[kbenson]

It's hard from this thread to determine if the OpenBSD developers have a point and are just expressing it unclearly, or if they are mistaken in some of their assertions and are unwilling to event engage on the issue enough to learn this.

The one time someone references a prior rPi discussion, it's to a message from Theo De Raadt that says:

Wow. Dream on. It is a mess of firmware. You know nothing of our history?

I understand maybe this has come up before and they are tired of the discussion, but this is just toxic. Is it really so hard to just reference a valid prior discussion when this comes up?

[popalop]

The OpenBSD mailing lists tend to be extremely Spartan.

The guidelines users are expected to learn before using them generally involve (from most accepted to least accepted)

Read the mailing lists.

Read them again.

If you have a problem read the man pages.

If you still have a problem search the mailing lists for similar problems.

Make sure you really understand your problem then search again.

If after research you fully understand the problem but still don't have a solution post to the specific mailing list with diagnostic info.

Consider writing up a bug report/ creating your own solution as necessary.

and way way down the list, in the has virtually never been the correct thing to do category, is ask questions like "Will you support the RPi?" Those sort of questions have been asked for essentially every piece of hardware and subtechnology out there, and the answer is always either "No, because propritery whatever but you're free to do the work yourself" or "No, because we're busy and barely keeping the lights and servers on, but you're free to do the work yourself" or "Yes, and you'd know that if you read the mailing lists".

The mailing lists are famous for their get sh*t done attitude and any information about posting on them will relay that to new users.

[kbenson]

> Read the mailing lists.

I would have a lot more sympathy for this point of view if they didn't fill the mailing lists with replies on the topic that were extremely unhelpful. Every reply that doesn't steer the poster towards a useful prior discussion or further the discussion in some way muddies the mailing list for future searchers, leading to more questions on topics that have been covered before. It's a self perpetuating cycle. Guess who has the power to stop it (or at least prevent it from getting worse)?

[popalop]

That's a very valid approach.

OpenBSD has been like this since it's very turbulent beginnings. For better or worse they prefer it this way (and it's bolstered by the lists having a famously high signal to noise ratio).

For a team of their size with the resources available to them they've achived a huge amount of success.

(Debates about whether they'd have larger success if they did a bit more of what they would call hand holding are also valid.)

[kbenson]

Maybe the signal to noise ratio has gotten better, or maybe my recollection is off, but I remember an excessive amount of bikeshedding circa 2006/2007 when I was reading it heavily. I've always been highly impressed with the product, but the mailing lists seem be unproductive, possibly counterproductive, in some instances, IMHO.

[bootload]

"The general guidelines users are expected to learn before using them generally involve (from most accepted to least accepted)"

Back in 2003 running 3.2 on ancient hardware that is indeed the process I went through. [0]

http://monkey.org/openbsd/archive/misc/0310/msg01026.html