BSD derivatives

[Manolis Kiagias]

Chad Perrin wrote:
> I'm not saying that's what the OpenBSD project does.  I'm just saying
> that, for instance, the availability of the ath driver contradicts a
> claim that security is a top priority of the FreeBSD project.  Only if
> it was installed and operational by default would that really be the
> case.
>
> Obviously, I'm assuming it's not installed by default.  From what I've
> read so far, it's not -- please correct me if I'm wrong.
>
>   
Actually to set the record straight, the ath driver is installed by
default in 6.2 RELEASE.
Installed by default meaning the card is recognized during FreeBSD setup
and the user is able to configure it immediately from sysinstall.
The ath driver was also present in 6.1 RELEASE (and maybe earlier?)
although it had to be manually activated as a kernel module and it was
not immediately obvious it was supported since it was not present in
sysinstall during setup.
Although the whole security issue is of course highly debatable, don't
forget how much more secure FreeBSD (or other open source OSes) are
compared to proprietary systems. I've been (and still am) a competent
Windows 200X server admin for years and have seen oh so many holes. Mind
you, most of them actually get exploited. It is nowhere near this in
FreeBSD.