Darkhack
December 2nd, 2007, 08:11 PM
Although I use Ubuntu, I do occasionally check out OpenBSD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBSD) to see what's up every so often. I'm a big fan of the security model and the strong advocacy of open source that Theo de Raddt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_de_Raddt) has.
They have a release every six months, just like Ubuntu, but they also release artwork (a short comic) and a song with every release. I knew about this for quite some time but I never bothered to look at it, thinking that it would be some cheesy thing like Stallman's Free Software Song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5eLn1QMJS0). Well, I was bored today (using the computer to distract myself from writing an essay for English because I procrastinate like that) and it seemed like a slow news day (which I usually read when I'm bored) and the idea of checking out the OpenBSD song just popped into my head. Some of them weren't that good, but the most recent one for the 4.2 release (Nov 1, 2007) was quite good; especially the lyrics.
http://openbsd.org/lyrics.html#42
The music was well done and my favorite part of the song is...
The window is a wall by now
A sieve of sickened holes
The water chicken stealing maps
Mistaking us for foes
The sun a son of Icarus
Flies too close to itself
Forbidden fruit is blinded
by the toys upon the shelf
I had to look up that part on Icarus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus), but in case you don't know Icarus was a character in Greek mythology whose father had made him a set of wings from feathers and wax. His father told him not to fly too close to the sun or the wax would melt and he would fall into the sea. Over time however, the expression had been misused and thus people use the saying "son of Icarus" when in truth, Icarus was the son himself and he had no children. The expression (though technically incorrect, but better known) refers to the son not listening to his father's advice. As for the other references, I think you can figure out what they correspond to. I just thought that this part of the lyrics were very clever and the comic along with it is neat too. I really love art that makes you think for a while about its meaning; it's the best kind in my opinion.
I'm not artistic (more of a programmer and technical person) but I think it would be super awesome to see a comic and/or song with each Ubuntu release. Perhaps something that involves the animal it is named after as well as a reference to a feature in the new release (like Hardy Heron would be about a bird and something in their about stability since it is an LTS). Possibly other characters (like the Firefox) could appear every so often.
I think it would be pretty groovy.
Update: I also just noticed that the name of the song "100001 1010101" is a shorthand form of "00100001 01010101" (with the prefixed zeros) which when converted to ASCII reads out "!U" which means "not you", as in, OpenBSD saying to the others, it's "not you" who promotes freedom.
They have a release every six months, just like Ubuntu, but they also release artwork (a short comic) and a song with every release. I knew about this for quite some time but I never bothered to look at it, thinking that it would be some cheesy thing like Stallman's Free Software Song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5eLn1QMJS0). Well, I was bored today (using the computer to distract myself from writing an essay for English because I procrastinate like that) and it seemed like a slow news day (which I usually read when I'm bored) and the idea of checking out the OpenBSD song just popped into my head. Some of them weren't that good, but the most recent one for the 4.2 release (Nov 1, 2007) was quite good; especially the lyrics.
http://openbsd.org/lyrics.html#42
The music was well done and my favorite part of the song is...
The window is a wall by now
A sieve of sickened holes
The water chicken stealing maps
Mistaking us for foes
The sun a son of Icarus
Flies too close to itself
Forbidden fruit is blinded
by the toys upon the shelf
I had to look up that part on Icarus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus), but in case you don't know Icarus was a character in Greek mythology whose father had made him a set of wings from feathers and wax. His father told him not to fly too close to the sun or the wax would melt and he would fall into the sea. Over time however, the expression had been misused and thus people use the saying "son of Icarus" when in truth, Icarus was the son himself and he had no children. The expression (though technically incorrect, but better known) refers to the son not listening to his father's advice. As for the other references, I think you can figure out what they correspond to. I just thought that this part of the lyrics were very clever and the comic along with it is neat too. I really love art that makes you think for a while about its meaning; it's the best kind in my opinion.
I'm not artistic (more of a programmer and technical person) but I think it would be super awesome to see a comic and/or song with each Ubuntu release. Perhaps something that involves the animal it is named after as well as a reference to a feature in the new release (like Hardy Heron would be about a bird and something in their about stability since it is an LTS). Possibly other characters (like the Firefox) could appear every so often.
I think it would be pretty groovy.
Update: I also just noticed that the name of the song "100001 1010101" is a shorthand form of "00100001 01010101" (with the prefixed zeros) which when converted to ASCII reads out "!U" which means "not you", as in, OpenBSD saying to the others, it's "not you" who promotes freedom.