OpenBSD 3.6 Song Released

Puff writes "The song for the upcoming release of OpenBSD 3.6 is now official. Available as mp3 and ogg."

Re:Song?

[node 3]

I don't understand your surprise. Some software companies even have their own music videos [ntk.net].

On a more serious note, I somewhat repulsed that a person would find a project release song repuslive. The repulsion is what I'd expect from the PHB sort. To me, having a song illustrates wonderfully the difference between Free Software/OSS communities and the corporate world. In the one world, creativity is stifled because creativity is often inefficient and non-productive, while in the other, creativity (the human spirit) is the entire purpose.

Even worse, when the corporate world does take on theme songs, they are geared towards mind-control. Take, for example, this old IBM company song:

IBM, Happy men, smiling all the way.

Oh what fun it is to sell our products night and day.
IBM, Watson men, partners of T.J.
In his service to mankind-that's why we are so gay.

(yes, sung to "Jingle Bells")

There are, of course, counter-examples on both sides, but the tendencies are clear.

Darren Reed and the OpenBSD song

[Nonesuch]

The author of ipf (Darren Reed) is regularly on the openbsd mailing lists, and quite often it's just gripe. This whole issue has become quite personal, jugding from the posts.

Yeah, what's up with that? His contributions vary from sardonic to the merely sarcastic. Darren is clearly a bright guy, his criticism could be constructive if he wanted.

Back on topic, this post [sigmasoft.com] by Darren is particularly amusing:

To: [e-mail] (Theo de Raadt)
Subject: Re: OpenBSD 3.6
From: Darren Reed <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 12:14:38 +1000 (Australia/ACT)
Cc: [e-mail]

Hey wow, I just got told that I get a mention in the lyrics :)
Thanks :)

That's almost enough to tempt me into buying my 1st ever CD :)

Not everyone gets immortalised (for better or worse) into song
so thanks :)

Re:Living in the past...

[tedu]

exactly. the license was thought to be acceptable. then darren said, "no, actually you can't modify ipf." so, oh shit, rip it out. it doesn't matter whether it changed or not. unacceptable is unacceptable. you don't go "oh, we were breaking the license yesterday, so who cares? we'll just continue on the same way." you fix the problem.