[jnazario]

[update - i read the back story elsewhere and the reason is less boneheaded than i had assumed. still, i think the community needs to focus on higher priority needs and gaps]

this is the sort of thing that makes me happy i'm no longer involved in the OpenBSD world. httpd & previously smtpd are two replacements that (in my opinion) have little additive value beyond existing, community-adopted solutions (e.g. nginx and postfix), diluting effort where it is needed.

does the world need a new httpd? maybe. but the world needs other replacement software to be done first because it'll have a greater impact.

for example, OpenBSD could invest time and effort in maturing static code analyzers to assist in code audits (especially of ports).

i suspect this new httpd was done less because it was needed and more because it could be done. that's the attitude i disagree with.

[poolpOrg]

As an OpenBSD/OpenSMTPD developer, I feel I should ask:

What makes you think that if I wasn't spending _MY_ spare time working on projects I like, I'd spend _MY_ spare time working on projects _YOU_ prefer ?

I work on projects because I need them and want to work on them, not because someone else feels I should do it. You say that you suspect a developer wrote code because it could be done and you disagree with that attitude, but I'd argue that there's much more to be said about the attitude of people thinking they are entitled to decide what _VOLUNTEER_ developers should do with _THEIR_ free time...

[p9idf]

If the world needed OpenBSD programmers to write high-impact replacement software so badly, the world would offer to pay for it. And since evidently no one wants to pay them to do so, it seems pretty reasonable to expect that the unpaid programmers -- volunteering their free time to write programs that they give away to the world for free -- would set their own priorities, address their own needs, and invest their time and effort however they see fit.

[pyvpx]

considering you wrote a book on OpenBSD many moons ago, you'd know that the only things that get attention are the itches /developers/ scratch. since you seem to be happy not being apart of the OpenBSD "world" (aka not developing on or for OpenBSD), who other than yourself really cares what you feel are higher priority needs and gaps?

[floatboth]

OpenSMTPD is much, much simpler than Postfix. I can't stand Postfix's fucking 1000 line multi-file configuration.

Nginx is simple, so, yeah – no need for a replacement there.

[clarry]

> Nginx is simple, so, yeah – no need for a replacement there.

Nginx is approximately twice the size of the old Apache 1.3 based httpd OpenBSD had in base.

Nginx is an order of magnitude larger than the new httpd.

Perhaps nginx is simple from a user's perspective. But from a code/complexity viewpoint (think of all that must be read and verified to make sure it is correct, clean, simple and secure?) it is not quite so simple.

[ta0967]

i don't know what you are doing there, but Postfix has two crucial files, main.cf and master.cf. your /etc/postfix may have multiple files, and the default main.cf certainly has all the things (commented out), but you absolutely do not need to keep it.

if nginx feels simple it's only because it doesn't copy a good chunk of its documentation into your /etc.

[tedunangst]

Not all developers are fungible.