It's not really philosophical, they just weren't happy with the Bluetooth stack they had (originally from netbsd I think) and no-one has written a new one yet.
Do-ocracy. Just because none of those devs want it enough to implement it, doesn't mean they'd turn away somebody who did. If somebody wants it bad enough, they'll do it.
> “Jeez, why does Mary get to decide what everyone eats and when they work? Who put her in charge?” Older and wiser heads will say, “This is a do-ocracy. If you think you can do Mary’s job, and you want to, then get up there and do it. She’ll probably be relieved. If not, don’t be a jerk and make a big stink about it, or else she’ll stop working so hard and we won’t have anything to eat!”
I'm an OpenBSD user and Bluetooth Audio is a non-problem. Creative makes little USB Audio devices that OpenBSD treats as a HID soundcard and Creative handles the Bluetooth itself.
There are larger forms of this but Creative's form factor is very small.
The number of regular OpenBSD users that are not programmers is probably vanishingly thin. If my memory serves me correctly, there are features of modern x86 processors that it straight up doesn't implement on a don't-care basis, so it's pretty safe to say that nobody that has made peace with that is looking to deal with technology as maligned as Bluetooth when they're likely already buying hardware specifically to run OpenBSD.
You could also pay someone else to write it for you. OpenBSD is a free, community based project - you cant really complain it doesnt do what you want if you arent willing to invest any time or money.
Say I wanted to go down this route and pay someone to implement Bluetooth in OpenBSD - don't you think that'd be a huge project and cost many thousands of dollars?
Figure out some interested people upfront and a rough time (thus cost) estimate.
Then pool resources via a funding platform, get the word out (here on HN, social media, mailing lists) and you may get it done quite soon and also at a low relatively low cost per user.
To be honest, with some other open source projects I've wanted to "pay for someone else to do it".
But like, that's actually _also_ a lot of effort! Especially for projects that are "abandoned" or have no obvious owner, since then you're in "hire a random X programmer to do this for you".
I feel like more OSS projects should go beyond "Donate" and have a "buy a feature/bug fix" button.
Makes sense. “You get what you pay for.” “Don’t look the gift horse in the mouth.” “Take it or leave it.” Sure. But the old trope still feels wrong somehow.
Not really - in the case of Linux you pay the same price as OpenBSD but you get much more.
That's because enough people decided to put enough effort to support as many use cases as possible, until the OS got enough momentum to be hard to ignore.
The BSD approach has instead always been "you want it? then code it yourself and open a merge request". That sounds legitimate, but that's the real reason why OpenBSD has never taken off outside of its small niche of geeks - despite being an amazingly designed OS under the hood.
And I know many of those geeks who are quite proud of being part of a tiny niche that scuffs at Bluetooth, USB 3.0, QHD displays or anything that a "normal user" might want - had it been for them a 640x480 screen with a working session of xterm would have largely sufficed. But that's also the reason why there aren't many "normal people" using their OS.
At some point one should also ponder why we support and contribute to open-source projects (especially considering that we mostly do it in our spare time, that, in the case of developers, is often limited and precious). Is it because we want to make the (IT) world a better place with more free and cool products and attract more people, or is it because we like our own well-curated niche and we don't want to let anybody in?
It’s not a problem, nobody minds if you don’t use it. If it’s in products, it’s not likely you would even find out. Everything isn’t for everybody, after all. A hundred companies and more are running Linux, Theo and a couple dozen people run OpenBSD. It’s hand crafted and if you don’t like it, there’s a big giant circus tent called Linux over there.
There's not a lot of applications where bluetooth is essential. Personally, after several rounds of disappointment with bluetooth mice, the only thing I use bluetooth for is handsfree calling and sometimes music in cars. Even that sometimes doesn't work (my spouse's Nokia 7.2 couldn't connect to her car between July and December, because something in the Nokia firmware was broken; worked fine with my car though).
So, my guess is nobody who works on OpenBSD a lot cares about bluetooth on OpenBSD, because they're not using bluetooth much, and don't see any use cases for it that would help them.
What's wrong with bluetooth in general? Essentially, it's an under-specified security nightmare. Of course, it's also pretty important for certain classes of devices.
I've never had a bluetooth device that actually worked reliably. Granted, my experience is limited to mostly keyboards and mice. If the bluetooth isn't giving me issues, the battery is. No thanks. I'll stick with USB and wired devices.
My Bluetooth headphones have been pretty bulletproof since I started using them a few years ago. Battery life still lasts two or three weeks ay my usage levels too. But I only keep them paired to one device, and I understand most of the grief with these sorts of things comes with switching between hosts often.