Johnny C. Lam posted his grand plan for Ruby packages in pkgsrc, including use of Ruby’s internal ‘gems‘ packaging method.
Microsoft is running a program called “DreamSpark”, where students get Microsoft tools free to use in creating software for particular academic activities, as long as it’s non-commercial and student status can be verified.
That’s great – I’m not knocking the provision of software that’s normally too expensive to buy so that people can learn. However, I do want to contrast it against BSD (and Linux, too) – where all the development tools come with your free system, and have been doing so with BSD for 3 decades.
For additional snarkiness, compare the Microsoft terms of use and the BSD license.
Hasso Tepper has updated DragonFly’s Bluetooth stack with code from OpenBSD (and originally from NetBSD, if I understand correctly.)
Update: corrected because I managed to invert just about everything in that post.
Registration for BSDCan, happening in mid-May, is open, with prices in U.S. and Canadian dollars equal. Also, PGCon (for PostgreSQL) is happening in the same place, the next week. (Thanks, Undeadly)
I’ve placed a page on the wiki with some guidelines for students who want to work with DragonFly for Google’s SoC 2008. It’s on the wiki, so if you want to add something, please do.
I’ll link to my mailing list post about it, as I’ve already summarized there. Student signup is the 24-31st of March, so start getting it together if you want to be involved as a student or mentor!
p.s. Yay!
Kris Kennaway did some benchmarks of FreeBSD 4 and 7 along with DragonFly 1.12. DragonFly is still mostly under the Giant Lock, so there’s unfortunately little scaling from multiple CPUs, as his benchmarks show.  (Thanks, Richard Toohey)
USENIX has made the records of all its proceedings public, meaning that a simple search can pick out details from the conferences since … 1975? Search for DragonFly, and you’ll see references popping up in the last few years. (Via Hubert Feyrer)
Dru Lavigne has completed the Spring08 BSDA DVD, which includes Free/Net/Open/DragonFly BSD and a pile of documents related to certification. It’s $40 – check her post for details.
Mark Weinem passed along a link to the second part of the “10 Years of pkgsrc” articles. (First part still available here.) In addition to more coverage of pkgsrc, it also delves into PacmanGoboLinux, mports, and Zero Install.
Edit: It’s GoboLinux, not just pacman; thanks, Mark!
zsh is one of those shells I hear people talk about but have never tried; if you’re in the same boat, I came across this “Get the most out of zsh” article at IBM’s developerWorks. (Via rootprompt.org)
Thomas Klausner is removing some software from pkgsrc; check to see that it’s not still installed on your system.
Hasso Tepper has fixed an overflow in ppp, from OpenBSD errata 2008-009.
Sascha Wildner has created the framework for something I’ve wanted for a long time: the DragonFly Live CD able to support X and various programs. His post mentions various uses for it; his diff has since been committed.
The latest @Play column on GameSetWatch describes Slash’EM, which is apparently a roguelike for people who find NetHack too simple. Nethack’s in pkgsrc, and I think Slashem should compile on DragonFly…
BSDTalk 143 is an interview with Deborah Norling, focusing on computer accessibility for the blind on BSD, and old computer equipment. It’s a very different interview from the normal technical overview. A choice quote: “We don’t have a [PDP] 11/70 cause they’re just too darn big”.
Sascha Wildner has added a way to get a new list of PCI IDs added to the system; for those who don’t know, these lists are how the system knows what names to use for devices detected and listed in dmesg.
wiki.dragonflybsd.org has been updated by yours truly to 1.6.1 of MoinMoin; this should fix some reported errors with 1.6.0.