[toyg]

I disagree that there is any fundamental difference between Linux and OpenBSD, when it comes to supporting new features, around who should do the work. You’ll find plenty of “where’s the patch?” replies in linuxland too.

The difference is that OpenBSD BDFLs (Theo et al.) have not been willing to compromise their vision of what the OS should be and how it should be developed just to chase popularity. Look at how they still use CVS, ship their own httpd and ssl libs, dropped sudo years ago (and then rewrote it)... they prioritise consistency and reliability over ubiquity and “the new shiny”. Chances are that, even if you wrote a BT stack yourself and submitted it, it wouldn’t be merged unless it fits their philosophy.

That’s the real difference: Linus and his generals have been willing to accomodate and support a higher number of features just for the sake of it, because it was cool; they were more accepting of incoming developers; and they were much friendlier towards business interests, accepting binary blobs and so on, which is somewhat ironic (Linux is very hard-GPL “inside” but then gave up when it comes to drivers; OpenBSD is, well, BSD everywhere, but they push super hard for manufacturers to open their drivers).

OoenBSD makes IT better too, but it does it on its own terms, and that’s fine.

[pjmlp]

Question is, who will pick it up when the OpenBSD BDFLs are no longer around to carry the flag.

[toyg]

That's a very good question. Every once in a while some new faces pop up, but afaik there isn't a well-defined process to replace core developers.