OpenBSD 2.8 was released today, so this seemed like a good time to ask project leader Theo de Raadt about OpenBSD -- or anything else. He's a rather colorful person; a pizza eater, kernel hacker, and devout rock climber, so even though this is a big day for OpenBSD you might want to discuss a few other things with Theo, too. We'll choose about 10 of the highest-moderated questions and e-mail them to him shortly after noon (US EST) tomorrow. His answers will appear next week.

I just logged into the OpenBSD ftp server and noticed that OpenBSD 2.8 is up and ready for download. From the Press Release, 2.8 contains improved hardware support for newer Apple Hardware (iMac, G3, G4, G4 Cube), security fixes, AES support, AES/Rindjael encrypted swap, OpenSSH 2.3.0, RSA libraries in base install, and many more ports in the ports tree. According to the project, this release commemorates 5 years of OpenBSD, on October 18, 2000. This is OpenBSD's 9th release. Happy Belated Birthday OpenBSD!

photozz writes "New from ZDNet about the coming of OSX and how some people see this as the rise of BSD, perhaps passing up Linux in numbers of users. " I'm still excited about OSX. I still am considering buying a mac to play with OSX... I mean, I can always install LinuxPPC if OSX sucks goat.

BSD Today has this story about IBM refusing to deal with the fact that FreeBSD will not boot on their laptops. The actual service page is on IBM's support site. IBM does support Linux on the A20m though, but only OpenLinux. Is it my imagination or does this seem strange for a company that seems to understand the Open Source idea? Update: Seems that the problem is a BIOS issue where IBM used partition type a5 (or 165) for their suspend partition, this was reserved for 386BSD/FreeBSD/NetBSD. (NetBSD has since started using a9.) Here's a list of partition IDs as well as an explanation.

NetBSD 1.4.3 is out; read the announcement, the changelog, or just start downloading.

The Openroot project has started. Evidently, they have opened up root on a FreeBSD 4.1 machine to pretty much everyone. They have disabled any access to connect out from the machine, but you can connect to it on several key ports (like telnet on port 30 and ircd on port 6667). They have taken some pretty heavy precautions (like jailing it, a feature that was introduced with FreeBSD 4.x).(Update 11/24, BSD-Pat) kaworu has decided to use OpenBSD 2.7 instead. Openroot will probably be down until later tonight.

Quite a number of people have e-mailed in the last bit about the release of FreeBSD 4.2. This is the release - you should try it out today, because CowboyNeal sez so, and he's currently updating it on his Vaio.

Jordan Hubbard, co-founder of the FreeBSD Project speaks out about OS X, its significance to the geek, and whether it may be the David that brings about Goliath Microsoft's downfall, in this Salon.com article.

CNN has an article originally from Macworld on the possibility that OS X will be ported to Intel-type hardware. There is much mention of Wilfredo Sanchez and his recent port of Darwin to Intel compatible hardware, and the economic state of Apple and how that may shape the decision to run with this idea. Most of it is speculation, but definitely interesting if it comes to pass, seeing as not much would be needed in the porting effort from where they are already.

Daemon News reports that the Software Development Times names BSDi a 'survivor' in the software industry. A must-read story for those interested in the financial growth of this BSD company.

Daemon News has done it again, this time with an actual contribution of code to the community. NewsDaemon is a content management system that has enough features to be useful. It is written in PHP and hosted on SourceForge.

Again, from Daily Daemon News, it looks like the Japanese ISP, Livin' On The Edge has infused BSDi with a 5 million dollar strategic investment to keep developing the iExtreme line of servers and provide backing to the FreeBSD project. The actual press release is here.

Daemon News has this article on Darwin, its relationship to MacOS X and BSD operating systems, and its possible longevity as an Open Source project. I'm personally interested in the technical aspects of Darwin, given that its kernel is related to Mach, with some enhancements coming from BSD, I'm not sure if this makes it a true BSD OS, or some kind of distant cousin.

Anonymous Coward writes "I've put up a small tutorial on setting up 6to4 (on FreeBSD) and am keeping a list of public 6to4 relay routers (which 6to4 users use to get their traffic to non-6to4 sites). The list is way too short right now, so we need more folks to set up relays and/or let me know about them. The quicker IPv6 becomes popular, the easier the eventual transition will be. here's the URL."

OSDNs favorite BSD zealot BSD-Pat Lynch was on the scene at the latest BSDCon, and took the time to send us in a report. Lots of links to stuff for you BSD folks to share and enjoy.