[talk] the next con: content (2 of 2)

[George Rosamond]

Malcolm Matalka:
> George Rosamond <george at ceetonetechnology.com> writes:
> 
>> Malcolm Matalka:
>>> Den 13 aug 2015 16:28 skrev "George Rosamond" <george at ceetonetechnology.com
>>>> :
>>>>
>>>> February 2014's con was focused on the "BSDs in Production" and was
>>>> themed broad enough to allow us to choose content while feeling
>>>> consistent :)
>>>>
>>>> And like last con, our audience is not the BSD scene local and remote,
>>>> but rather the non-BSD people in the metropolitan area. No one can take
>>>> anything away from the current BSDCons' importance, but we are doing
>>>> something different here, again. Our con is not an opportunity for the
>>>> 'usual suspects' to meet at different cities around the world. Rather,
>>>> our con is about talking to the broader community around NYC.
>>>>
>>>> There are two theme ideas I'm personally thinking about that have been
>>>> discussed.  Yes, the term "beyond" is purposeful.
>>>>
>>>> 1. The BSDs Beyond x86: ARM, MIPS
>>>>
>>>> The obvious connection for people on this topic is the Raspberry Pi, but
>>>> I can imagine that will barely be mentioned.
>>>>
>>>> There is very significant work happening on armv7 and what is now known
>>>> as aarch64 (64-bit ARM). It's not just about small hardware, but about
>>>> powerful, low-energy consuming hardware that should begin creeping into
>>>> data centers soon. The big firms are working on it, and even Amazon
>>>> acquired an ARM hardware firm a while back.
>>>>
>>>> There are other angles. There is some *really* cheap hardware that is
>>>> useful for testing network drivers, porting to the Chromebook, etc.
>>>>
>>>> Ideally, we'd get some hardware manufacturers to bring in some gear to
>>>> make this a more hands-on event.
>>>>
>>>> 2. The BSDs and Security: Beyond the Obvious
>>>>
>>>> IMHO the security angle is way overplayed, and we should be angling this
>>>> outside the box.
>>>>
>>>> There are a few topics that come to mind.
>>>>
>>>> OCAML being one. Capsicum/tame (fbsd/obsd, respectively). ASLR.
>>>
>>> As an ocaml fan, what are you referring to when you say ocaml here?
>>>
>>
>> The language in the context of building secure services is one idea.
>>
>> And what would your idea be?
> 
> I don't have any idea per se, more of just curious to see it explicitly
> mentioned.  I actually think Ocaml is great for low-levelish-user-land
> things and spend most of my time developing tools and services in Ocaml
> so I'd be interested to see it become more prominent in the BSD
> community.
> 

I don't know a whole lot about ocaml... but I do know that one of
prominent devs is/was an OpenBSD dev, and a remote NYC*BUG person who
also used to be an OpenBSD dev uses it daily.

It was actually my conversation with him that sparked the thought.

But I do think your last line is a decent start... "Building OCAML
Prominence in BSD Land", or "OCAML: What is it and Why you Need to Pay
Attention"

g

>>
>>>> Interesting lessons in porting Tor Browser (essentially Linux software)
>>>> to OpenBSD in regards to portability, footprints (er, bloat).
>>>> Upstreaming portable BSD code, specifically thinking about OBSD's
>>>> arc4random and libressl (libretls now? :).
>>>>
>>>> Another topic might be on entropy. In light of the FBSD breakage in the
>>>> fall in -current and the critiques of Linux RNG, how do we know it's
>>>> working?  What is good entropy? How do we know it's good? How many
>>>> stupid ways do bad non-crypto developers try to replace a system's RNG?
>>>>
>>>> Finally, as always, we are going to work hard to keep the event as "BSD
>>>> agnostic" as possible. All the BSDs should be represented, but also
>>>> having more general speakers not tied to one project or another is a
>>>> positive.
>>>>
>>>> Anyways, please feel free to jump into this topic.
>>
>> g