 Feb 1997 18:48:33 EST." <199702182348.SAA09936@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 17:35:25 -0800 Message-ID: <7502.856316125@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > This is a feature, not a bug. It was designed that way intentionally, > to keep GNU's works from becoming tools for the proprietary software > people. But it's a bug if you'd like to help out the proprietary software people, you see. That's where RMS and I have classically differed (and we've argued about this a LOT :). I don't see the constraints on profit as being quite so wide as he (or the GPL) does. If someone wants to pay me to write a proprietary hack for FreeBSD (modifying BSD copyrighted code), for which their changes will never see the light of day and will, in fact, be sold for lots of money then that really doesn't bug me because I can use their money to feed the kids, keep the wolf away and indulge my hardware habit while I spend my free hours hacking FreeBSD, unworried by money matters or hungry children. I'm also benefiting from being able to make money at something I actually enjoy doing, rather than writing Visual C++ code all day for some Windows project and slowly edging towards suicide, and even if the average FreeBSD user never sees the actual code I wrote for GreedyCorp, Inc. they will probably see quite a few ancillary benefits from the ideas and expertise I gained in taking FreeBSD in new (albeit proprietary) directions for that company, to say nothing of my being a happier individual in general and likely to be around longer than if I top myself for having to write Visual Basic. I'm also likely to find and fix a lot of problems, working to someone else's far more stringent deadlines, and it'd be rare indeed to see GreedyCorp refuse to let the straight fixes out - they know it's in their best interest to avoid big reintegration headaches in the future, and if I was a smart boy I already raised and settled this issue before I even started the contract. The users can definitely win here, just as they've already been winning from the involvement of some of the commercial interests currently surrounding FreeBSD, and the developer can win. Why throw that away or make it needlessly complicated? Such arrangements are already difficult enough without having GreedyCorp running scared from your contract proposal because it mentions the dreaded GPL (and yes, there is considerable awareness of the GPL at various corporate levels). The real point is simply that there is still quite a bit of value in the "grey areas" which the GPL seems to strongly discourage. RMS would prefer a far more black-and-white reality in the commercial software world, and I can't fault him for setting and sticking to a very high set of ideals, but I just don't think that it makes sense to draw the lines that closely and seek to enforce by law what you should and can be enforcing by pre-agreement with your clients. I've been in this business full-time since 1978, and I actually have to say that programmers have far more influence with management than anyone gives them due credit for. The good managers know who's buttering their bread, and if it takes the occasional political battle over releasing some fairly non-strategic, not-exactly-the-company-crown-jewels code into the freely re-distributable domain to make some of their programmers happy, they'll do it. I've had considerable success prying loose various bits of code from companies, or getting them to relax their militant stance about some part of the freeware community (or its products), and in ALL cases it was accomplished through negotiation, not waving threatening pieces of paper around. That would have accomplished exactly zero in any of the cases I can think of. All things considered, I'd be really happy if the legal realities for liability and copyright made it possible for me to release all my code with a "legal notice" about this long: This is my code, you can use it for anything you like, just please don't be a cretin and try to pretend that you wrote it, or break it and then try to blame me. Thanks. That's really all I want to say. I don't *want* a threatening copyright since such a thing would only screw any of my potential negotiations with companies whom I would very much like to see use and improve the code. Negotiation on a case by case basis has worked more than well enough for me, better than I'd ever have a right to even expect, and a pit-bull copyright I need like a KKK banner at a Martin Luther King memorial rally. :-) > Not entirely orthogonal. The ability to make source-level > modifications to the code is often extremely useful. And if you look at every BSD system you might ever want to run, it comes with all of it - how about that! :-) The GPL may enforce the question of source, but it's hardly correct to say or even imply that it's the only way of going about it. I've heard a lot of flag waving in the Linux groups about how the GPL saves from predation and software tyranny, but frankly I've yet to see a single instance of that anywhere close to home myself in these last 19 years. To my view, it's a solution looking for a problem. Sure, I've heard about air crashes - they're on the news with distressing frequency. Does this mean that I fly everywhere with a parachute and insist on a seat next to the emergency exit? No. Statistically, I'm more likely to die of a hernia from lugging that damn parachute around. People get shot on the street frequently, should we all wear kevlar body armor at all times, regardless of the discomfort? No, that would be a hateful existence. Should we wrap all of our code around a multi-page legalese document that sets down more restrictions than your average insurance policy just in case someone *might* want to rip it off? No. That would be the GPL. :-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 19:01:39 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA24674 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 19:01:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.31]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA24668 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 19:01:27 -0800 (PST) Received: from kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu by albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id WAA06428; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 22:02:00 -0500 Received: by kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/4.0) id ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 21:59:51 -0500 Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 21:59:51 -0500 Message-Id: <199702190259.VAA11531@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: nate@mt.sri.com CC: nate@mt.sri.com, dg@root.com, ben@narcissus.ml.org, obrien@nuxi.com, chat@freebsd.org In-reply-to: <199702190019.RAA19825@rocky.mt.sri.com> (message from Nate Williams on Tue, 18 Feb 1997 17:19:54 -0700 (MST)) Subject: Re: GPL From: Joel Ray Holveck Reply-to: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >> >This is why the FSF requires that all submitters of code to their tools >> >sign over the Copyright to the FSF, which apparently will make sure the >> >code is always free. (Although last night I had a interesting >> >discussion on that point where it would be possible that the code could >> >become 'non-free') >> ENQ? Point: The FSF has accepted large amounts of code (ie, I believe >> all of the code from its major hackers) on the stipulation that it >> will be forever free. >What if the FSF were 'dissolved' for some reason (say due to the death >of RMS), and a commercial company bought the assets (which includes all >of the existing GPL code). The code at that point would be the property >of this company, who could decide to 'take it propriatary'. The assimilating company would still have the stipulation on its shoulders. It is a legal contract, and by taking the code, they also take all contractual obligations associated therewith. >When a company/corporation no longer exists, it's assets and contractual >obligations are up in the ari. They are up in the air, and they will fall. Because the obligation is associated with the code, it comes as a package. -- http://www.wp.com/piquan --- Joel Ray Holveck --- joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu All my opinions are my own, not the FSF's, my employer's, or my dog's. Second law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi sendmail: segmentation violation -- core dumped From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 19:23:26 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA26391 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 19:23:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from dyson.iquest.net (dyson.iquest.net [198.70.144.127]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA26092; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 19:22:31 -0800 (PST) Received: (from root@localhost) by dyson.iquest.net (8.8.4/8.6.9) id WAA17162; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 22:22:11 -0500 (EST) From: "John S. Dyson" Message-Id: <199702190322.WAA17162@dyson.iquest.net> Subject: Re: GPL To: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 22:22:11 -0500 (EST) Cc: dyson@freebsd.org, cmott@srv.net, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <199702182348.SAA09936@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> from "Joel Ray Holveck" at Feb 18, 97 06:48:33 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME8] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > For a user, the GPL is as much of a carte blanche as you want. You > can use it, you can distribute it, you can sell it, whatever you want, > just so long as it stays GPL'd. > But if you change the software one IOTA, you must make the source of the changes available to those that you distribute binaries to. > >The second (and more substantial) complaint, is that derived works > >using GPLed code end up being encumbered by the terms of the GPL. > > This is a feature, not a bug. It was designed that way intentionally, > to keep GNU's works from becoming tools for the proprietary software > people. > What is wrong with the proprietary software people? Especially the little guy just getting started with a good idea that the original software author didn't have (or perhaps imagine?) The guy who adds to the GPLed software needs to understand that his additions will likely be encumbered, and perhaps question the value of the original (GPLed) works relative to the value of his invention. > >The third (and yet more substantial) complaint, is that the original > >author who releases code to the world under GPL, is also bound by the > >GPL that is applied to the modifications of his original source code. > > This is misleading. > Actually, it is precisely correct. The original author is bound by the GPL applied to the derived works in the same way that those who add to the original works are bound by his GPL encumberance. For the author who wants to distribute his code under GPL, and he wants to be safe in redistributing his code with net-created enhancements, it would be wise to get signed releases when including the GPLed code of others into the code base. Otherwise, the original author (if he wants to maintain is redistribution freedom), must simply ignore the net-enhancements, or clean-room redesign them. (I guess that there are some loopholes in copyright law that allows simple changes to be included without encumberance, but it certainly -- to me -- violates the intent of GPL for someone to even take a small amount of GPLed code, and optionally be able to redistribute it under other terms.) > > An author can write code, release it under GPL, > modify it, and release it non-GPL'd. (Example: ICS chess server) If > somebody else writes modifications, and signs the copyright over to > the original author (as most people do), then the author is still free > to release it non-GPL'd. > So those people who write the enhancements would have fewer rights than the original author? Why would someone make substantial enhancements to a GPLed base that the original author can capitalize on? :-). Specifically, those people who add to the GPLed base are at a disadvantage, no matter how much work they put into it. (The reason for the smiley, is that there is a strong anti-proprietary sentiment in the GPL community, and it appears in this case, GPL seems to make it not-so-desirable to spend alot of work producing a GPLed derived work, from a GPLed original.) > > If somebody else writes modifications, > copyrights and GPLs them, and shows them to the author for inclusion > without signing over the copyright, then either work can only come out > of GPL if all involved parties agree. > So this is part of the GPL encumberances and complications. Does it mean that one who spends alot of time/money producing a derived work is playing odds that the person who GPLed the code will allow other redistribution terms? > >In essense, if the GPL is inappropriate for a given application, there > >is a large number of authors that need to be negotiated with to release > >the code from GPL and allow distribution under terms other than GPL. > > This is assuming there is such a case. > What I said, above pretty much agrees with your statement. You have to go through red-tape to use other redistribution terms when using GPLed software. > >The fourth (and the basis for the above points being of concern) complaint, > >is that if you distribute binaries of a program under GPL, then you are > >obligated to make sure that the receiver of your distribution is able > >to get the source code of the program. > > Assuming that you don't mind giving out your source, this isn't a > problem. > Agreed, and much of the time, source code can have cost either alot of money to produce, or have unique and novel ideas that would be undesirable to disclose. This is especially important for the small manufacturer, or large company with paranoid (rightfully so) lawyers. > > I realize that you didn't do this, but I'll point it out before > somebody brings it up. Some people have interpreted that section of > the GPL to mean that you must, in perpetua, provide your customers and > their friends and neighbors with source. It doesn't. It means you > just stick the source code on the end of the tape with your binaries, > and your obligations are fulfilled. > That is all and well, but the information in those sources is a combination of both the GPLed original, and code that must necessarily come under the GPL encumberance because of interface issues (per RMS.) This implies that the payment for using GPLed code is to give away potentially valuable trade secrets. > >However, if you have put many hard hours into improving > >and enhancing the GPLed code, your modifications most likely come > >under GPL. > > We were discussing putting original code under various copyrights, not > modifying previously copyrighted code. > I am talking about the comment that was originally made about those people (including myself) who are critical of GPL. Since my goal on my free software project is to make it available for those who want to commercialize it in any reasonable way with the minimum of red-tape (which GPL IMO causes), I avoid GPL. In commercial projects, where I would have to make substantial modifications which include trade-secrets, I also avoid (not just avoid but ignore) GPLed code as a base. > >With that, you will be divulging ideas that were potentially time consuming > >(expensive) to create. You will then be compelled to give that hard fought > >work to the person that you gave the binary to. > > That is the basis of the GPL. I work as a contract programmer on > occasion. My customer asks me to write a program to help him track > his oil production. (I live in West Texas, not Boston, despite my > address.) I write that program. He now can track his oil. If his > neighbor wants to keep track of oil, then my customer can give this to > him. My efforts can help his neighbor as well, and it was good. This > is the idea behind free software. > In the above case, GPL is not needed. If you wrote your program on a PC clone or common U**X clone, then you can give your customer binary redistribution rights. That is orthogonal to the source redistribution requirements of GPL. In cases such as the above, you did contract work for money. Depending on how your contract was written, you might have lost out on a sale (the second customer.) In that case I hope that you were adequately compensated for the rights that your first customer received from you. Of course, if you were just an hourly worker, it is likely that the customer owns your work anyway, and he can likely give it away. It is all in how your contract was written with him though. (So I am just speculating about the situation.) > >The fifth (and probably not very important point) is that it is commonly > >misunderstood that the person who has distributed a GPLed program has > >to give it to anyone who asks. They don't have to. > >My complaint here > >is primarily to show that the GPL doesn't provide a guaranteed > >redistribution of source code. Of course, many other license terms don't > >either, but this point was made just to show that there are ways around > >the intent of GPL. > > This was not the intent of the GPL, in my interpretation. The intent > was for me to prevent my code from falling into proprietary control. > If I want the world to have access, I will publish it myself, or ask > an interested university or the FSF or somebody to. > You always have control over your code (unless you sign it away.) Various kinds of employment or consulting contracts can do that. Anytime you create a work, and give it to someone (unless you have assigned rights away), you are free to redistribute it through other means also. GPL doesn't help in that case at all. Even in the case where the customer makes significant modifications -- he can still "hoard" the code as long as he doesn't redistribute the binaries. The derived works then become effectively proprietary (you don't necessarily have access to the derived works), and the customer doesn't have to donate the changes back to you. If the customer chooses to redistribute the derived works, he then has to make the source code available to those that receive them. Of course, that customer can make proprietary changes to what was originally your code, and keep them confidential also. GPL doesn't help that situation at all, other than forcing each individual in the chain to give away his trade-secrets, novel ideas or other kind of intellectual property to the receiver of the binaries. Summing things up, GPL does not prevent code from becoming proprietary. It does however, make it less desirable to invest alot of time/money into a code base, unless you are the original author of the code, and maintain the predominant version of the code base. The original author who uses GPL would certainly not want to violate someone else's GPL by including the new code into the author's codebase without permission. That means that the original author has to go through the trouble to get permission from the contributors. It is easy for big orgs like FSF, but the little guy might have problems. It just seems like red-tape to me. > > >There is a lot of wonderful software under the GPL, however, there is > >alot of wonderful software under BSD and or more restrictive license terms > >than GPL also. IMO, the quality of software is pretty much orthogonal to > >the terms of software use and redistribution. > > Not entirely orthogonal. The ability to make source-level > modifications to the code is often extremely useful. > I did say "pretty much." :-). I don't think that good software needs to have source given away. Take QNX for example, it certainly isn't awful from what I have heard :-). John From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 19:27:59 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA26758 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 19:27:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from dyson.iquest.net (dyson.iquest.net [198.70.144.127]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA26729; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 19:27:46 -0800 (PST) Received: (from root@localhost) by dyson.iquest.net (8.8.4/8.6.9) id WAA17174; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 22:26:04 -0500 (EST) From: "John S. Dyson" Message-Id: <199702190326.WAA17174@dyson.iquest.net> Subject: Re: GPL To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 22:26:04 -0500 (EST) Cc: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu, dyson@freebsd.org, cmott@srv.net, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <7502.856316125@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Feb 18, 97 05:35:25 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME8] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > All things considered, I'd be really happy if the legal realities for > liability and copyright made it possible for me to release all my > code with a "legal notice" about this long: > > This is my code, you can use it for anything you like, just please > don't be a cretin and try to pretend that you wrote it, or break > it and then try to blame me. Thanks. > No no no, Jordan -- you have to add one more sentence!!! And please, sir, if you have any bread crumbs, might you throw some my way? :-) John From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 19:37:14 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA27532 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 19:37:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.31]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA27420; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 19:36:06 -0800 (PST) Received: from kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu by albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id WAA06918; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 22:38:03 -0500 Received: by kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/4.0) id ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 22:35:54 -0500 Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 22:35:54 -0500 Message-Id: <199702190335.WAA11596@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com CC: dyson@freebsd.org, cmott@srv.net, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-reply-to: <7502.856316125@time.cdrom.com> (jkh@time.cdrom.com) Subject: Re: GPL From: Joel Ray Holveck Reply-to: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >> This is a feature, not a bug. It was designed that way intentionally, >> to keep GNU's works from becoming tools for the proprietary software >> people. >But it's a bug if you'd like to help out the proprietary software >people, you see. That's where RMS and I have classically differed >(and we've argued about this a LOT :). Then the GPL isn't at all designed for your needs, any more than Nethack is designed for the needs of a quarter arcade. >The real point is simply that there is still quite a bit of value in >the "grey areas" which the GPL seems to strongly discourage. RMS >would prefer a far more black-and-white reality in the commercial >software world, and I can't fault him for setting and sticking to a >very high set of ideals, but I just don't think that it makes sense to >draw the lines that closely and seek to enforce by law what you should >and can be enforcing by pre-agreement with your clients. Businessmen will enforce their ideals with their licenses. Their ideals just make Kant weep, that's all. >programmers happy, they'll do it. I've had considerable success >prying loose various bits of code from companies, or getting them to >relax their militant stance about some part of the freeware community >(or its products), and in ALL cases it was accomplished through >negotiation, not waving threatening pieces of paper around. That >would have accomplished exactly zero in any of the cases I can think >of. I'd rather not get into a discussion of the effectiveness of the licenses, or of the moral issues behind them. Right now, I am only trying to make sure that the GPL gets its due credit in this discussion by clearing up potential misunderstandings. >All things considered, I'd be really happy if the legal realities for >liability and copyright made it possible for me to release all my >code with a "legal notice" about this long: > This is my code, you can use it for anything you like, just please > don't be a cretin and try to pretend that you wrote it, or break > it and then try to blame me. Thanks. Most of us are just trying to get back to the mentality of the elder days. We just have different ways of doing it. I'd love to never have to see a lawyer try to debate whether statically linked library is an aggregate or derived work, or whether or not I can run a single-CPU licensed program on a Pentium, let alone whether or not I can get blamed for a user playing with the 'rebuild master block' command. >improve the code. Negotiation on a case by case basis has worked more >than well enough for me, better than I'd ever have a right to even >expect, and a pit-bull copyright I need like a KKK banner at a Martin >Luther King memorial rally. :-) You're after different aims. rms is out to change the world; I don't see that as your ambition. (Correct me if I'm wrong, of course!) >> Not entirely orthogonal. The ability to make source-level >> modifications to the code is often extremely useful. >And if you look at every BSD system you might ever want to run, it >comes with all of it - how about that! :-) The GPL may enforce the >question of source, but it's hardly correct to say or even imply that >it's the only way of going about it. Agreed. I was actually directing that line in a discussion which seemed to be mostly about whether or not the GPL is sane in a world oriented towards commercial sourceless licensing. I intended to be commending the BSD technique in that paragraph; my apologies if I was unclear. Did SunOS 4 come with source? I never had both sufficient need and skill to modify it at the time, so I don't know, and considering that Solaris doesn't come with a compiler, let alone source... >I've heard a lot of flag waving in the Linux groups about how the GPL >saves from predation and software tyranny, but frankly I've yet to see >a single instance of that anywhere close to home myself in these last >19 years. To my view, it's a solution looking for a problem. The GNU General Public License is not the solution. Only when people change how they think about software, will it be free. >that would be a hateful existence. Should we wrap all of our code >around a multi-page legalese document that sets down more restrictions >than your average insurance policy just in case someone *might* want >to rip it off? No. That would be the GPL. :-) Again, I'd just as soon see law stay away from hacking. But I live in America, and it ain't gonna happen. -- http://www.wp.com/piquan --- Joel Ray Holveck --- joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu All my opinions are my own, not the FSF's, my employer's, or my dog's. Second law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi sendmail: segmentation violation -- core dumped From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 09:15:00 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA03635 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 09:15:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from rocky.mt.sri.com (rocky.mt.sri.com [206.127.76.100]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA03619 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 09:14:55 -0800 (PST) Received: (from nate@localhost) by rocky.mt.sri.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id KAA22821; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 10:14:21 -0700 (MST) Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 10:14:21 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <199702191714.KAA22821@rocky.mt.sri.com> From: Nate Williams MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Cc: nate@mt.sri.com, dg@root.com, ben@narcissus.ml.org, obrien@nuxi.com, chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL In-Reply-To: <199702190259.VAA11531@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> References: <199702190019.RAA19825@rocky.mt.sri.com> <199702190259.VAA11531@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > >> >This is why the FSF requires that all submitters of code to their tools > >> >sign over the Copyright to the FSF, which apparently will make sure the > >> >code is always free. (Although last night I had a interesting > >> >discussion on that point where it would be possible that the code could > >> >become 'non-free') > >> ENQ? Point: The FSF has accepted large amounts of code (ie, I believe > >> all of the code from its major hackers) on the stipulation that it > >> will be forever free. > >What if the FSF were 'dissolved' for some reason (say due to the death > >of RMS), and a commercial company bought the assets (which includes all > >of the existing GPL code). The code at that point would be the property > >of this company, who could decide to 'take it propriatary'. > > The assimilating company would still have the stipulation on its > shoulders. It is a legal contract, and by taking the code, they also > take all contractual obligations associated therewith. Actually, no. That's where you're wrong. But, in any case, I'm not going to continue this conversation since it's degenerating into a silly arguement anyways. Nate From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 11:46:57 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA14401 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 11:46:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from kerouac.deepwell.com (kerouac.deepwell.com [207.212.140.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA14395 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 11:46:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from lovecraft.deepwell.com ([207.212.140.204]) by kerouac.deepwell.com (post.office MTA v2.0 0813 ID# 0-12198) with SMTP id AAA102 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 11:41:45 -0800 Message-Id: <3.0.32.19970219114328.0069a9b0@deepwell.com> X-Sender: sol@deepwell.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 11:43:28 -0800 To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org From: Sol Rasmussen Subject: text editors Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk any suggestions on text editors. what i am really looking for is cutting and pasting ability. _______________________________________________ Sol Rasmussen Internet Presence Developer sol@deepwell.com http://www.deepwell.com From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 13:10:07 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA19187 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 13:10:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from grackle.grondar.za (PJ7+FOhHB2NNzFWZsX0vc4Vl5RwFI+OV@grackle.grondar.za [196.7.18.131]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA19149 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 13:09:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from grackle.grondar.za (QAcuX/PunigHl8iNF5iaT3XWnUWhUc5R@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by grackle.grondar.za (8.8.5/8.8.4) with ESMTP id XAA12738; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 23:09:37 +0200 (SAT) Message-Id: <199702192109.XAA12738@grackle.grondar.za> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0gamma 1/27/96 To: Sol Rasmussen cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: text editors Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 23:09:30 +0200 From: Mark Murray Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Sol Rasmussen wrote: > any suggestions on text editors. what i am really looking for is cutting > and pasting ability. This question is easy to ask, and impossible to answer. Try them all, and use the one you like best. M -- Mark Murray PGP key fingerprint = 80 36 6E 40 83 D6 8A 36 This .sig is umop ap!sdn. BC 06 EA 0E 7A F2 CE CE From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 13:15:23 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA19401 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 13:15:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.copfer.com (root@marble.copfer.com [207.206.15.4]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA19395 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 13:15:21 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rob@localhost) by mail.copfer.com (8.8.5/8.8.4/Gissy/copfer1.2) id QAA13501; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 16:15:05 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199702192115.QAA13501@mail.copfer.com> Subject: Re: text editors To: sol@deepwell.com (Sol Rasmussen) Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 16:15:04 -0500 (EST) Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19970219114328.0069a9b0@deepwell.com> from Sol Rasmussen at "Feb 19, 97 11:43:28 am" From: Rob Misiak X-Pager: alphanumeric: pager@rob.com numeric: (216)574-1681 X-Fingerprint: FF F9 39 44 3E 95 DD 1A 8E BF B1 44 21 3C 1B 8F X-No-Archive: yes X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > any suggestions on text editors. what i am really looking for is cutting > and pasting ability. How about vi? :-) Rob > > > > _______________________________________________ > Sol Rasmussen > Internet Presence Developer > sol@deepwell.com > http://www.deepwell.com > From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 13:51:59 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA21242 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 13:51:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from antares.aero.org (antares.aero.org [130.221.192.46]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA21234 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 13:51:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from anpiel.aero.org (anpiel.aero.org [130.221.196.66]) by antares.aero.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA26575; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 13:51:15 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199702192151.NAA26575@antares.aero.org> To: Sol Rasmussen Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: text editors In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 19 Feb 1997 11:43:28 PST." <3.0.32.19970219114328.0069a9b0@deepwell.com> Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 13:51:10 -0800 From: "Mike O'Brien" Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > any suggestions on text editors. what i am really looking for is cutting > and pasting ability. Ok, I'll enter this fray. I suggest the Rand editor, because it's the only editor I know of that can cut & paste rectangular blocks of text. I've never seen anything better for editing tabular data "in the raw". Mike O'Brien From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 13:54:41 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA21537 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 13:54:41 -0800 (PST) Received: from cookie.csv.warwick.ac.uk (csubl@cookie.csv.warwick.ac.uk [137.205.148.140]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA21532 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 13:54:39 -0800 (PST) From: Mr M P Searle Message-Id: <1610.199702192154@cookie.csv.warwick.ac.uk> Received: by cookie.csv.warwick.ac.uk id VAA01610; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 21:54:02 GMT Subject: Re: text editors To: mark@grondar.za (Mark Murray) Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 21:53:55 +0000 (GMT) Cc: sol@deepwell.com, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <199702192109.XAA12738@grackle.grondar.za> from "Mark Murray" at Feb 19, 97 11:09:30 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > Sol Rasmussen wrote: > > any suggestions on text editors. what i am really looking for is cutting > > and pasting ability. > > This question is easy to ask, and impossible to answer. Try them all, > and use the one you like best. I agree that you should try them all - but if it's cutting and pasting you are after, you could try starting with NEdit. You can do lots of fancy things like cutting a rectangular area with the mouse and sliding it up and down, the text moving around it as you move it. This does assume you mean X editors, of course. I'm kind of jumping in here. From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 14:03:20 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA22153 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 14:03:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from stanton-1-1.quick.net (soil@newport-1-10.quick.net [206.171.89.210]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA22148 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 14:03:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (soil@localhost) by stanton-1-1.quick.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA01999; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 14:03:15 -0800 (PST) X-Authentication-Warning: stanton-1-1.quick.net: soil owned process doing -bs Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 14:03:15 -0800 (PST) From: Josh Gilliam To: Sol Rasmussen cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: text editors In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19970219114328.0069a9b0@deepwell.com> Message-ID: X-IRC: soil X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 2.2-970205-GAMMA i386 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 19 Feb 1997 11:43:28 -0800, in message <3.0.32.19970219114328.0069a9b0@deepwell.com>, Sol Rasmussen wrote: > any suggestions on text editors. what i am really looking for is cutting > and pasting ability. I prefer vi. Console text can be copied and pasted with any editor using moused(8) in FreeBSD 2.2+. Josh Gilliam -- soil@quick.net From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 15:00:23 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA24618 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 15:00:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.crl.com (mail.crl.com [165.113.1.22]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA24530 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 14:59:46 -0800 (PST) Received: from profane.iq.org by mail.crl.com with SMTP id AA16839 (5.65c/IDA-1.5 for ); Wed, 19 Feb 1997 14:39:40 -0800 Received: from localhost (proff@localhost) by profane.iq.org (8.8.4/8.8.2) with SMTP id JAA02183; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 09:32:06 +1100 (EST) Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 09:32:05 +1100 (EST) From: Julian Assange To: "Mike O'Brien" Cc: Sol Rasmussen , freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: text editors In-Reply-To: <199702192151.NAA26575@antares.aero.org> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > any suggestions on text editors. what i am really looking for is cutting > > and pasting ability. > > Ok, I'll enter this fray. I suggest the Rand editor, because it's the > only editor I know of that can cut & paste rectangular blocks of text. I've > never seen anything better for editing tabular data "in the raw". > > Mike O'Brien > vim does this, along with many other things. From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 15:54:49 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA27182 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 15:54:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.31]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA27173 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 15:54:43 -0800 (PST) Received: from kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu by albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id SAA00519; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 18:56:28 -0500 Received: by kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/4.0) id ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 18:54:18 -0500 Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 18:54:18 -0500 Message-Id: <199702192354.SAA14517@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: obrien@antares.aero.org CC: sol@deepwell.com, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-reply-to: <199702192151.NAA26575@antares.aero.org> (obrien@antares.aero.org) Subject: Re: text editors From: Joel Ray Holveck Reply-to: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >> any suggestions on text editors. what i am really looking for is cutting >> and pasting ability. > Ok, I'll enter this fray. I suggest the Rand editor, because it's the >only editor I know of that can cut & paste rectangular blocks of text. I've >never seen anything better for editing tabular data "in the raw". Emacs can. -- http://www.wp.com/piquan --- Joel Ray Holveck --- joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu All my opinions are my own, not the FSF's, my employer's, or my dog's. Second law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi sendmail: segmentation violation -- core dumped From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 16:06:47 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA27865 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 16:06:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from cold.org (cold.org [206.81.134.103]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA27854; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 16:06:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (brandon@localhost) by cold.org (8.8.5/8.8.3) with SMTP id RAA18719; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 17:06:42 -0700 (MST) Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 17:06:42 -0700 (MST) From: Brandon Gillespie To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Blinking Daemon in 'Powered By' GIF Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk I did a little cleanup on the 'Powered By' GIF and I animated it a touch so he blinks every so often. Anybody who wants may use it however they wish, following the original restrictions on the image. You can get this image off the page at: http://www.cold.org/ Enjoy 8) -Brandon Gillespie From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 17:30:32 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA04606 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 17:30:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from nic.follonett.no (nic.follonett.no [194.198.43.10]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA04600 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 17:30:27 -0800 (PST) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by nic.follonett.no (8.8.5/8.8.3) with UUCP id CAA05961; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 02:27:25 +0100 (MET) Received: from oo7 (oo7.dimaga.com [192.0.0.65]) by dimaga.com (8.8.5/8.7.2) with SMTP id BAA20291; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 01:38:18 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <3.0.32.19970220013817.00b6cc50@dimaga.com> X-Sender: eivind@dimaga.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 01:38:18 +0100 To: "Mike O'Brien" From: Eivind Eklund Subject: Re: text editors Cc: Sol Rasmussen , freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk At 01:51 PM 2/19/97 -0800, Mike O'Brien wrote: >> any suggestions on text editors. what i am really looking for is cutting >> and pasting ability. > > Ok, I'll enter this fray. I suggest the Rand editor, because it's the >only editor I know of that can cut & paste rectangular blocks of text. I've >never seen anything better for editing tabular data "in the raw". Emacs does this, as well as providing several games and an artificial psychoterapist :) (Emacs does close to everything, but has a user interface with a steep learning and retaining-curve. If you start using the features you'll be addicted and never be able to change to anything else. You'll be frustrated about the things it does badly (which exist), but won't be able to change to anything else.) Eivind Eklund perhaps@yes.no http://maybe.yes.no/perhaps/ eivind@freebsd.org From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 17:46:13 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA05323 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 17:46:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA05310 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 17:45:52 -0800 (PST) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.5/8.7.3) id MAA14104; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 12:11:49 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199702200141.MAA14104@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: text editors In-Reply-To: <199702192151.NAA26575@antares.aero.org> from Mike O'Brien at "Feb 19, 97 01:51:10 pm" To: obrien@antares.aero.org (Mike O'Brien) Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 12:11:48 +1030 (CST) Cc: sol@deepwell.com, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Mike O'Brien stands accused of saying: > > any suggestions on text editors. what i am really looking for is cutting > > and pasting ability. > > Ok, I'll enter this fray. I suggest the Rand editor, because it's the > only editor I know of that can cut & paste rectangular blocks of text. I've > never seen anything better for editing tabular data "in the raw". Qedit can, and I suspect that Crisp can too. Jordan will now tell us how to write an elisp macro that can cut arbitrarily polygonal regions and transform them into other, different, regions when pasted. > Mike O'Brien -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[ From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 20:06:53 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA14503 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 20:06:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from tyger.inna.net (root@tyger.inna.net [206.151.66.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA14497 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 20:06:40 -0800 (PST) Received: from dolphin.inna.net (jamie@dolphin.inna.net [206.151.66.2]) by tyger.inna.net (8.8.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id XAA15893; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 23:07:18 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 23:05:03 -0500 (EST) From: Jamie Bowden To: Michael Smith cc: "Mike O'Brien" , sol@deepwell.com, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: text editors In-Reply-To: <199702200141.MAA14104@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 20 Feb 1997, Michael Smith wrote: > Mike O'Brien stands accused of saying: > > > any suggestions on text editors. what i am really looking for is cutting > > > and pasting ability. > > > > Ok, I'll enter this fray. I suggest the Rand editor, because it's the > > only editor I know of that can cut & paste rectangular blocks of text. I've > > never seen anything better for editing tabular data "in the raw". > > Qedit can, and I suspect that Crisp can too. Jordan will now tell us > how to write an elisp macro that can cut arbitrarily polygonal regions > and transform them into other, different, regions when pasted. esc-x non-euclidian? Jamie Bowden Network Administrator, TBI Ltd. From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 21:23:47 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA17988 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 21:23:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from sax.sax.de (sax.sax.de [193.175.26.33]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA17981 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 21:23:42 -0800 (PST) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by sax.sax.de (8.6.12/8.6.12-s1) with UUCP id GAA23869 for freebsd-chat@freebsd.org; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 06:23:29 +0100 Received: (from j@localhost) by uriah.heep.sax.de (8.8.5/8.6.9) id XAA24054; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 23:55:34 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 23:55:34 +0100 From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch) To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: text editors References: <3.0.32.19970219114328.0069a9b0@deepwell.com> <199702192151.NAA26575@antares.aero.org> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.55-PL10 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Phone: +49-351-2012 669 X-PGP-Fingerprint: DC 47 E6 E4 FF A6 E9 8F 93 21 E0 7D F9 12 D6 4E Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) In-Reply-To: <199702192151.NAA26575@antares.aero.org>; from Mike O'Brien on Feb 19, 1997 13:51:10 -0800 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk As Mike O'Brien wrote: > Ok, I'll enter this fray. I suggest the Rand editor, because it's the > only editor I know of that can cut & paste rectangular blocks of text. Than you at least don't know Emacs :-) (which can also do this in plain text mode, not only under X11). -- cheers, J"org joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-) From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 22:10:16 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA20522 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 22:10:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from rah.star-gate.com (rah.star-gate.com [204.188.121.18]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA20516 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 22:10:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from rah.star-gate.com (localhost.star-gate.com [127.0.0.1]) by rah.star-gate.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id WAA10646; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 22:10:09 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199702200610.WAA10646@rah.star-gate.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 1.6.9 8/22/96 To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: text editors In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 19 Feb 1997 23:55:34 +0100." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 22:10:09 -0800 From: Amancio Hasty Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >From The Desk Of J Wunsch : > As Mike O'Brien wrote: > > > Ok, I'll enter this fray. I suggest the Rand editor, because it's the > > only editor I know of that can cut & paste rectangular blocks of text. > > Than you at least don't know Emacs :-) (which can also do this in > plain text mode, not only under X11). > Ask not what Emacs can do but what you can do with Emacs 8) Amancio From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 22:53:35 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA22516 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 22:53:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from zed.ludd.luth.se (zed.ludd.luth.se [130.240.16.33]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA22511 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 22:53:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from sister.ludd.luth.se (smurfen@sister.ludd.luth.se [130.240.16.77]) by zed.ludd.luth.se (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA15643; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 07:53:30 +0100 Received: from localhost (smurfen@localhost) by sister.ludd.luth.se (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id HAA23770; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 07:53:29 +0100 Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 07:53:28 +0100 (MET) From: Ola Persson To: Amancio Hasty cc: Joerg Wunsch , freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: text editors In-Reply-To: <199702200610.WAA10646@rah.star-gate.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > > Ok, I'll enter this fray. I suggest the Rand editor, because it's the > > > only editor I know of that can cut & paste rectangular blocks of text. I guess this is a religious question. Everyone will give a different answer :) Well, not everyone, since many ppl use the same, but hey, I think that you think that the one YOU use and love is the best one is the one you use. Just like religion. I for myself use pico *runs away* /Ola From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 23:18:04 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA24645 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 23:18:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA24619 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 23:17:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id XAA11291; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 23:14:19 -0800 (PST) To: Michael Smith cc: obrien@antares.aero.org (Mike O'Brien), sol@deepwell.com, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: text editors In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 20 Feb 1997 12:11:48 +1030." <199702200141.MAA14104@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 23:14:18 -0800 Message-ID: <11288.856422858@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Qedit can, and I suspect that Crisp can too. Jordan will now tell us > how to write an elisp macro that can cut arbitrarily polygonal regions > and transform them into other, different, regions when pasted. Ah, to be young again and posessed of so much time for answering abstract challenges like this one. :-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Feb 19 23:29:47 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA25731 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 23:29:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au (daemon@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au [130.102.2.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA25715 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 23:29:31 -0800 (PST) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA22426; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 17:28:25 +1000 Received: by ogre.devetir.qld.gov.au (8.7.5/DEVETIR-E0.3a) id RAA09392; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 17:31:23 +1000 (EST) Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 17:31:23 +1000 (EST) From: Stephen McKay Message-Id: <199702200731.RAA09392@ogre.devetir.qld.gov.au> To: Eivind Eklund cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org, syssgm@devetir.qld.gov.au Subject: Re: text editors X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #1 (NOV) Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Eivind Eklund wrote: >(Emacs does close to everything, but has a user interface with a steep >learning and retaining-curve. If you start using the features you'll be >addicted and never be able to change to anything else. You'll be >frustrated about the things it does badly (which exist), but won't be able >to change to anything else.) Wow! This is the same way I feel about vi (addicted, never switch, frustrated by the stupid bits). Tried emacs once, but the weight of all those extra bits on my hard disk made my PC lopsided and it fell of the desk! :-) Stephen. From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 00:48:25 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id AAA29496 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 00:48:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from carlton.innotts.co.uk (root@carlton.innotts.co.uk [194.176.128.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA29476 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 00:48:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from [194.176.130.81] (serialB10.innotts.co.uk [194.176.130.81]) by carlton.innotts.co.uk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA17365 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 08:47:51 GMT X-Sender: robmel@mailhost.innotts.co.uk Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: <199702200610.WAA10646@rah.star-gate.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 08:36:31 +0000 To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org From: Robin Melville Subject: Re: text editors Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk At 7:53 am +0100 20/2/97, Ola Persson wrote: >> > > Ok, I'll enter this fray. I suggest the Rand editor, because it's the >> > > only editor I know of that can cut & paste rectangular blocks of text. > >I guess this is a religious question. Everyone will give a different >answer :) Well, not everyone, since many ppl use the same, but hey, I >think that you think that the one YOU use and love is the best one is the >one you use. Just like religion. I've been working on a new editor called Squaviemax. It will cut and paste characters at random and reassemble them in arbritrary order anywhere in your file without you needing to touch the keyboard or mouse. Works best on a 386 with a spiky power supply. Ideal for editing sendmail.cf. :) Rob. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin Melville, Addiction Information Services Nottingham Alcohol & Drug Team Tel: +44 (0)115 952 9478 Fax: +44 (0)115 952 9421 work: robmel@nadt.org.uk home: robmel@innotts.co.uk Pages: http://www.innotts.co.uk/~robmel (home page) http://www.innotts.co.uk/nadt (substance misuse pages) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 00:51:06 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id AAA29612 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 00:51:06 -0800 (PST) Received: from carlton.innotts.co.uk (root@carlton.innotts.co.uk [194.176.128.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA29607 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 00:51:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from [194.176.130.81] (serialB10.innotts.co.uk [194.176.130.81]) by carlton.innotts.co.uk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA17444; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 08:50:19 GMT X-Sender: robmel@mailhost.innotts.co.uk Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <199702200731.RAA09392@ogre.devetir.qld.gov.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 08:50:17 +0000 To: Stephen McKay , Eivind Eklund From: Robin Melville Subject: Re: text editors Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org, syssgm@devetir.qld.gov.au Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk At 5:31 pm +1000 20/2/97, Stephen McKay wrote: >Eivind Eklund wrote: > >>(Emacs does close to everything, but has a user interface with a steep >>learning and retaining-curve. If you start using the features you'll be >>addicted and never be able to change to anything else. You'll be >>frustrated about the things it does badly (which exist), but won't be able >>to change to anything else.) > >Wow! This is the same way I feel about vi (addicted, never switch, >frustrated by the stupid bits). Tried emacs once, but the weight of all >those extra bits on my hard disk made my PC lopsided and it fell of the >desk! :-) > Is it true as rumoured that emacs stands for Eight Megabytes and Continues to Swap? Rob. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin Melville, Addiction Information Services Nottingham Alcohol & Drug Team Tel: +44 (0)115 952 9478 Fax: +44 (0)115 952 9421 work: robmel@nadt.org.uk home: robmel@innotts.co.uk Pages: http://www.innotts.co.uk/~robmel (home page) http://www.innotts.co.uk/nadt (substance misuse pages) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 01:06:20 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA00291 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 01:06:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from narcissus.ml.org (root@brosenga.Pitzer.edu [134.173.120.201]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA00286 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 01:06:16 -0800 (PST) Received: (from ben@localhost) by narcissus.ml.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id BAA04524; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 01:06:03 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 01:06:03 -0800 (PST) From: Snob Art Genre To: Robin Melville cc: Stephen McKay , Eivind Eklund , freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: text editors In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 20 Feb 1997, Robin Melville wrote: > At 5:31 pm +1000 20/2/97, Stephen McKay wrote: > >Eivind Eklund wrote: > > > >>(Emacs does close to everything, but has a user interface with a steep > >>learning and retaining-curve. If you start using the features you'll be > >>addicted and never be able to change to anything else. You'll be > >>frustrated about the things it does badly (which exist), but won't be able > >>to change to anything else.) > > > >Wow! This is the same way I feel about vi (addicted, never switch, > >frustrated by the stupid bits). Tried emacs once, but the weight of all > >those extra bits on my hard disk made my PC lopsided and it fell of the > >desk! :-) > > > > Is it true as rumoured that emacs stands for Eight Megabytes and Continues to Swap? It's "Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift". > Rob. > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Robin Melville, Addiction Information Services Nottingham Alcohol & Drug Team > Tel: +44 (0)115 952 9478 Fax: +44 (0)115 952 9421 > work: robmel@nadt.org.uk home: robmel@innotts.co.uk > Pages: http://www.innotts.co.uk/~robmel (home page) > http://www.innotts.co.uk/nadt (substance misuse pages) > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems." From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 01:21:57 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA01057 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 01:21:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from grackle.grondar.za (rpsmgjlZ25eTDXSIBA4Y+LsG6f+1HPvb@grackle.grondar.za [196.7.18.131]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA01049 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 01:21:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from grackle.grondar.za (Jcs2AZDDD+fx9tOXcolpYYIaR7qXxhFf@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by grackle.grondar.za (8.8.5/8.8.4) with ESMTP id LAA14535; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 11:21:08 +0200 (SAT) Message-Id: <199702200921.LAA14535@grackle.grondar.za> To: Robin Melville cc: Stephen McKay , Eivind Eklund , freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: text editors Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 11:21:05 +0200 From: Mark Murray Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Robin Melville wrote: > Is it true as rumoured that emacs stands for Eight Megabytes and > Continues to Swap? Naah. Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift. M -- Mark Murray PGP key fingerprint = 80 36 6E 40 83 D6 8A 36 This .sig is umop ap!sdn. BC 06 EA 0E 7A F2 CE CE From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 02:52:20 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id CAA05541 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 02:52:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu (qmailr@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu [129.101.191.123]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id CAA05534 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 02:52:17 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 14321 invoked by uid 1003); 20 Feb 1997 10:52:14 -0000 Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 02:52:14 -0800 (PST) From: faried nawaz To: Robin Melville cc: Stephen McKay , Eivind Eklund , freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: text editors In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 20 Feb 1997, Robin Melville wrote: > Is it true as rumoured that emacs stands for Eight Megabytes and Continues to Swap? no; emacs macht alle computer scho\"en. From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 04:41:50 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id EAA10203 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 04:41:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from relay.nuxi.com (nuxi.ucdavis.edu [128.120.37.176]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id EAA10190 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 04:41:43 -0800 (PST) Received: from dragon.nuxi.com (reqb-029.ucdavis.edu [128.120.254.29]) by relay.nuxi.com (8.8.4/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA16355 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 04:41:43 -0800 (PST) Received: (from obrien@localhost) by dragon.nuxi.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) id MAA01900; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 12:41:47 GMT Message-ID: <19970220044146.RZ65412@dragon.nuxi.com> Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 04:41:46 -0800 From: obrien@NUXI.com (David O'Brien) To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: EMACS (Re: text editors) References: <199702200921.LAA14535@grackle.grondar.za> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.60_p2-3,5,8-9 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Disclaimer: Mutt Bites! Organization: The NUXI *BSD group X-PGP-Fingerprint: B7 4D 3E E9 11 39 5F A3 90 76 5D 69 58 D9 98 7A X-Pgp-Keyid: 34F9F9D5 In-Reply-To: <199702200921.LAA14535@grackle.grondar.za>; from Mark Murray on Feb 20, 1997 11:21:05 +0200 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Mark Murray writes: > Robin Melville wrote: > > Is it true as rumoured that emacs stands for Eight Megabytes and > > Continues to Swap? Actually E should be `Eighty' today :-) > Naah. > > Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift. EMACS makes a computer slow Eventually malloc()s all computer storage Eats Memory And Compute Sycles -- -- David (obrien@NUXI.com -or- obrien@FreeBSD.org) From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 06:17:09 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id GAA14392 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 06:17:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from oldman.steinkamm.com (arne@OldMan.Steinkamm.COM [194.127.175.225]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id GAA14331 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 06:15:04 -0800 (PST) Received: (from arne@localhost) by oldman.steinkamm.com (8.8.3/8.8.3) id PAA17241; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 15:08:50 +0100 (MET) From: Arne Steinkamm Message-Id: <199702201408.PAA17241@oldman.steinkamm.com> Subject: Re: text editors To: fn@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu (faried nawaz) Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 15:08:50 +0100 (MET) Cc: robmel@innotts.co.uk, syssgm@devetir.qld.gov.au, eivind@dimaga.com, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: from "faried nawaz" at Feb 20, 97 02:52:14 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > On Thu, 20 Feb 1997, Robin Melville wrote: > > > Is it true as rumoured that emacs stands for Eight Megabytes and Continues to Swap? > > no; emacs macht alle computer scho\"en. As a german native speaker i can't prevent to understand this sentence, but, i insist, it's *NOT* true ! .//. Arne -- Arne Steinkamm | Mail (MIME): Arne@Steinkamm.COM IRC: Arne Tel.: +49.89.299.756 | URL: http://WWW.Steinkamm.COM/ NIC-Handle: AS306 Robert-Koch-Str. 4 | "There's coffee in that nebula" D-80538 Muenchen | Cptn. Kathryn Janeway, ST:VOY - The Cloud From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 08:59:26 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA22742 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 08:59:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from elbe.desy.de (elbe.desy.de [131.169.82.208]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id IAA22734 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 08:59:23 -0800 (PST) From: Lars Gerhard Kuehl Date: Thu, 20 Feb 97 18:00:27 +0100 Message-Id: <9702201700.AA10729@elbe.desy.de> To: arne@Steinkamm.COM Subject: Re: text editors Cc: chat@freebsd.org Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > On Thu, 20 Feb 1997, Robin Melville wrote: > > > > > Is it true as rumoured that emacs stands for Eight Megabytes and Continues to Swap? > > > > no; emacs macht alle computer scho\"en. > > As a german native speaker i can't prevent to understand this sentence, Though my mother tongue is german, too, I remap it to "emacs makes all computers slow". And I'm sure there can't many claiming: > but, i insist, it's *NOT* true ! Lars From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 12:16:18 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA05364 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 12:16:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from mexico.brainstorm.eu.org (root@mexico.brainstorm.fr [193.56.58.253]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA05357 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 12:16:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from brasil.brainstorm.eu.org (brasil.brainstorm.fr [193.56.58.33]) by mexico.brainstorm.eu.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id VAA26093 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 21:16:02 +0100 Received: (from uucp@localhost) by brasil.brainstorm.eu.org (8.8.4/8.6.12) with UUCP id VAA06150 for freebsd-chat@freebsd.org; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 21:16:00 +0100 Received: (from roberto@localhost) by keltia.freenix.fr (8.8.5/keltia-uucp-2.9) id UAA16844; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 20:47:59 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <19970220204758.BJ39235@keltia.freenix.fr> Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 20:47:58 +0100 From: roberto@keltia.freenix.fr (Ollivier Robert) To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: text editors References: <199702200731.RAA09392@ogre.devetir.qld.gov.au> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.60,1-3,9 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 3.0-CURRENT ctm#2999 In-Reply-To: ; from Robin Melville on Feb 20, 1997 08:50:17 +0000 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk According to Robin Melville: > Is it true as rumoured that emacs stands for Eight Megabytes and > Continues to Swap? I think it is more « Eighteen Megabytes And Constantly Swapping » -- Ollivier ROBERT -=- The daemon is FREE! -=- roberto@keltia.freenix.fr FreeBSD keltia.freenix.fr 3.0-CURRENT #39: Sun Feb 2 22:12:44 CET 1997 From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 16:58:16 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA21091 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 16:58:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from who.cdrom.com (who.cdrom.com [204.216.27.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA21050 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 16:58:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.31]) by who.cdrom.com (8.7.5/8.6.11) with SMTP id QAA26011 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 16:10:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu by albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id SAA27062; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 18:56:23 -0500 Received: by kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/4.0) id ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 18:54:12 -0500 Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 18:54:12 -0500 Message-Id: <199702202354.SAA17693@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: mark@grondar.za CC: robmel@innotts.co.uk, syssgm@devetir.qld.gov.au, eivind@dimaga.com, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-reply-to: <199702200921.LAA14535@grackle.grondar.za> (message from Mark Murray on Thu, 20 Feb 1997 11:21:05 +0200) Subject: Re: text editors From: Joel Ray Holveck Reply-to: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >> Is it true as rumoured that emacs stands for Eight Megabytes and >> Continues to Swap? >Naah. >Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift. For these and more, see the emacs distribution, in etc/JOKES Eventually mallocs all core space EMACS MACRO ACTED CREDO SODOM Generally Not Used ; Except by Middle Aged Computer Scientists Emacs Makes All Computing Simple Eleven thousand Monkeys Asynchronously Crank out these Slogans -- http://www.wp.com/piquan --- Joel Ray Holveck --- joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu All my opinions are my own, not the FSF's, my employer's, or my dog's. Second law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi sendmail: segmentation violation -- core dumped From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 17:27:00 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA24089 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 17:27:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from lightside.com (hamby1.lightside.net [207.67.176.17]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA24083 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 17:26:57 -0800 (PST) Received: by lightside.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id RAA00612; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 17:27:39 -0800 Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 17:27:39 -0800 From: jehamby@lightside.com (Jake Hamby) Message-Id: <199702210127.RAA00612@lightside.com> To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: SysV printing lameness... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-MD5: mgHf+FuTExr5N/6PxAd+6g== Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Now that I'm familiar with the mechanism, and it actually works most of the time, I don't have a problem with the System V LP service. Certainly the BSD print system has its inadequacies too. But somehow Sun manages to screw something up, as evidenced by my story... I wanted to set up printing on Solaris/x86 at home to filter my PostScript jobs through Ghostscript, and generate PCL for my HP Deskjet 500 printer. I have a tried-and-true script to do this, which works great (with minor modifications) on FreeBSD, Linux, and Solaris (on a SPARCstation connected to a LaserJet III at work). But when I set it up, and tried to print out tiger.ps, I got a garbled picture with weird characters along the left side. I tried everything, and there is a LOT to try, since SYSV printing has so many more options than BSD, and they are configured through command-line utilities, rather than editing a printcap file directly. Finally, in desparation, I posted to solaris-x86@mlist.eis.com, and received the response to type: # lpadmin -p printername -H none which apparently removes some STREAMS module which "helpfully" converts LF to CRLF, corrupting my PCL picture in the process! This is an *undocumented* switch, no wonder I didn't find it. Good thing I posted to the mailing list, or I would never have figured it out... Two conclusions from this story: First, mailing lists are a wonderful resource, regardless of the OS, and second, STREAMS are truly evil! Have a nice day... -- Jake From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 17:52:00 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA25410 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 17:52:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.31]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA25399; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 17:51:41 -0800 (PST) Received: from churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu by albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id UAA00586; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 20:52:57 -0500 Received: from kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu by churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/4.0) with ESMTP id ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 20:15:18 -0500 Received: by kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/4.0) id ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 20:14:00 -0500 Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 20:14:00 -0500 Message-Id: <199702210114.UAA17911@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: toor@dyson.iquest.net CC: dyson@freebsd.org, cmott@srv.net, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-reply-to: <199702190322.WAA17162@dyson.iquest.net> (toor@dyson.iquest.net) Subject: Re: GPL From: Joel Ray Holveck Reply-to: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >> For a user, the GPL is as much of a carte blanche as you want. You >> can use it, you can distribute it, you can sell it, whatever you want, >> just so long as it stays GPL'd. > But if you change the software one IOTA, you must make the > source of the changes available to those that you distribute binaries > to. This is correct. However, it also makes the assumption that distributing the source is harmful. This is where I disagree. Although distributed source does allow competitors to see what changes you have made, this allows them to improve, and to make further changes, which you will receive. Because NeXT based their Objective C on GCC, they were required to distribute the source. Steve Jobs did not want to do this, but the FSF would not allow him to violate the GPL in that manner. However, bugs in Objective C were found and fixed by its users. Optimizations were added. The compiler was a better compiler--and hence NeXT, based on Objective C, was a better system--than would have been possible had those changes been kept secret. By hoarding sources, limiting licenses, patenting techniques, and copyrighting interfaces, the entire industry suffers rather than profits. Had rms and the other hackers chosen to keep GCC secret, NeXT would have been forced to write their own compiler from scratch, costing a great deal of time and money. >>> The second (and more substantial) complaint, is that derived works >>> using GPLed code end up being encumbered by the terms of the GPL. >> This is a feature, not a bug. It was designed that way intentionally, >> to keep GNU's works from becoming tools for the proprietary software >> people. > What is wrong with the proprietary software people? Especially the > little guy just getting started with a good idea that the original > software author didn't have (or perhaps imagine?) The guy who adds > to the GPLed software needs to understand that his additions will > likely be encumbered, and perhaps question the value of the original (GPLed) > works relative to the value of his invention. Algorithms need not be kept secret to be profitable. Walnut Creek is making a pretty profit, and allowing all their sources to be availible for FTP. >>> The third (and yet more substantial) complaint, is that the original >>> author who releases code to the world under GPL, is also bound by the >>> GPL that is applied to the modifications of his original source code. >> This is misleading. > Actually, it is precisely correct. I said misleading, not incorrect. It doesn't take you down the wrong path, but it does point you in that direction. > The original author is bound by > the GPL applied to the derived works in the same way that those who > add to the original works are bound by his GPL encumberance. The author does not, in my mind, have the right to hold a monopoly on his program. The good of the many outweighs the good of the few. >> An author can write code, release it under GPL, >> modify it, and release it non-GPL'd. (Example: ICS chess server) If >> somebody else writes modifications, and signs the copyright over to >> the original author (as most people do), then the author is still free >> to release it non-GPL'd. > So those people who write the enhancements would have fewer rights than the > original author? Legally, only if they give those rights up by signing them over to the author. Ethically, they are equal to the author---and this is why they have the right to the source. The author does not have any ethical right to force a monopoly. >>> The fourth (and the basis for the above points being of concern) complaint, >>> is that if you distribute binaries of a program under GPL, then you are >>> obligated to make sure that the receiver of your distribution is able >>> to get the source code of the program. >> Assuming that you don't mind giving out your source, this isn't a >> problem. > Agreed, and much of the time, source code can have cost either alot of money > to produce, or have unique and novel ideas that would be undesirable to > disclose. This is especially important for the small manufacturer, or large > company with paranoid (rightfully so) lawyers. By hoarding these ideas, the author is doing a great harm to society. In rms's paper, "Why Software Should Be Free" (availible in the Emacs distribution and installation as etc/copying.paper), rms hypothesizes about a society in which recipes were hoarded, and gives an example in which a diner is faced with a delicious recipe, but one which contains salt, which he is forbidden from eating. He is either required to pay an exhorbant amount of money and wait for two years to have the salt removed (since the chef has a monopoly), or to refrain from eating the meal altogether. > That is all and well, but the information in those sources is a combination > of both the GPLed original, and code that must necessarily come under the > GPL encumberance because of interface issues (per RMS.) This implies that > the payment for using GPLed code is to give away potentially valuable > trade secrets. These secrets only need be given away if you give away binaries. If you sell your binaries, the source must accompany them, but you have made your profit already. More importantly, these ideas need not be secret to be valuable. There is not a programmer alive who will question the value of linked lists, but these are not secret. In addition, because everybody has access to learn about linked lists, all of society can use them and write better programs. The only thing that hoarding algorithms accomplishes is to cripple other programmers, and this is when your business has gone from competition to combat. >>> With that, you will be divulging ideas that were potentially time consuming >>> (expensive) to create. You will then be compelled to give that hard fought >>> work to the person that you gave the binary to. >> That is the basis of the GPL. I work as a contract programmer on >> occasion. My customer asks me to write a program to help him track >> his oil production. (I live in West Texas, not Boston, despite my >> address.) I write that program. He now can track his oil. If his >> neighbor wants to keep track of oil, then my customer can give this to >> him. My efforts can help his neighbor as well, and it was good. This >> is the idea behind free software. > In the above case, GPL is not needed. If you wrote your program on a > PC clone or common U**X clone, then you can give your customer binary > redistribution rights. That is orthogonal to the source redistribution > requirements of GPL. However, the binaries may not be sufficient. If his friend lives in another state, then his laws and reports will vary slightly from the assumptions built into the program. He will be forced either to write a new program from scratch, or do without. Either way, the benefit that he could have gotten from society was lost. Several of our points of conflict in this matter center around differing goals and different presuppositions about the rights of users, etc. I have little else to say. If you have more to add, feel free, but I believe most of the group is beginning to tire of this. -- http://www.wp.com/piquan --- Joel Ray Holveck --- joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu All my opinions are my own, not the FSF's, my employer's, or my dog's. Second law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi sendmail: segmentation violation -- core dumped From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 18:21:31 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA27395 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 18:21:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.31]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA27390 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 18:21:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu by albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id SAA27062; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 18:56:23 -0500 Received: by kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/4.0) id ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 18:54:12 -0500 Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 18:54:12 -0500 Message-Id: <199702202354.SAA17693@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: mark@grondar.za CC: robmel@innotts.co.uk, syssgm@devetir.qld.gov.au, eivind@dimaga.com, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-reply-to: <199702200921.LAA14535@grackle.grondar.za> (message from Mark Murray on Thu, 20 Feb 1997 11:21:05 +0200) Subject: Re: text editors From: Joel Ray Holveck Reply-to: joelh@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >> Is it true as rumoured that emacs stands for Eight Megabytes and >> Continues to Swap? >Naah. >Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift. For these and more, see the emacs distribution, in etc/JOKES Eventually mallocs all core space EMACS MACRO ACTED CREDO SODOM Generally Not Used ; Except by Middle Aged Computer Scientists Emacs Makes All Computing Simple Eleven thousand Monkeys Asynchronously Crank out these Slogans -- http://www.wp.com/piquan --- Joel Ray Holveck --- joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu All my opinions are my own, not the FSF's, my employer's, or my dog's. Second law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi sendmail: segmentation violation -- core dumped From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 19:18:31 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA02363 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 19:18:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from tyger.inna.net (root@tyger.inna.net [206.151.66.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA02353 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 19:18:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from dolphin.inna.net (jamie@dolphin.inna.net [206.151.66.2]) by tyger.inna.net (8.8.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id WAA06185; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 22:16:01 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 22:13:46 -0500 (EST) From: Jamie Bowden To: Jake Hamby cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: SysV printing lameness... In-Reply-To: <199702210127.RAA00612@lightside.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 20 Feb 1997, Jake Hamby wrote: > Two conclusions from this story: First, mailing lists are a wonderful > resource, regardless of the OS, and second, STREAMS are truly evil! Have a > nice day... Try lp -t postscript -d printer This tells the SysV lp to filter it as postscript no matter what, which it may or may not do based on file extension. Jamie Bowden Network Administrator, TBI Ltd. From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 20:28:05 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA00344 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 20:28:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from who.cdrom.com (who.cdrom.com [204.216.27.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA00315 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 20:28:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.crl.com (mail.crl.com [165.113.1.22]) by who.cdrom.com (8.7.5/8.6.11) with SMTP id UAA26577 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 20:02:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from fallout.campusview.indiana.edu by mail.crl.com with SMTP id AA21785 (5.65c/IDA-1.5 for ); Thu, 20 Feb 1997 19:52:21 -0800 Received: from localhost (jfieber@localhost) by fallout.campusview.indiana.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA09756; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 22:45:31 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 22:45:31 -0500 (EST) From: John Fieber To: Brandon Gillespie Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Blinking Daemon in 'Powered By' GIF In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 19 Feb 1997, Brandon Gillespie wrote: > I did a little cleanup on the 'Powered By' GIF and I animated it a touch > so he blinks every so often. Very nifty! it is a little large at 31K, compared to 5K for the original. Any way you can squeeze that down a bit? -john From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 21:48:41 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA05969 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 21:48:41 -0800 (PST) Received: from cold.org (cold.org [206.81.134.103]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA05959 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 21:48:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (brandon@localhost) by cold.org (8.8.5/8.8.3) with SMTP id WAA21566 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 22:48:45 -0700 (MST) Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 22:48:44 -0700 (MST) From: Brandon Gillespie To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Blinking Daemon in 'Powered By' GIF In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 20 Feb 1997, John Fieber wrote: > On Wed, 19 Feb 1997, Brandon Gillespie wrote: > > > I did a little cleanup on the 'Powered By' GIF and I animated it a touch > > so he blinks every so often. > > Very nifty! it is a little large at 31K, compared to 5K for the > original. Any way you can squeeze that down a bit? Short of reducing the frames involved (and making the blink choppier) no.. -Brandon From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 22:54:41 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA10222 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 22:54:41 -0800 (PST) Received: from rocky.mt.sri.com (rocky.mt.sri.com [206.127.76.100]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA10206; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 22:54:32 -0800 (PST) Received: (from nate@localhost) by rocky.mt.sri.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id XAA00572; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 23:54:22 -0700 (MST) Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 23:54:22 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <199702210654.XAA00572@rocky.mt.sri.com> From: Nate Williams MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Cc: toor@dyson.iquest.net, dyson@freebsd.org, cmott@srv.net, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL In-Reply-To: <199702210114.UAA17911@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> References: <199702190322.WAA17162@dyson.iquest.net> <199702210114.UAA17911@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > >> For a user, the GPL is as much of a carte blanche as you want. You > >> can use it, you can distribute it, you can sell it, whatever you want, > >> just so long as it stays GPL'd. > > > But if you change the software one IOTA, you must make the > > source of the changes available to those that you distribute binaries > > to. > > This is correct. However, it also makes the assumption that > distributing the source is harmful. This is where I disagree. > > Although distributed source does allow competitors to see what changes > you have made, this allows them to improve, and to make further > changes, which you will receive. Sure, but how to I recover the time I spent (as a company) creating those changes? (For development tools it's a bit hazy unless you're in the business of selling development tools.) Assuming you are in the business if 'selling software' (and that software *IS* your product, unlike NeXT, where fixing bugs in the compiler was critical to having software to sell), you *must* recover your costs somehow. If you write good/bug-free software, once you sell the first copy it can be copied verbatim to everyone/anyone, and anyone else (your competitor) can grab the software, use the ideas out of it (w/out copying the actual software), or copy the software and try to sell it themselves (see the next paragraph). I've hidden nothing from them. Companies such a WC-CDROM take existing 'free' software, package it up nicely and sell it. They could do that with my source code and leave me and my programming staff with nothing except for the price we got from the first few copies of the software we sold. > By hoarding sources, limiting licenses, patenting techniques, and > copyrighting interfaces, the entire industry suffers rather than > profits. Don't lump *ALL* of that into the same domain. I'm against software patents and interface copyrights as much as the next guy, and I dislike the licensing schemes many vendors take. (But understand that it's a necessary evil). > Had rms and the other hackers chosen to keep GCC secret, > NeXT would have been forced to write their own compiler from scratch, > costing a great deal of time and money. Or they could have teamed up with Meta-Ware and had them port their 68K compiler to NeXT. They had to pay *someone* to port GCC to the NeXT box, it didn't come for free. > Algorithms need not be kept secret to be profitable. Walnut Creek is > making a pretty profit, and allowing all their sources to be availible > for FTP. Walnut Creek CD-ROM is not a software house, but a 'media' distributor. See above. I suspect the most significant piece of software WC has ever 'sponsored' Jordan's sysinstall program, probably not the most ground-breaking and exciting piece of code he ever wrote. :) > > The original author is bound by > > the GPL applied to the derived works in the same way that those who > > add to the original works are bound by his GPL encumberance. > > The author does not, in my mind, have the right to hold a monopoly on > his program. The good of the many outweighs the good of the few. *laugh* If only the world were that black/white. What 'good' does it do my family to go hungry because I can't afford to support them with what I do for a living? I guess I could go flip burgers at McDuck's for the 'greater good of mankind' who benefit my software. Socialism as a way of life has failed, and will continue to fail because people are basically greedy. > > Agreed, and much of the time, source code can have cost either alot of money > > to produce, or have unique and novel ideas that would be undesirable to > > disclose. This is especially important for the small manufacturer, or large > > company with paranoid (rightfully so) lawyers. > > By hoarding these ideas, the author is doing a great harm to society. See above. Socialism is a failed ideal. Socialism doesn't feed people in a capatilistic society, and we live in a capatalistic society. > distribution and installation as etc/copying.paper), rms hypothesizes > about a society in which recipes were hoarded, and gives an example in > which a diner is faced with a delicious recipe, but one which contains > salt, which he is forbidden from eating. He is either required to pay > an exhorbant amount of money and wait for two years to have the salt > removed (since the chef has a monopoly), or to refrain from eating the > meal altogether. Or, if the need for a meal w/out Salt was great enough an enterprising person would start a 'salt-free' diner. Hmm, this sounds like what has happened in recent years with the increase in popularity of being a vegatarian. And, do you know what? It's worked. (Amazing.) > > That is all and well, but the information in those sources is a combination > > of both the GPLed original, and code that must necessarily come under the > > GPL encumberance because of interface issues (per RMS.) This implies that > > the payment for using GPLed code is to give away potentially valuable > > trade secrets. > > These secrets only need be given away if you give away binaries. If > you sell your binaries, the source must accompany them, but you have > made your profit already. Yep, you had to recover *all* of your development costs, *AND* make a profit with one (or a few stupid ones) customer. The price for Nate-Office-97 is $200K for the first few customers, and free for the rest. (And boy, my profit margin is *pretty* thin.) > There is not a programmer alive who will question the value of linked > lists, but these are not secret. And don't have to be, because it is *SO* darn obvious. But again, we're talking about software patents here, with are completely separate from the GPL. Please don't confuse them. Nate From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 23:13:35 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA10863 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 23:13:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from carlton.innotts.co.uk (root@carlton.innotts.co.uk [194.176.128.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA10856 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 23:13:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from [194.176.130.65] (serialB00.innotts.co.uk [194.176.130.65]) by carlton.innotts.co.uk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA21546 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 07:13:21 GMT X-Sender: robmel@mailhost.innotts.co.uk Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: <199702210127.RAA00612@lightside.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 07:12:56 +0000 To: chat@freebsd.org From: Robin Melville Subject: Re: SysV printing lameness... Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk At 10:13 pm -0500 20/2/97, Jamie Bowden wrote: >On Thu, 20 Feb 1997, Jake Hamby wrote: > >> Two conclusions from this story: First, mailing lists are a wonderful >> resource, regardless of the OS, and second, STREAMS are truly evil! Have a >> nice day... Yup.. I graduated from SCO Unix to FreeBSD. Streams R a great idea until they start sending packets to the screen instead of the ether card. Rob ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin Melville, Addiction Information Services Nottingham Alcohol & Drug Team Tel: +44 (0)115 952 9478 Fax: +44 (0)115 952 9421 work: robmel@nadt.org.uk home: robmel@innotts.co.uk Pages: http://www.innotts.co.uk/~robmel (home page) http://www.innotts.co.uk/nadt (substance misuse pages) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Feb 20 23:59:01 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA12395 for chat-outgoing; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 23:59:01 -0800 (PST) Received: from lightside.com (hamby1.lightside.net [207.67.176.17]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA12390 for ; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 23:58:58 -0800 (PST) Received: by lightside.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id XAA01275; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 23:59:43 -0800 Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 23:59:43 -0800 From: jehamby@lightside.com (Jake Hamby) Message-Id: <199702210759.XAA01275@lightside.com> To: chat@freebsd.org, robmel@innotts.co.uk Subject: Re: SysV printing lameness... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-MD5: ui0cbIeB/sqe+BaRuBPl4Q== Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Robin Melville writes: > At 10:13 pm -0500 20/2/97, Jamie Bowden wrote: > >On Thu, 20 Feb 1997, Jake Hamby wrote: > > > >> Two conclusions from this story: First, mailing lists are a wonderful > >> resource, regardless of the OS, and second, STREAMS are truly evil! Have a > >> nice day... > > Yup.. > I graduated from SCO Unix to FreeBSD. Streams R a great idea until they start sending packets to the screen instead of the ether card. > > Rob Sounds nasty (but so is SCO :) ... I just read the part in UNIX Internals about how sockets are implemented in SVR4 using STREAMS. Then I read how Solaris 2.6 has actual kernel sockets (hmm, just like BSD!) which significantly improved their SPECweb96 performance. Guess STREAMS are great, except when you try to implement sockets with them, and you actually want to have good TCP/IP performance! Out of curiosity, has anyone benchmarked FreeBSD vs. other OS's with SPECweb96 yet? It sounds like it would be a great way to kick sand in the faces of Linux and the other UNIX's if we had way better results. Too bad I don't have the testbed or the money to buy a copy of the benchmark. Any takers? -- Jake From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 01:27:44 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA15901 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 01:27:44 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.calweb.com (mail.calweb.com [208.131.56.11]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA15895 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 01:27:41 -0800 (PST) Received: from devnull (devnull.calweb.com [208.131.56.69]) by mail.calweb.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id BAA12973; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 01:26:44 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <3.0.32.19970221012524.009e7500@pop.calweb.com> Warning: Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE) will be returned to send in bulk X-Sender: jfesler@pop.calweb.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 01:26:13 -0800 To: Brandon Gillespie , freebsd-chat@freebsd.org From: Jason Fesler Subject: Re: Blinking Daemon in 'Powered By' GIF Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk At 10:48 PM 2/20/97 -0700, Brandon Gillespie wrote: >On Thu, 20 Feb 1997, John Fieber wrote: >> On Wed, 19 Feb 1997, Brandon Gillespie wrote: >> >> > I did a little cleanup on the 'Powered By' GIF and I animated it a touch >> > so he blinks every so often. >> >> Very nifty! it is a little large at 31K, compared to 5K for the >> original. Any way you can squeeze that down a bit? > >Short of reducing the frames involved (and making the blink choppier) no.. I spent the time to cut it down; it's 7k now, and a pallete of 64 colors. All but the first frame, are only of a small portion of the head, reducing the bandwidth needed to transmit this image. It's a *bit* choppier. Tanstaafl.. http://www.gigo.com/powered_by_freebsd_7k.gif Thanks to Brandon for the nice starting point :) -- Jason Fesler jfesler@calweb.com Internic: 'whois jf319' Admin, CalWeb Internet Services http://www.calweb.com Junk email returned, in bulk, back to sender; w/copies to all postmasters. You got junk mail problems? Use Eudora Pro, MSIE's mail, or 'man procmail'. From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 05:15:50 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id FAA23149 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 05:15:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from root.com (implode.root.com [198.145.90.17]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id FAA23090; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 05:13:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by root.com (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id FAA04885; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 05:14:10 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199702211314.FAA04885@root.com> X-Authentication-Warning: implode.root.com: localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: chat@freebsd.org cc: core@freebsd.org Subject: new all-time traffic record on wcarchive From: David Greenman Reply-To: dg@root.com Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 05:14:10 -0800 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk We set a new all-time one day traffic record on wcarchive yesterday. The stats are attached. Note that the numbers would have been even higher (by about 4GB) had a drive not failed and killed the machine an hour before the log rotation/stats generation. -DG David Greenman Core-team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project ------- Forwarded Message Return-Path: root@wcarchive.cdrom.com Received: from wcarchive.cdrom.com (wcarchive.cdrom.com [165.113.58.253]) by root.com (8.8.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id FAA04672 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 05:04:26 -0800 (PST) Received: (from root@localhost) by wcarchive.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) id FAA03368 for ftp-stats; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 05:03:19 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 05:03:19 -0800 (PST) From: "Root wcarchive.cdrom.com" Message-Id: <199702211303.FAA03368@wcarchive.cdrom.com> To: ftp-stats@wcarchive.cdrom.com Subject: Dual Log Stats - 1997/02/21 ************************************* *** Statistics for : Feb 21, 1997 *** ************************************* _____Summary Information FTP Hits : 419,551 HTTP Hits : 274,022 Files transferred : 646,650 Bytes transferred : 142,843,479,108 _____Downloads by Files/Bytes Total FTP HTTP FTP HTTP Total Total Archive Name Bytes(k) Bytes(k) Bytes(k) Files Files %Bytes %Files - -------------- ------------ ----------- ----------- ------ ------ ------ ------ FreeBSD 29,690,402 29,673,286 17,116 191251 516 20.79 29.66 gamesdomain 24,877,159 24,875,236 1,922 3762 96 17.42 0.60 simtelnet 18,294,737 13,945,163 4,349,573 32779 38259 12.81 10.99 linux 11,641,042 11,215,630 425,411 52797 6527 8.15 9.17 games 11,555,093 11,210,771 344,322 19905 4519 8.09 3.78 idgames 10,149,952 9,478,175 671,776 14267 3884 7.11 2.81 idgames2 7,788,739 4,498,537 3,290,201 27346 21905 5.45 7.62 demos 5,708,730 4,259,061 1,449,669 18675 18895 4.00 5.81 povray 3,594,274 3,395,336 198,938 2462 800 2.52 0.50 XFree86 3,470,762 3,470,366 395 3935 50 2.43 0.62 os2 3,389,969 3,287,306 102,662 10342 1386 2.37 1.81 win 2,440,798 1,851,793 589,005 5019 4480 1.71 1.47 tex 1,312,330 1,208,416 103,914 11570 1814 0.92 2.07 dresden 1,135,136 995,832 139,304 3437 2011 0.79 0.84 artpacks 992,991 967,586 25,404 2939 598 0.70 0.55 cica 678,197 543,336 134,860 1286 1934 0.47 0.50 X11 617,670 611,079 6,590 604 272 0.43 0.14 WC_WEB 596,498 0 596,498 0 54639 0.42 8.45 bible 450,336 187,420 262,915 275 1564 0.32 0.28 irc 436,853 436,848 4 911 3 0.31 0.14 gnu 432,387 381,131 51,256 288 271 0.30 0.09 abuse 411,307 410,152 1,155 245 11 0.29 0.04 WC_ROOT 313,412 313,412 0 1104 0 0.22 0.17 windows 308,446 292,786 15,659 1276 228 0.22 0.23 delphi 241,089 165,754 75,335 2986 4881 0.17 1.22 garbo 223,480 195,968 27,511 1188 1117 0.16 0.36 math 215,120 208,418 6,702 250 279 0.15 0.08 japanese 187,805 169,322 18,483 360 288 0.13 0.10 gutenberg 170,329 151,221 19,107 305 178 0.12 0.07 demoszip 145,437 0 145,437 0 7219 0.10 1.12 avalon 139,584 139,540 43 1261 48 0.10 0.20 mac 138,863 138,863 0 328 0 0.10 0.05 games_patches 132,648 4,338 128,309 19 761 0.09 0.12 unreal 125,993 108,438 17,554 42 47 0.09 0.01 languages 125,518 125,175 342 434 60 0.09 0.08 cdrom 78,571 41,373 37,198 1166 475 0.06 0.25 asme 68,523 35,442 33,081 305 418 0.05 0.11 perl 67,981 46,777 21,204 721 292 0.05 0.16 cgi-bin 40,177 0 40,177 0 3705 0.03 0.57 obi 38,467 8,491 29,975 145 740 0.03 0.14 security 36,813 27,376 9,437 292 435 0.03 0.11 visions 31,643 0 31,643 0 1738 0.02 0.27 win95 28,339 28,339 0 12 0 0.02 0.00 HTTP_IN 26,786 0 26,786 0 7034 0.02 1.09 viseng 26,459 26,119 340 14 50 0.02 0.01 ada 23,148 0 23,148 0 670 0.02 0.10 infozip 22,733 22,733 0 222 0 0.02 0.03 tcl 22,594 20,558 2,036 79 103 0.02 0.03 internet 18,001 13,336 4,664 553 424 0.01 0.15 archive 16,654 0 16,654 0 3902 0.01 0.60 netlib 15,992 15,239 752 176 79 0.01 0.04 hamradio 14,022 14,022 0 130 0 0.01 0.02 nebula 11,670 5,614 6,056 57 390 0.01 0.07 simcgi-bin 9,664 0 9,664 0 2448 0.01 0.38 ~mr2 9,364 0 9,364 0 605 0.01 0.09 ~satya 9,283 0 9,283 0 360 0.01 0.06 tomahawk 9,241 9,241 0 109 0 0.01 0.02 algorithms 7,809 4,484 3,325 435 431 0.01 0.13 ~akiy 7,717 0 7,717 0 1663 0.01 0.26 MacSciTech 7,058 7,058 0 31 0 0.00 0.00 unix-c 6,888 5,974 913 45 34 0.00 0.01 mac_Umich 6,790 0 6,790 0 139 0.00 0.02 4cust 6,063 5,810 252 25 13 0.00 0.01 win.tar.Z 5,611 5,611 0 1 0 0.00 0.00 icons 5,417 0 5,417 0 20240 0.00 3.13 demosmradio 5,191 0 5,191 0 299 0.00 0.05 .12 4,766 4,766 0 6 0 0.00 0.00 WC_PUB 2,103 2,103 0 848 0 0.00 0.13 www 2,037 0 2,037 0 224 0.00 0.03 .4 1,664 1,664 0 15 0 0.00 0.00 C++ 1,511 0 1,511 0 125 0.00 0.02 . 1,487 1,485 2 3 1 0.00 0.00 allfiles.zip 1,410 0 1,410 0 9 0.00 0.00 pub/win95/demo 1,388 1,388 0 1 0 0.00 0.00 cgi-bin.akiy 1,277 0 1,277 0 9 0.00 0.00 bsd-sources 1,077 1,076 0 100 1 0.00 0.02 ~murray 1,046 0 1,046 0 181 0.00 0.03 wcarchive.jpg 1,033 1,033 0 23 0 0.00 0.00 .5 950 950 0 12 0 0.00 0.00 mr2 939 939 0 14 0 0.00 0.00 ~jafar1 659 0 659 0 143 0.00 0.02 pwd.db 655 655 0 16 0 0.00 0.00 tomademoswk 280 0 280 0 32 0.00 0.00 wcarchive.txt 280 280 0 162 0 0.00 0.03 satya 227 227 0 9 0 0.00 0.00 ~brian 187 0 187 0 68 0.00 0.01 ~radman 171 0 171 0 20 0.00 0.00 thldrmn 158 158 0 6 0 0.00 0.00 mac_MacSciTech 106 0 106 0 5 0.00 0.00 murray 76 76 0 16 0 0.00 0.00 00index.txt 70 0 70 0 34 0.00 0.01 local 41 41 0 13 0 0.00 0.00 allfiles.rar 26 0 26 0 2 0.00 0.00 " 23 0 23 0 9 0.00 0.00 msg.welcome 5 5 0 5 0 0.00 0.00 4.4BSD-Lite 5 0 5 0 5 0.00 0.00 http://www.cdr 4 0 4 0 1 0.00 0.00 localtime 3 3 0 4 0 0.00 0.00 group 2 2 0 10 0 0.00 0.00 ?86,36 2 0 2 0 1 0.00 0.00 ? 2 0 2 0 1 0.00 0.00 /jobs.Z 1 1 0 1 0 0.00 0.00 msg.toomany 0 0 0 2 0 0.00 0.00 demos00_index. 0 0 0 115 0 0.00 0.02 win95.tar.Z 0 0 0 1 0 0.00 0.00 http://www.cdr 0 0 0 0 1 0.00 0.00 b 0 0 0 1 0 0.00 0.00 /UPLOADS.TXT.Z 0 0 0 1 0 0.00 0.00 /README.Z 0 0 0 1 0 0.00 0.00 - -------------- ------------ ----------- ----------- ------ ------ ------ ------ 109 archives 142,843,479 129,276,144 13,567,257 419551 227099 100.0 100.0 WC_PUB = /archive/pub/* WC_ROOT = /archive/* WC_WEB = /a/local/www/htdocs/* _____Downloads by Country (top 25, not counting unresolved IP's) Count Country Name ----------- --------------------------------------------------------- 335658 United States Of America 50992 Japan 23786 Canada 18610 Sweden 16288 Australia 12899 Germany 9064 United Kingdom 9021 France 7735 Italy 6397 Netherlands 6111 Poland 5445 Brazil 5356 Russian Federation 5327 Spain 5109 Ireland 4735 Finland 3927 Thailand 3599 South Africa 3274 Denmark 2865 Belgium 2856 Mexico 2768 Taiwan 2459 Norway 2211 Ukrainian Ssr _____Downloads by Domain (top 30, including unresolved IP's) Unique Domains : 37075 Count Domain Name ----------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 15812 miller.cs.uwm.edu 12559 194.77.95.99 10087 sorbus.sdi.slu.se 8487 grid.direct.ca 8432 ftp.digex.net 8336 mirror0.iij.ad.jp 7024 mx1.nisiq.net 6626 arnold.telstra.net.au 6185 services.dese.state.mo.us 6059 ftp.tokyonet.ad.jp 5915 elephant.dtinet.or.jp 5862 mother.cdrom.com 4897 pascal.ibp.fr 4671 ns.isi.ie 4532 tyo.gate.nec.co.jp 3626 200.23.235.67 3581 ftp.jaist.ac.jp 3545 angurus.slab.ecl.net 3048 leo.inet.it 2884 167.160.225.134 2814 tyo22.gate.nec.co.jp 2726 zoffy.asahi-net.or.jp 2385 web.rge.com 2365 pc117.loxinfo.co.th 2302 slip129-37-195-96.nc.us.ibm.net 2284 scorpius.cecom.ufmg.br 1985 b52-90.datanet.nyu.edu 1758 sbdavid.cs.sunysb.edu 1572 slip129-37-195-94.nc.us.ibm.net 1473 inet003.sit.qc.ca ------- End of Forwarded Message From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 05:34:10 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id FAA23821 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 05:34:10 -0800 (PST) Received: from root.com (implode.root.com [198.145.90.17]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id FAA23716; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 05:32:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by root.com (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id FAA04990; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 05:33:04 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199702211333.FAA04990@root.com> X-Authentication-Warning: implode.root.com: localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: chat@freebsd.org cc: core@freebsd.org Subject: Re: new all-time traffic record on wcarchive In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 21 Feb 1997 05:14:10 PST." <199702211314.FAA04885@root.com> From: David Greenman Reply-To: dg@root.com Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 05:33:04 -0800 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > We set a new all-time one day traffic record on wcarchive yesterday. The >stats are attached. Note that the numbers would have been even higher (by >about 4GB) had a drive not failed and killed the machine an hour before the >log rotation/stats generation. Other miscellaneous info: The old record was 115GB and was set on August 10th, 1996. This new record of 142.8GB beats out the old one by nearly 25%. -DG David Greenman Core-team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 06:34:05 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id GAA27048 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 06:34:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from nevis.oss.uswest.net (nevis.oss.uswest.net [204.147.85.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id GAA27039 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 06:34:03 -0800 (PST) Received: (from greg@localhost) by nevis.oss.uswest.net (8.8.2/8.8.2) id IAA26592 for freebsd-chat@freebsd.org; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 08:33:32 -0600 (CST) From: "Greg Rowe" Message-Id: <9702210833.ZM26590@nevis.oss.uswest.net> Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 08:33:31 -0600 X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.1 10oct95) To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Need a Chuckle After a Long Week ? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk I came accross this URL the other day: http://www.islandparadise.com/fun/index.html -- Greg Rowe | U S West - Interact Services | INTERNET greg@uswest.net 111 Washington Ave. South | Fax: (612) 672-8537 Minneapolis, MN USA 55401 | Voice: (612) 672-8535 Never trust an operating system you don't have source for.... From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 06:58:39 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id GAA28504 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 06:58:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from grackle.grondar.za (Rvq0uHyB9VsYleBWVHM8D5btpINnRApk@grackle.grondar.za [196.7.18.131]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id GAA28498 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 06:58:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from grackle.grondar.za (GWjce6uzC2HuKjAiF2wF76rKX/yz0lL6@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by grackle.grondar.za (8.8.5/8.8.4) with ESMTP id QAA18809; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 16:58:10 +0200 (SAT) Message-Id: <199702211458.QAA18809@grackle.grondar.za> To: "Greg Rowe" cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Need a Chuckle After a Long Week ? Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 16:58:01 +0200 From: Mark Murray Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk This looks perilously close to SPAM... M "Greg Rowe" wrote: > I came accross this URL the other day: > > http://www.islandparadise.com/fun/index.html > > -- > Greg Rowe | > U S West - Interact Services | INTERNET greg@uswest.net > 111 Washington Ave. South | Fax: (612) 672-8537 > Minneapolis, MN USA 55401 | Voice: (612) 672-8535 > > Never trust an operating system you don't have source for.... > -- Mark Murray PGP key fingerprint = 80 36 6E 40 83 D6 8A 36 This .sig is umop ap!sdn. BC 06 EA 0E 7A F2 CE CE From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 07:02:15 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA28733 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 07:02:15 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp1.sympatico.ca (smtp1.sympatico.ca [204.101.251.52]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id GAA28532; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 06:59:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from X2296 (ppp1673.on.sympatico.ca [206.172.249.137]) by smtp1.sympatico.ca (SMI-8.6/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA13316; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 09:58:14 -0500 Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 09:58:05 -0500 (EST) From: Tim Vanderhoek Reply-To: ac199@freenet.hamilton.on.ca To: David Greenman cc: chat@freebsd.org, core@freebsd.org Subject: Re: new all-time traffic record on wcarchive In-Reply-To: <199702211333.FAA04990@root.com> Message-ID: X-OS: FreeBSD 2.2 X-Mailer: Pine X-Secret-Message: None MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Fri, 21 Feb 1997, David Greenman wrote: > > We set a new all-time one day traffic record on wcarchive yesterday. The > >stats are attached. Note that the numbers would have been even higher (by > >about 4GB) had a drive not failed and killed the machine an hour before the > >log rotation/stats generation. > > Other miscellaneous info: The old record was 115GB and was set on August > 10th, 1996. This new record of 142.8GB beats out the old one by nearly 25%. Does the setting of this record happen to correspond to crl fixing some of its links (I refer to a short discussion ~week ago), or was it the release of FreeBSD 2.1.7, or was it...??? -- tIM...HOEk "Oops." From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 07:35:05 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA00441 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 07:35:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from tyger.inna.net (root@tyger.inna.net [206.151.66.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA00165; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 07:31:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from dolphin.inna.net (jamie@dolphin.inna.net [206.151.66.2]) by tyger.inna.net (8.8.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id KAA00710; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 10:34:14 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 10:31:58 -0500 (EST) From: Jamie Bowden To: David Greenman cc: chat@freebsd.org, core@freebsd.org Subject: Re: new all-time traffic record on wcarchive In-Reply-To: <199702211333.FAA04990@root.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Fri, 21 Feb 1997, David Greenman wrote: > > We set a new all-time one day traffic record on wcarchive yesterday. The > >stats are attached. Note that the numbers would have been even higher (by > >about 4GB) had a drive not failed and killed the machine an hour before the > >log rotation/stats generation. > > Other miscellaneous info: The old record was 115GB and was set on August > 10th, 1996. This new record of 142.8GB beats out the old one by nearly 25%. > > -DG > > David Greenman > Core-team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project > And don't ignore tha fact that the highest byte count goes to FreeBSD for the day. Linux had more hits, FreeBSD had more actual ftp's. :) Jamie Bowden Network Administrator, TBI Ltd. From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 07:56:36 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA01689 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 07:56:36 -0800 (PST) Received: (from jmb@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA01563; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 07:54:00 -0800 (PST) From: "Jonathan M. Bresler" Message-Id: <199702211554.HAA01563@freefall.freebsd.org> Subject: Re: new all-time traffic record on wcarchive To: ac199@freenet.hamilton.on.ca Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 07:54:00 -0800 (PST) Cc: dg@root.com, chat@FreeBSD.ORG, core@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: from "Tim Vanderhoek" at Feb 21, 97 09:58:05 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Tim Vanderhoek wrote: > > On Fri, 21 Feb 1997, David Greenman wrote: > > > > We set a new all-time one day traffic record on wcarchive yesterday. The > > >stats are attached. Note that the numbers would have been even higher (by > > >about 4GB) had a drive not failed and killed the machine an hour before the > > >log rotation/stats generation. > > > > Other miscellaneous info: The old record was 115GB and was set on August > > 10th, 1996. This new record of 142.8GB beats out the old one by nearly 25%. > > Does the setting of this record happen to correspond to crl fixing some > of its links (I refer to a short discussion ~week ago), or was it the > release of FreeBSD 2.1.7, or was it...??? tim, are you trolling for flames? mci's connection to the pb-nap (going on memory here) has been chronically overloaded for months. crl has installed additional leased lines (the new ones go to fix-west). these new lines have provided an alternate route around mci's connection to the pb-nap. so, crl took action to fix mci's brokenness. 2.1.7 was released within hours of the new lines going operational. jmb ps. the above is my understanding of the situation from various people and other sources.....none of these people work for mci, and so this may be all wrong ;) From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 08:16:40 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA02789 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 08:16:40 -0800 (PST) Received: from root.com (implode.root.com [198.145.90.17]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA02569; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 08:13:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by root.com (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id IAA05582; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 08:14:15 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199702211614.IAA05582@root.com> X-Authentication-Warning: implode.root.com: localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: ac199@freenet.hamilton.on.ca cc: chat@freebsd.org, core@freebsd.org Subject: Re: new all-time traffic record on wcarchive In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 21 Feb 1997 09:58:05 EST." From: David Greenman Reply-To: dg@root.com Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 08:14:15 -0800 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >On Fri, 21 Feb 1997, David Greenman wrote: > >> > We set a new all-time one day traffic record on wcarchive yesterday. The >> >stats are attached. Note that the numbers would have been even higher (by >> >about 4GB) had a drive not failed and killed the machine an hour before the >> >log rotation/stats generation. >> >> Other miscellaneous info: The old record was 115GB and was set on August >> 10th, 1996. This new record of 142.8GB beats out the old one by nearly 25%. > >Does the setting of this record happen to correspond to crl fixing some >of its links (I refer to a short discussion ~week ago), or was it the >release of FreeBSD 2.1.7, or was it...??? Well, CRL really doesn't have anything they need to "fix", but they have done a number of things to work around the congestion problem that MCI is having at the PB-NAP. They've tried to split the traffic between MAE-west and PB-NAP for one. I also found out last night that another major provider is now backhauling all of their MCI traffic to MAE-east in an attempt to steer clear of the problem. The combination of providers now avoiding MCI at PB-NAP, and CRL's attempts to better distribute the traffic are two of the main reasons why we set a new record. ...of course the FreeBSD 2.1.7 release helped out a bunch, too. :-) -DG David Greenman Core-team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 08:19:52 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA02929 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 08:19:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from root.com (implode.root.com [198.145.90.17]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA02781; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 08:16:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by root.com (8.8.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id IAA05601; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 08:17:19 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199702211617.IAA05601@root.com> X-Authentication-Warning: implode.root.com: localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: Jamie Bowden cc: chat@freebsd.org, core@freebsd.org Subject: Re: new all-time traffic record on wcarchive In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 21 Feb 1997 10:31:58 EST." From: David Greenman Reply-To: dg@root.com Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 08:17:19 -0800 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >On Fri, 21 Feb 1997, David Greenman wrote: > >> > We set a new all-time one day traffic record on wcarchive yesterday. The >> >stats are attached. Note that the numbers would have been even higher (by >> >about 4GB) had a drive not failed and killed the machine an hour before the >> >log rotation/stats generation. >> >> Other miscellaneous info: The old record was 115GB and was set on August >> 10th, 1996. This new record of 142.8GB beats out the old one by nearly 25%. >> >> -DG >> >> David Greenman >> Core-team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project >> > >And don't ignore tha fact that the highest byte count goes to FreeBSD for >the day. Linux had more hits, FreeBSD had more actual ftp's. :) We actually beat them by a fair margin almost every day. ...but WC only distributes a small number of the various Linux distributions, so I'm not sure you can really use this fact as any sort of metric. On the other hand, the situation wasn't always this way - Linux used to beat us out much of the time, so I'd say that this trend does indicate that we are at least catching up. -DG David Greenman Core-team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 08:41:27 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA04276 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 08:41:27 -0800 (PST) Received: from freenet.hamilton.on.ca (main.freenet.hamilton.on.ca [199.212.94.65]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA03775; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 08:33:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca [199.212.94.66]) by freenet.hamilton.on.ca (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id LAA10523; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 11:32:58 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost (ac199@localhost) by james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA21229; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 11:35:01 -0500 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca: ac199 owned process doing -bs Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 11:34:59 -0500 (EST) From: Tim Vanderhoek To: "Jonathan M. Bresler" cc: dg@root.com, chat@FreeBSD.ORG, core@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: new all-time traffic record on wcarchive In-Reply-To: <199702211554.HAA01563@freefall.freebsd.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Fri, 21 Feb 1997, Jonathan M. Bresler wrote: > tim, > are you trolling for flames? jonathan, No. > ps. the above is my understanding of the situation from various people > and other sources.....none of these people work for mci, and so > this may be all wrong ;) Well, I could only vaguely recall a short conversation from earlier and noticed that I could now load www.freebsd.org before finishing a coffee, so I figured someone must have fixed something. I could remember the names of mci and crl from the conversation, so I did a quick traceroute and took and took a guess. -- Outnumbered? Maybe. Outspoken? Never! tIM...HOEk From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 09:52:15 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA08895 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 09:52:15 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.fasts.com (qmailr@server.fasts.com [199.125.215.66]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA08810 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 09:51:57 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199702211751.JAA08810@freefall.freebsd.org> Received: (qmail 11403 invoked from network); 21 Feb 1997 19:50:49 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO cabby.fasts.com) (unknown) by unknown with SMTP; 21 Feb 1997 19:50:49 -0000 From: "Victor Rotanov" To: "Brandon Gillespie" , , "Jason Fesler" Subject: Re: Blinking Daemon in 'Powered By' GIF Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 19:30:01 +0200 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1155 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk ---------- > From: Jason Fesler > To: Brandon Gillespie ; freebsd-chat@freebsd.org > Subject: Re: Blinking Daemon in 'Powered By' GIF > Date: Friday, February 21, 1997 11:26 AM > > At 10:48 PM 2/20/97 -0700, Brandon Gillespie wrote: > >On Thu, 20 Feb 1997, John Fieber wrote: > >> On Wed, 19 Feb 1997, Brandon Gillespie wrote: > >> > >> > I did a little cleanup on the 'Powered By' GIF and I animated it a touch > >> > so he blinks every so often. > >> > >> Very nifty! it is a little large at 31K, compared to 5K for the > >> original. Any way you can squeeze that down a bit? > > > >Short of reducing the frames involved (and making the blink choppier) no.. > > > I spent the time to cut it down; it's 7k now, and a pallete of 64 colors. > All but the first frame, are only of a small portion of the head, reducing > the bandwidth needed to transmit this image. It's a *bit* choppier. > Tanstaafl.. > > http://www.gigo.com/powered_by_freebsd_7k.gif It blinks now with microsoft internet explorer 3.0 :( > > Thanks to Brandon for the nice starting point :) > > -- > Jason Fesler jfesler@calweb.com Internic: 'whois jf319' > Admin, CalWeb Internet Services http://www.calweb.com > Junk email returned, in bulk, back to sender; w/copies to all postmasters. > You got junk mail problems? Use Eudora Pro, MSIE's mail, or 'man procmail'. From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 11:10:56 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA14035 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 11:10:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from crh.cl.msu.edu (crh.cl.msu.edu [35.8.1.24]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA14023 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 11:10:45 -0800 (PST) Received: (from henrich@localhost) by crh.cl.msu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.4) id OAA09912; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 14:10:36 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 14:10:36 -0500 (EST) From: Charles Henrich Message-Id: <199702211910.OAA09912@crh.cl.msu.edu> To: dg@root.com, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: new all-time traffic record on wcarchive Newsgroups: lists.freebsd.chat References: <5ekk9t$2sd$1@msunews.cl.msu.edu> X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #1 (NOV) Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In lists.freebsd.chat you write: >>On Fri, 21 Feb 1997, David Greenman wrote: >> >>> > We set a new all-time one day traffic record on wcarchive yesterday. The >>> >stats are attached. Note that the numbers would have been even higher (by >>> >about 4GB) had a drive not failed and killed the machine an hour before the >>> >log rotation/stats generation. >>> >>> Other miscellaneous info: The old record was 115GB and was set on August >>> 10th, 1996. This new record of 142.8GB beats out the old one by nearly 25%. >> >>Does the setting of this record happen to correspond to crl fixing some >>of its links (I refer to a short discussion ~week ago), or was it the >>release of FreeBSD 2.1.7, or was it...??? > Well, CRL really doesn't have anything they need to "fix", but they have >done a number of things to work around the congestion problem that MCI is >having at the PB-NAP. They've tried to split the traffic between MAE-west >and PB-NAP for one. I also found out last night that another major provider >is now backhauling all of their MCI traffic to MAE-east in an attempt to steer >clear of the problem. The combination of providers now avoiding MCI at PB-NAP, >and CRL's attempts to better distribute the traffic are two of the main >reasons why we set a new record. ...of course the FreeBSD 2.1.7 release helped >out a bunch, too. :-) Course those changes have made cdrom.com unusable for a large portion of the state of Michigan. We're getting a few bytes/sec transfer rates here (and im all DS3 to Mae-East at least. Oh well. I've finally resorted to doing the ftp via a 256k link I have into Sprint. Its clipping along quite nicely at the moment. -Crh -- Charles Henrich Michigan State University henrich@msu.edu http://pilot.msu.edu/~henrich From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 12:06:13 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA18593 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 12:06:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from relay.nuxi.com (nuxi.ucdavis.edu [128.120.37.176]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA18588 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 12:06:10 -0800 (PST) Received: from dragon.nuxi.com (reqf-108.ucdavis.edu [128.120.253.228]) by relay.nuxi.com (8.8.4/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA20881; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 12:06:30 -0800 (PST) Received: (from obrien@localhost) by dragon.nuxi.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) id UAA11191; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 20:05:57 GMT Message-ID: <19970221120557.OM32177@dragon.nuxi.com> Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 12:05:57 -0800 From: obrien@NUXI.com (David O'Brien) To: henrich@crh.cl.msu.edu (Charles Henrich) Cc: dg@root.com, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: new all-time traffic record on wcarchive References: <5ekk9t$2sd$1@msunews.cl.msu.edu> <199702211910.OAA09912@crh.cl.msu.edu> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.60_p2-3,5,8-9 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Disclaimer: Mutt Bites! Organization: The NUXI *BSD group X-PGP-Fingerprint: B7 4D 3E E9 11 39 5F A3 90 76 5D 69 58 D9 98 7A X-Pgp-Keyid: 34F9F9D5 In-Reply-To: <199702211910.OAA09912@crh.cl.msu.edu>; from Charles Henrich on Feb 21, 1997 14:10:36 -0500 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Charles Henrich writes: > In lists.freebsd.chat you write: > > Course those changes have made cdrom.com unusable for a large portion > of the state of Michigan. We're getting a few bytes/sec transfer rates > here (and im all DS3 to Mae-East at least. Oh well. I've finally > resorted to doing the ftp via a 256k link I have into Sprint. Its > clipping along quite nicely at the moment. Oh god! You are actually getting packets from Sprint to cdrom.com???? Ever since the entire Northern part of the University of California system went from BARNNet and CERFNet to Sprintlink, I haven't had anything BUT extreamly high packets loses. Sprint is *really* good about bullshitting when the UC Office of the President opens a trouble ticket. They never tell the truth what is wrong, and always flattly lie for the first 12hrs of so of trouble. Die Sprintnet, Die!!! -- -- David (obrien@NUXI.com -or- obrien@FreeBSD.org) From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 12:09:27 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA18783 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 12:09:27 -0800 (PST) Received: from relay.nuxi.com (nuxi.ucdavis.edu [128.120.37.176]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA18777 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 12:09:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from dragon.nuxi.com (reqf-108.ucdavis.edu [128.120.253.228]) by relay.nuxi.com (8.8.4/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA20886; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 12:09:56 -0800 (PST) Received: (from obrien@localhost) by dragon.nuxi.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) id UAA11213; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 20:09:32 GMT Message-ID: <19970221120931.HI29116@dragon.nuxi.com> Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 12:09:31 -0800 From: obrien@NUXI.com (David O'Brien) To: dg@root.com Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: new all-time traffic record on wcarchive References: <199702211617.IAA05601@root.com> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.60_p2-3,5,8-9 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Disclaimer: Mutt Bites! Organization: The NUXI *BSD group X-PGP-Fingerprint: B7 4D 3E E9 11 39 5F A3 90 76 5D 69 58 D9 98 7A X-Pgp-Keyid: 34F9F9D5 In-Reply-To: <199702211617.IAA05601@root.com>; from David Greenman on Feb 21, 1997 08:17:19 -0800 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk David Greenman writes: > On the other hand, the situation wasn't always this way - Linux used to > beat us out much of the time, so I'd say that this trend does indicate > that we are at least catching up. Does it also imply that Slackware which used to be *the* distribution to run, has lost favor w/the Linux community? -- -- David (obrien@NUXI.com -or- obrien@FreeBSD.org) From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 12:53:55 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA22139 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 12:53:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from kerouac.deepwell.com (kerouac.deepwell.com [207.212.140.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA22129 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 12:53:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from lovecraft.deepwell.com ([207.212.140.204]) by kerouac.deepwell.com (post.office MTA v2.0 0813 ID# 0-12198) with SMTP id AAA179 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 12:48:46 -0800 Message-Id: <3.0.32.19970221125030.006a6f84@deepwell.com> X-Sender: sol@deepwell.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 12:50:30 -0800 To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org From: Sol Rasmussen Subject: this is unrelated... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Anyone know where and how we can get 5 FreeBSD shirts? "Let the Source be with you" with the BSD devil guy on the front. We must have them. _______________________________________________ Sol Rasmussen Internet Presence Developer sol@deepwell.com http://www.deepwell.com From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 13:25:59 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA24404 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 13:25:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from crh.cl.msu.edu (crh.cl.msu.edu [35.8.1.24]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA24394 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 13:25:45 -0800 (PST) Received: (from henrich@localhost) by crh.cl.msu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.4) id QAA10726; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 16:25:25 -0500 (EST) From: Charles Henrich Message-Id: <199702212125.QAA10726@crh.cl.msu.edu> Subject: Re: new all-time traffic record on wcarchive To: obrien@NUXI.com (David O'Brien) Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 16:25:25 -0500 (EST) Cc: dg@root.com, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <19970221120557.OM32177@dragon.nuxi.com> from David O'Brien at "Feb 21, 97 12:05:57 pm" X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > > > Course those changes have made cdrom.com unusable for a large portion > > of the state of Michigan. We're getting a few bytes/sec transfer rates > > here (and im all DS3 to Mae-East at least. Oh well. I've finally > > resorted to doing the ftp via a 256k link I have into Sprint. Its > > clipping along quite nicely at the moment. > > Oh god! You are actually getting packets from Sprint to cdrom.com???? > Ever since the entire Northern part of the University of California > system went from BARNNet and CERFNet to Sprintlink, I haven't had > anything BUT extreamly high packets loses. Sprint is *really* good about > bullshitting when the UC Office of the President opens a trouble ticket. > They never tell the truth what is wrong, and always flattly lie for the > first 12hrs of so of trouble. It works quite well actually. In fact my 2.1.7 retrieval completed in record time for me, even over a 256k link! -Crh Charles Henrich Michigan State University henrich@msu.edu http://pilot.msu.edu/~henrich From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 13:40:59 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA25432 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 13:40:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA25424 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 13:40:52 -0800 (PST) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.5/8.7.3) id IAA28060; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 08:09:49 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199702212139.IAA28060@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Lumps on Terry's skull... In-Reply-To: <199702212034.NAA01944@phaeton.artisoft.com> from Terry Lambert at "Feb 21, 97 01:34:37 pm" To: terry@lambert.org (Terry Lambert) Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 08:09:48 +1030 (CST) Cc: chat@freebsd.org X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Terry Lambert stands accused of saying: > > > > Watakshi wa otaku no Ataru Moroboshi. > > > > ;-). > > Oh, in case anyone was wondering, the second one translates as: > > "I am a fan of to be hit on the head with a falling star". > > Hee hee. And ignorant people say the Japanese language can't > support puns... Where I come from (*), translating 'otaku' to 'fan' doesn't really do it justice. That'd be like suggesting that 'geek' meant 'technophile'. > Terry Lambert (*) that community of non-Japanese speakers that spends stupid amounts of money on expensive translations of Japanese comics. But I can't fit any references to that in my .sig because there's no room and the advertising afforded by my hardware collection reference is more important 8) -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[ From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 16:42:13 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA08209 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 16:42:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from phaeton.artisoft.com (phaeton.Artisoft.COM [198.17.250.50]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA08203 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 16:42:10 -0800 (PST) Received: (from terry@localhost) by phaeton.artisoft.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id RAA02245; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 17:40:49 -0700 From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199702220040.RAA02245@phaeton.artisoft.com> Subject: Re: Lumps on Terry's skull... To: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au (Michael Smith) Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 17:40:48 -0700 (MST) Cc: terry@lambert.org, chat@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <199702212139.IAA28060@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> from "Michael Smith" at Feb 22, 97 08:09:48 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Where I come from (*), translating 'otaku' to 'fan' doesn't really do it > justice. That'd be like suggesting that 'geek' meant 'technophile'. Shhhhh.... Gotta tone it down for the "virgins"... Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 18:25:42 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA14431 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 18:25:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from zeus.xtalwind.net (slipper6a.xtalwind.net [205.160.242.61]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA14418 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 18:25:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zeus.xtalwind.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA03778; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 21:25:28 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 21:25:28 -0500 (EST) From: jack X-Sender: jack@localhost To: "David O'Brien" cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: new all-time traffic record on wcarchive In-Reply-To: <19970221120557.OM32177@dragon.nuxi.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Fri, 21 Feb 1997, David O'Brien wrote: > > Course those changes have made cdrom.com unusable for a large portion > > of the state of Michigan. We're getting a few bytes/sec transfer rates > > here (and im all DS3 to Mae-East at least. Oh well. I've finally > > resorted to doing the ftp via a 256k link I have into Sprint. Its > > clipping along quite nicely at the moment. > > Oh god! You are actually getting packets from Sprint to cdrom.com???? I rarely have trouble accessing wc via Sprint. diamond:jacko {3} traceroute ftp.cdrom.com traceroute to wcarchive.cdrom.com (165.113.58.253), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 facet (205.160.242.1) 4.465 ms 2.380 ms 2.391 ms 2 ias.utelfla.com (205.160.240.17) 46.981 ms 19.494 ms 18.730 ms 3 144.228.83.5 (144.228.83.5) 30.065 ms 28.843 ms 28.615 ms 4 144.228.80.2 (144.228.80.2) 27.892 ms 28.020 ms 28.576 ms 5 144.228.10.65 (144.228.10.65) 47.737 ms 49.456 ms 48.761 ms 6 144.232.0.21 (144.232.0.21) 48.113 ms 56.235 ms 48.708 ms 7 144.232.0.17 (144.232.0.17) 47.708 ms 48.808 ms 50.358 ms 8 144.228.10.42 (144.228.10.42) 67.766 ms 63.584 ms 64.392 ms 9 mae-e-1.e0.crl.com (192.41.177.104) 51.762 ms 50.109 ms 52.691 ms 10 gwsfo.ix.atm.us.crl.net (165.113.0.130) 165.066 ms 142.347 ms 417.382 ms 11 wcarchive.cdrom.com (165.113.58.253) 132.235 ms 132.758 ms 129.969 ms diamond:jacko {4} date Fri Feb 21 21:04:35 EST 1997 And as you can see this is during "prime time". > They never tell the truth what is wrong, and always flattly lie for the > first 12hrs of so of trouble. Other than a month ago, when at the same time, 30 miles apart, two different contractors `found' two different fiber lines and knocked out long distance in two thirds of the LATA, I can't recall the last time we lost our 'net connection. In the year and a half we've been with Sprint I don't think we've had an outage of more than two or three hours, probably less than 12 hours in total. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jack O'Neill Finger jacko@diamond.xtalwind.net or jack@xtalwind.net http://www.xtalwind.net/~jacko/pubpgp.html #include for my PGP key. PGP Key fingerprint = F6 C4 E6 D4 2F 15 A7 67 FD 09 E9 3C 5F CC EB CD -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Feb 21 21:32:16 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA22564 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 21:32:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from mexico.brainstorm.eu.org (root@mexico.brainstorm.fr [193.56.58.253]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA22471 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 21:31:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from brasil.brainstorm.eu.org (brasil.brainstorm.fr [193.56.58.33]) by mexico.brainstorm.eu.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id GAA30989 for ; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 06:31:41 +0100 Received: (from uucp@localhost) by brasil.brainstorm.eu.org (8.8.4/8.6.12) with UUCP id GAA28908 for chat@freebsd.org; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 06:31:18 +0100 Received: (from roberto@localhost) by keltia.freenix.fr (8.8.5/keltia-uucp-2.9) id CAA22987; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 02:45:57 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <19970222024556.AG04898@keltia.freenix.fr> Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 02:45:56 +0100 From: roberto@keltia.freenix.fr (Ollivier Robert) To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: new all-time traffic record on wcarchive References: <199702211617.IAA05601@root.com> <19970221120931.HI29116@dragon.nuxi.com> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.60,1-3,9 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 3.0-CURRENT ctm#2999 In-Reply-To: <19970221120931.HI29116@dragon.nuxi.com>; from David O'Brien on Feb 21, 1997 12:09:31 -0800 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk According to David O'Brien: > Does it also imply that Slackware which used to be *the* distribution > to run, has lost favor w/the Linux community? Yes. Most people consider now Redhat to be the best one with Debian probably second. Not that my opinion should be taken as truth value of course... At work, I was used to the idea of installing a Linux for one of my users but the whole thing couldn't install by FTP so I end up installing 2.1.6. He's very happy now. -- Ollivier ROBERT -=- The daemon is FREE! -=- roberto@keltia.freenix.fr FreeBSD keltia.freenix.fr 3.0-CURRENT #39: Sun Feb 2 22:12:44 CET 1997 From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Feb 22 11:48:56 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA10506 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 11:48:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from nic.follonett.no (nic.follonett.no [194.198.43.10]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA10441 for ; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 11:48:44 -0800 (PST) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by nic.follonett.no (8.8.5/8.8.3) with UUCP id UAA25847; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 20:47:08 +0100 (MET) Received: from oo7 (oo7.dimaga.com [192.0.0.65]) by dimaga.com (8.8.5/8.7.2) with SMTP id UAA03528; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 20:39:29 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <3.0.32.19970222203929.00abc6b0@dimaga.com> X-Sender: eivind@dimaga.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 20:39:31 +0100 To: John Fieber From: Eivind Eklund Subject: Video Games (was Re: Perl5 modules) Cc: chat@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk At 02:12 PM 2/22/97 -0500, John Fieber wrote: >The only thing worse is a classification system with an ambiguous >policy and/or practice. Predictability is a very important >component of usability (with the standard exception of video >games). Remove the exception. Video games defineatly need predictability. Randomness is only acceptable if there is enough of it to make it predictable. The connection of random and video games is an old and wrong one. The only games created today that use randomness at all are puzzle games like Tetris. (If anybody want a deeper discussion of this, I work at a game developer and can put them in contact with one of our designers :) Eivind Eklund perhaps@yes.no http://maybe.yes.no/perhaps/ eivind@freebsd.org From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Feb 22 14:57:41 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA25437 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 14:57:41 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA25416 for ; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 14:57:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id OAA12088; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 14:53:18 -0800 (PST) To: Terry Lambert cc: ben@narcissus.ml.org (Snob Art Genre), nate@trout.mt.sri.com, chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: RMS's view on dynamic linking In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 22 Feb 1997 11:00:13 MST." <199702221800.LAA04811@phaeton.artisoft.com> Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 14:53:18 -0800 Message-ID: <12084.856651998@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > You mean when I go on about social engineering. The only thing > political about it is the opposition. Don't confuse political > science with applied sociology. Funny, according to this book, you've been going on about political engineering and the only opposition to it has been social ("this group doesn't want to do all that extra work, go away."). Maybe you're confusing sociology with applied political science and that's why you're not getting anywhere? :-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Feb 22 15:40:46 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA00310 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 15:40:46 -0800 (PST) Received: from phaeton.artisoft.com (phaeton.Artisoft.COM [198.17.250.50]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA00303 for ; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 15:40:43 -0800 (PST) Received: (from terry@localhost) by phaeton.artisoft.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id QAA05383; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 16:35:27 -0700 From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199702222335.QAA05383@phaeton.artisoft.com> Subject: Re: RMS's view on dynamic linking To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 16:35:27 -0700 (MST) Cc: terry@lambert.org, ben@narcissus.ml.org, nate@trout.mt.sri.com, chat@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <12084.856651998@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Feb 22, 97 02:53:18 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > You mean when I go on about social engineering. The only thing > > political about it is the opposition. Don't confuse political > > science with applied sociology. > > Funny, according to this book, you've been going on about political > engineering and the only opposition to it has been social ("this group > doesn't want to do all that extra work, go away."). Maybe you're > confusing sociology with applied political science and that's why > you're not getting anywhere? :-) Political science isn't a science. It can not predict. It is misnamed. Sociology *can* be a science, since it *can* predict, as long as it's applied statistically. Most sociologists fail to apply it statistically. It's the difference between trying to predict a particles parameters within h_bar/2, and applying gas laws to predict the behaviour of a group of particles which make up a gas. I can predict that a social construct like FreeBSD operate in a certain fashion based on its organizing principles, based on observation of other social constructs with similar organizing principles. In the same way I can predict a rock will fall on Mars by observing that rocks fall here on Earth, even though I can't gather empirical evidence by going to Mars itself, and I know the mass of Mars is less than that of Earth (ie: it is only similar, not identical). Regards, Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Feb 22 16:36:02 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA04186 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 16:36:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA04169 for ; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 16:35:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id QAA12626; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 16:31:16 -0800 (PST) To: Terry Lambert cc: ben@narcissus.ml.org, nate@trout.mt.sri.com, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: RMS's view on dynamic linking In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 22 Feb 1997 16:35:27 MST." <199702222335.QAA05383@phaeton.artisoft.com> Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 16:31:16 -0800 Message-ID: <12622.856657876@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Political science isn't a science. It can not predict. It is misnamed. So noted. I would also like to table an objection to "social science" under the same terms, however. :-) That's not to say that human behavior cannot be categorized - you do have all your basic fear response, sex drive, and pack instinct indices to rely on when you're trying to predict things such as whether one group is likely to jump on another anytime soon, and they're generally not far wrong. Where it falls down as a science is in basically the same place that political science breaks down - on the smaller (and I daresay more practical) scale where the brownian motion of individual human quirks is too great an influence on events to allow a linear set of rules to operate reliably. In other words, you just have to pick a basic direction and roll with the random punches as they come from all conceivable directions. > Sociology *can* be a science, since it *can* predict, as long as it's > applied statistically. Most sociologists fail to apply it statistically. Oh sure, just apply more-a them-there statistics and all the numbers come out right. Why didn't they think of that! :-) Needless to say, I heartily disagree. > I can predict that a social construct like FreeBSD operate in a certain > fashion based on its organizing principles, based on observation of > other social constructs with similar organizing principles. In the > same way I can predict a rock will fall on Mars by observing that rocks Heh, somehow I doubt that the greatest periods of accelleration or decelleration in FreeBSD's future will have much to do with its organizing principles. I suspect that most people will continue to go on in much the same way they have these last 3-4 years, quietly fixing bugs and adding features to the system as they deem it appropriate. Where the greatest potential changes lie are in passing comets - some event external to the project sucking one or more project members away, or perhaps more positively funding its development in some specific direction. Who knows? Least of all, I suspect, Terry. :-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Feb 22 17:29:52 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA06792 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 17:29:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from carlton.innotts.co.uk (root@carlton.innotts.co.uk [194.176.128.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA06743 for ; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 17:29:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from [194.176.130.96] (serialB1f.innotts.co.uk [194.176.130.96]) by carlton.innotts.co.uk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA20028; Sun, 23 Feb 1997 01:24:04 GMT X-Sender: robmel@mailhost.innotts.co.uk Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <199702222335.QAA05383@phaeton.artisoft.com> References: <12084.856651998@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Feb 22, 97 02:53:18 pm Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 01:23:52 +0000 To: Terry Lambert , jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) From: Robin Melville Subject: Re: RMS's view on dynamic linking Cc: terry@lambert.org, ben@narcissus.ml.org, nate@trout.mt.sri.com, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk At 4:35 pm -0700 22/2/97, Terry Lambert wrote: >I can predict that a social construct like FreeBSD operate in a certain >fashion based on its organizing principles, based on observation of >other social constructs with similar organizing principles. In the >same way I can predict a rock will fall... [etc.] This is a man who has never heard of chaos theory... FreeBSD obviously works solely upon the basis of strange attractors :) Rob. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin Melville, Addiction Information Services Nottingham Alcohol & Drug Team Tel: +44 (0)115 952 9478 Fax: +44 (0)115 952 9421 work: robmel@nadt.org.uk home: robmel@innotts.co.uk Pages: http://www.innotts.co.uk/~robmel (home page) http://www.innotts.co.uk/nadt (substance misuse pages) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Feb 22 19:05:01 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA10663 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 19:05:01 -0800 (PST) Received: from krumm.commline.com (krumm.commline.com [207.78.30.252]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA10648 for ; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 19:04:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (brian@localhost) by krumm.commline.com (8.8.3/8.8.3) with SMTP id WAA15302 for ; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 22:19:41 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 22:19:41 -0500 (EST) From: "Brian L. Heess" To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: anybody ported /usr/bin/fetch to SunOS? Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Just wondering, as it's a handy utility and I'd rather not waste time if I don't have to. If not, any "quick" solutions? (like the Makefile) Cheers! -Brian From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Feb 22 19:29:11 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA12073 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 19:29:11 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA12068 for ; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 19:29:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id TAA13241; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 19:28:47 -0800 (PST) To: "Brian L. Heess" cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: anybody ported /usr/bin/fetch to SunOS? In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 22 Feb 1997 22:19:41 EST." Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 19:28:47 -0800 Message-ID: <13238.856668527@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Just wondering, as it's a handy utility and I'd rather not waste time if I > don't have to. Wurgh - you'd need to port the ftpio library too, and that might be a job if SunOS doesn't support funopen() or let you get at the stdio cookie value. Jordan From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Feb 22 19:55:18 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA13744 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 19:55:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from krumm.commline.com (krumm.commline.com [207.78.30.252]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA13739 for ; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 19:55:15 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (brian@localhost) by krumm.commline.com (8.8.3/8.8.3) with SMTP id XAA15367 for ; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 23:10:06 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 23:10:06 -0500 (EST) From: "Brian L. Heess" cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: anybody ported /usr/bin/fetch to SunOS? In-Reply-To: <13238.856668527@time.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sat, 22 Feb 1997, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > > Just wondering, as it's a handy utility and I'd rather not waste time if I > > don't have to. > > Wurgh - you'd need to port the ftpio library too, and that might be a > job if SunOS doesn't support funopen() or let you get at the stdio > cookie value. Darn...exactly what I was fearing, and hoping not to hear... 0-pimpf{bheess}525: man -k funopen funopen: nothing appropriate Argh. Well, maybe somebody else has already done it. Thanks! -Brian From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Feb 22 21:50:07 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA20898 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 21:50:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA20892 for ; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 21:50:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id VAA21654; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 21:49:42 -0800 (PST) To: "Brian L. Heess" cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: anybody ported /usr/bin/fetch to SunOS? In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 22 Feb 1997 23:10:06 EST." Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 21:49:42 -0800 Message-ID: <21650.856676982@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Argh. Well, maybe somebody else has already done it. I seriously doubt it. :-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Feb 22 21:57:31 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA21316 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 21:57:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from krumm.commline.com (krumm.commline.com [207.78.30.252]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA21311 for ; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 21:57:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (brian@localhost) by krumm.commline.com (8.8.3/8.8.3) with SMTP id BAA15517; Sun, 23 Feb 1997 01:12:04 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 01:12:03 -0500 (EST) From: "Brian L. Heess" To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: anybody ported /usr/bin/fetch to SunOS? In-Reply-To: <21650.856676982@time.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sat, 22 Feb 1997, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > > Argh. Well, maybe somebody else has already done it. > > I seriously doubt it. :-) Argh..another one of those answers. Hmmm. Would that be a safe question to ask on freebsd-hackers? Cheers! -Brian From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Feb 22 22:03:21 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA21662 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 22:03:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from vinyl.quickweb.com (vinyl.quickweb.com [206.222.77.8]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA21657; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 22:03:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (mark@localhost) by vinyl.quickweb.com (8.7.5/8.6.12) with SMTP id BAA00316; Sun, 23 Feb 1997 01:04:08 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 01:04:07 -0500 (EST) From: Mark Mayo To: jhk@freebsd.org cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: New FreeBSD Picture for Walnut Creek Catalog? Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk I just got the latest Walnut Creek catalog, and I noticed that the same old picture of the FreeBSD desktop is used (on page 8). It's a nice desktop and all, but it's quite gray... and dull.. Compare it to the Linux desktop on page 4 - they've got a fractal and a guy witha shotgun running around, all in wild colors! If I were shopping for a Free unix, I'd definately take far more notice to the Linux layout.. So, I propose a new desktop - one that's more alive, yet looks more professional than the in your face Linux pic.. I'm sure someone must have a great looking desktop! For starters, check out mine at: http://vinyl.quickweb.com/mark/FreeBSD Just my $.02 ! -Mark ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Mayo mark@quickweb.com RingZero Comp. http://vinyl.quickweb.com/mark ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point. -- Arthur Schopenhauer From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Feb 22 23:48:18 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA26809 for chat-outgoing; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 23:48:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from python.shoal.net.au (andrew@python.shoal.net.au [203.26.44.5]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA26804 for ; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 23:48:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (andrew@localhost) by python.shoal.net.au (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id SAA28316 for ; Sun, 23 Feb 1997 18:47:54 +1100 (EST) Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 18:47:54 +1100 (EST) From: Andrew Perry To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: RMS's view on dynamic linking In-Reply-To: <12622.856657876@time.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk you lot are all on chat aren't you? in m imhoawarttf(in my humble opion and without any reference to the facts!) (my experience with social statistics is limited to asimov's foundation series and a STRONG maths background (several years ago before alcohol destroyed all my brain cells!)) This isn't a big enough group to apply these kind of statistics to. You can apply them to a larger group an still be wrong. A group this size is subject to individual drives and strengths/weaknesses how much some poor bastard is willing to do in order to support his cause and how much a real bastard is driven to make sure it doesn't work. You guys have managed to wedge your foot in a big enough gap for the blokes with ability to keep it going. You are standing strong against the might (and weakness!) of misro$oft and are providing the goods and looking after the newbies (me!!). In my short history the advances of FreeBSD have come in times of greatest threat (security threat to 2.1.6) and when the blokes (females are blokes too!) feel the need. You people are good! In my (previosly described) opinion you are gaining more market share, people (especially down here) side with the underdog who gives it his/her all and produces the goods and that's exactly what you're doing. From where i'm standing this is a lot more fun and a lot more productive!! Sorry if i'm being repetitive but I'm just trying to mix a bit of the refute the argument with a bit of the keep it boiling lads I'm curious though, recently we were told about the statistics on your ftp site and you compared them with linux. Just out of curiosity how many mirror sited does linux have? I know that i've always tried our local mirror first to reduce the inevitable traffic that you must have. And in case i've beat about the bush too much (as is my wont (Billy Connelly)) I agree with Jordan wholeheartedly (is that one word?) enough bs for one night i'll see you all in the 2.1.7 morning (i hope) later andrew perry andrew@shoal.net.au On Sat, 22 Feb 1997, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > > Political science isn't a science. It can not predict. It is misnamed. > > So noted. I would also like to table an objection to "social science" > under the same terms, however. :-) > > That's not to say that human behavior cannot be categorized - you do > have all your basic fear response, sex drive, and pack instinct > indices to rely on when you're trying to predict things such as > whether one group is likely to jump on another anytime soon, and > they're generally not far wrong. Where it falls down as a science is > in basically the same place that political science breaks down - on > the smaller (and I daresay more practical) scale where the brownian > motion of individual human quirks is too great an influence on events > to allow a linear set of rules to operate reliably. In other words, > you just have to pick a basic direction and roll with the random > punches as they come from all conceivable directions. > > > Sociology *can* be a science, since it *can* predict, as long as it's > > applied statistically. Most sociologists fail to apply it statistically. > > Oh sure, just apply more-a them-there statistics and all the numbers > come out right. Why didn't they think of that! :-) > > Needless to say, I heartily disagree. > > > I can predict that a social construct like FreeBSD operate in a certain > > fashion based on its organizing principles, based on observation of > > other social constructs with similar organizing principles. In the > > same way I can predict a rock will fall on Mars by observing that rocks > > Heh, somehow I doubt that the greatest periods of accelleration or > decelleration in FreeBSD's future will have much to do with its > organizing principles. I suspect that most people will continue to go > on in much the same way they have these last 3-4 years, quietly fixing > bugs and adding features to the system as they deem it appropriate. > Where the greatest potential changes lie are in passing comets - some > event external to the project sucking one or more project members > away, or perhaps more positively funding its development in some > specific direction. Who knows? Least of all, I suspect, Terry. :-) > > Jordan >