Brew Bird writes "Qwest explains how they handle the various issues that crop up being a large ISP/Backbone Provider. They've got the presentations setup in a nice little website." It's very *BSD focused, since I believe that's mostly what Qwest runs but the presentations are interesting in the scaling issue - what do you do with that much data and that many machines?

BSD Today ran a comment on Tucows shutting down the Tucows BSD Section after flames from the BSD community about the misinformation they had on the site. Tucows says that they cannot meet the demands of all the "factions" within the BSD camp. It's a cop-out in my opinion; BSD Today and Daemon News seem to do it fine. All any of us asked for was for the inflammatory pro-linux/anti-BSD flavor of it to be toned down, and the misinformation cleared up. DaemonNews also carries some appropriate comments.

Last Friday we solicited questions for Robert Watson, hard-core FreeBSD and TrustedBSD developer. His answers (below) are breathtakingly deep and instructive. Whether you're "just curious" about BSD or a FreeBSD user who wants to see what's going on with the inner circle of developers, you'll want to spend the time it takes to read everything here, and possibly even send Mr. Watson a brief "thank you" email.

hubertf writes: "The NetBSD pkgsrc crew has released a 2-CD-set loaded with apps for NetBSD 1.5/i386. The set consists of the two files i386pkg1.iso (680MB) and i386pkg2.iso (660MB), and is also available on any mirrors of ftp.netbsd.org. See the README file that describes the contents of the CDs for more details."

Robert Watson is a core developer for FreeBSD, and a member of the TrustedBSD project. He is one of the best people in the world to ask about FreeBSD security, and about FreeBSD development in general. Please post your questions below. We'll send 10 of the highest-moderated ones to Watson by email, and post his responses verbatim as soon as we get them back.

daniel writes "This is the first I've heard of a dedicated Webcam machine that runs NetBSD. See the mmEye, It's based on the SH3 and its parent corp has contributed towards the netbsd SH3 port and work on SH4 support. I think this could be pretty handy for people running Webcams."

mccormi writes: "Dr. Dobb's Journal is covering a roundtable with four key members of the BSD movement at the recent USENIX Security Symposium 2000. The participants emphasized that reliability and security are achieved through simplicity. Other topics included the evolving distinction between Linux and BSD, why they don't use std::string, and why no one to likes IKE."

Csy writes "John Byrd, manager of the Sega of America Developer Technical Support department, sent a message to the port-dreamcast NetBSD mailing list to express his approval, interest and support of the effort."

BSD Today carries an editorial rant on the misinformation that Tucows has on their BSD Section. The author wants to clear up the many misconceptions that Tucows seems to have about BSD now that they are distributing software for it. It talks specifically about licensing issues and availability.

sparcv9 writes: "The NetBSD/sh3 developer Saitoh Masanobu, who was able to boot the NetBSD/sh3 kernel on his Sega Dreamcast last summer, has now officially forked a NetBSD/dreamcast port. The Dreamcast effort will focus specifically on supporting the Dreamcast hardware, rather than just the Super-H processor contained within. Currently, it only boots into single-user mode, and the only function hardware is the serial port, but, hey -- it's a start." This project ranks right up there with all the tivo hacking going on in my eyes. When all is said and done, we could have really inexpensive, but reasonably powerful machines to play with.

howardjp writes "DaemonNews will start printing a bi-monthly print magazine starting on January 15th. The magazine will contain new original articles not found on the website. You can preorder a subscription for only 24.95 USD (38.95 USD outside the US) from the DaemonNews Mall."

mikey wrote to us with the news that a new issue of DaemonNews has been released. Get your fill of the little devil there.

Brett Glass writes: "This paper, first presented at BSDCon 2000, describes state of the art methods of blocking spam and malware using BSD and Sendmail. The techniques described here are also applicable to other operating systems and mail transfer agents, so this paper is worth reading even if you're using NT, Linux, Postfix, qmail, etc. If you've never heard of a Rumplestiltskin attack, are baffled by the finer points of Sendmail configuration, or want to know how to block worms like ILOVEYOU before they reach vulnerable Windows clients, you'll enjoy this paper. Slides from the presentation are also included."

horos1 writes "hey all, I was wondering if this was possible: Right now, I'm running redhat 6.2 colocated at an ISP, and have had my box compromised twice because I was slow to apply security patches to the box. So I'm thinking that I'm going to switch to OpenBSD and not worry about the security aspect anymore (or at least less). Anyways, normally I'd get a CD and install it... however, the box in question is in another state so I need to do it remotely via console. So -- any helpful tips on how to go about doing this? I'd like to archive linux and replace it with OpenBSD, such that the next time the computer boots up, I'll be sitting at a OpenBSD prompt to log in. I have a very fast connection, just no ability to sit down at the console. I realize that its a rather risky proposition to do this remotely (ie: that the computer may not boot) but am willing to take the chance. Thanks much for any advice. horos" This sounds like something that should be labeled "only try this at home".

Anonymous Coward writes "From daily.daemonnews.org we have a link to a very very good article that describes almost exactly why many people (including myself) use FreeBSD." The author makes some good points, including good uses for file attributes and secure levels. An argument for BSD for several specific uses, and Linux for others.

hubertf writes "plex86 is now works on a second Open Source operating system. So far plex86 only supported Linux as host platform, and thanks to Frank van der Linden of Wasabi Systems, it now also works on the i386 port of the NetBSD multi-platform operating system. Tested operating systems include FreeDOS beta 4, MS-DOS 6.22, Red Hat 6 Linux and NetBSD 1.5. See the NetBSD site for more information.

Here you go: straight answers to your questions from Theo de Raadt of OpenBSD. Read, enjoy, and comment away. (Theo might even check in with a comment or two of his own if he has time -- although he's been awfully busy lately, so please don't hold it against him if he can't, okay?)

BSD Today carried this press release, announcing that BSDi has accepted a 4 million dollar investment from another japanese venture capital investment firm, GLQ Intrepia, led by a strategic partner Plat'Home, a japanese Open Source hardware vendor. I know this news is a few days old, but its interesting. Most of BSDi's recent big investments have come from Japan, where it is said BSD is almost as big as Linux is here.

Dr. Dobb's Journal has an interview with Theo de Raadt of the OpenBSD project, discussing the future of OpenBSD, where they are now, driver development, the teams that work on OpenBSD, and how OpenBSD is supported. An interesting read describing the fearless leader of the "Secure By Default" BSD.

Greg Lehey, author of several books, including The Complete FreeBSD, and FreeBSD core member, writes about the value of cooperation, not just with other BSDs, but with Linux as well, in this month's Daemon's Advocate in Daemon News.