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From: rwat...@FreeBSD.ORG (Robert Watson)
Newsgroups: mailing.freebsd.hackers
Subject: FreeBSD Monthly Status Report, August 2001
Date: 19 Sep 2001 03:35:35 +0800
Organization: NCTU CSIE FreeBSD Server
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                           August 2001 Status Report

                                  Introduction

   The FreeBSD Project made substantial progress in the month of August,
   2001, both on continuing the development of the RELENG_4 line (4.x-STABLE
   and 4.x-RELEASE), and on 5.0-CURRENT, the main development branch. During
   this month, the decision was made to push the release of 5.0-CURRENT back
   so that KSE (support for fine-grained user threads) could be completed in
   time for the release, rather than postponing that support for 6.0. As
   such, the lifespan of the RELENG_4 line will be extended, with new
   features continuing to be backported to that branch. 4.4-RELEASE went into
   final beta during this month, and will also be available shortly.

   This month's edition of the status report has been written with the
   assistance of Nik Clayton and Chris Costello.

                               Future submissions

   For next month, the submission procedures remain the same: reports should
   be between one and two paragraphs long, sent by e-mail, and in a format
   approximately that of this month's submissions (Project, Contact, URL, and
   text). Reminders will be mailed to the hack...@FreeBSD.org and
   develop...@FreeBSD.org mailing lists at least a week before the deadline;
   complete submission instructions may be found in those reminders.

   -- Robert Watson

     * aac driver
     * ARM port
     * BSDCon Europe
     * CAM
     * Compressed TCP state
     * CVSROOT script rewrite/tidy
     * Documentation Project
     * fbsd-nvdriver
     * Fibre Channel Support
     * floppy driver overhaul
     * FreeBSD core-secretary
     * FreeBSD Java Project
     * FreeBSD PAM
     * FreeBSD Release Engineering
     * FreeBSD/sparc64 port
     * GNOME Desktop for FreeBSD
     * ia64 Port
     * Improved TCP Initial Sequence Numbers
     * Intel Gigabit Ethernet
     * IP Multicast Routing support
     * jpman project
     * KAME
     * KSE
     * libh Project
     * LOMAC
     * Mbuf SMPng allocator
     * Netgraph ATM
     * network device cloning
     * Network device nodes
     * Network SMP locking
     * OLDCARD improvements
     * Porting ppp to hurd & linux
     * PPP IPv6 Support
     * pppoa
     * pppoed
     * PRFW - hooks for the FreeBSD kernel
     * Problem Reports
     * RAIDframe for FreeBSD
     * RELNOTESng
     * SCSI Tape Support
     * SMPng
     * sppp(4) merge
     * SYN cache implemetation for FreeBSD
     * TrustedBSD
     * TrustedBSD Capabilities

aac driver

   URL: http://people.freebsd.org/~scottl/aac

   Contact: Scott Long <sco...@freebsd.org>

   The aac driver has been given a lot of attention lately and is now nearly
   feature complete. Changes include crashdump support, correct handling of
   controller initiated commands, and more complete management interface
   support. The Linux RAID management tool available from Dell and HP now
   fully works; a FreeBSD native version of the tool is also in the works.
   These changes have been checked into -current, and will appear in -stable
   once 4.4 has been released.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

ARM port

   URL: http://pages.infinit.net/sepotvin/

   Contact: Stephane Potvin <sepot...@videotron.ca>

   Basic footbridge support is now functional and the kernel is now able to
   probe the pci bus. Access primitives for the bus are still missing so I
   can't attach any drivers yet.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

BSDCon Europe

   Contact: Paul Richards <p...@freebsd-services.com>

   Planning for BSDCon Europe is going well. We're still accepting proposals
   for talks but the schedule is starting to fill up so we may not be for
   much longer.

   An update of the site that includes accommodation information, a
   preliminary schedule, a list of speakers and an online payment page will
   be launched on Wednesday 19 September.

   The fee will be -L-150 for individuals and -L-250 for corporations. The
   individual pricing is valid only until the end of September, the price
   will rise to -L-200 for October and late registrations in November will be
   -L-250.

   The updated website will include a list of sponsorship options, we're
   still looking for more sponsorship.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

CAM

   Contact: Matthew Jacob <mja...@FreeBSD.org>
   Contact: Justin Gibbs <gi...@freebsd.org>
   Contact: Kenneth Merry <k...@freebsd.org>

   No change since last status. Some discussion amongst all of us occurred,
   but lack of time and commitment to FreeBSD has meant little has actually
   been committed to the tree. SMPNG work will be left to those who seem to
   have a notion about what needs to be done.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Compressed TCP state

   Contact: Jonathan Lemon <jle...@freebsd.org>

   State information for TCP connections is primarily kept in the TCP/IP
   control blocks in the kernel. Not all of the TCP states make use of the
   entire structure, and significant memory savings can be had by using a
   cut-down version of the state in some cases. The first phase of this
   project will address connections that are in the TIME_WAIT state by moving
   them into a smaller structure.

   This project has completed the initial research and rough design phases,
   with actual code development starting immediately.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

CVSROOT script rewrite/tidy

   Contact: Josef Karthauser <j...@FreeBSD.org>

   Work is still progressing to make all of the perl scripts run using perl's
   'strict' mode, and to migrate all FreeBSD specific options into the
   configuration file (CVSROOT/cfg.pm). I'll be looking for help soon to
   write a guide on how to make use of these scripts for use in your own
   repository. Anyone interested in helping should contact me at the above
   email address.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Documentation Project

   URL: http://www.FreeBSD.org/docs.html
   URL: http://www.FreeBSD.org/docproj/index.html

   Contact: Nik Clayton <n...@freebsd.org>
   Contact: Documentation Project <d...@FreeBSD.org>

   The Handbook has been the main focus of activity this month. Due to go to
   the printers on the 15th a vast amount of new content has been submitted
   and committed. This includes a complete rewrite of the "Installing
   FreeBSD", which massively expands the amount of information available to
   people new to FreeBSD. It even includes screenshots.

   http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install.html

   Comments, and contributions are, of course, welcome.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

fbsd-nvdriver

   URL: http://fbsd-nvdriver.sourceforge.net

   Contact: Erik Greenwald <e...@floatingmind.com>
   Contact: Joel Willson <siigo...@linuxsveeden.borkborkbork>

   NVIDIA Corporation releases Linux drivers by using a combination of binary
   object files and source (under a constrictive license). The FreeBSD NVIDIA
   driver project aimed to completely replace the source component of the
   driver using code targetting FreeBSD 4.3 and released under the BSD
   license. The binary module provided is supposedly the same module used on
   Windows, BeOS, and OS/2, so it should be portable between different i80x86
   based OS's.

   The project is currently on indefinite hold. Our contact at NVIDIA seemed
   enthusiastic about the project, and was fairly quick about returning
   email, but when we discovered issues that prevented porting without
   changes to the binary component or error codes we needed decyphered, Nick
   (the contact) said he'd look into it and never got back. The first major
   problem was the ioctl interface, the nvidia driver passes a pointer and
   depends on the kernel side to copyout the right amount, where FreeBSD
   expect the parameters to be correct and the copyout is performed by the
   subsystem. This was worked around using Dave Rufinos "ioctl tunnel" idea.
   After that, we found that X refused to load and traced it down to an ioctl
   defined in the binary component erroring. We cannot tell what that ioctl
   is, were told that we could not sign an nda for source to that component,
   and have been waiting a month for Nick to "look into it". Therefore
   progress is impossible (without breaking the license) and we believe that
   the flaws make the driver unportable to any *nix other than Linux.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Fibre Channel Support

   URL: http://www.feral.com/isp.html

   Contact: Matthew Jacob <mja...@FreeBSD.org>

   2 Gigabit support was integrated on 8/31/2001 (QLogic 2300/2312 cards).
   Because of the author's shrinking time commitment for FreeBSD, the
   previously planned "next step" which would have been more complete new CAM
   Transport integration is now probably just the addition of an FC-IP
   adjunct (as this can benefit many platforms simultaneously).

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

floppy driver overhaul

   Contact: Joerg Wunsch <j...@uriah.heep.sax.de>

   As part of some ongoing development activity, the floppy driver (fdc(4))
   enjoyed some overhaul in the past which is part of an ongoing process.
   Automatic density selection will come next, something i meant to implement
   for years now. As part of that, the entire density selection stuff has
   been rewritten. 2.88 MB floppies are on the wishlist as well, but I need a
   working 2.88 drive before attempting to implement that.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

FreeBSD core-secretary

   Contact: Alan Clegg <a...@freebsd.org>
   Contact: <core-secret...@freebsd.org>

   The position of Core Secretary was filled by Alan Clegg <a...@freebsd.org>
   The first core-secretary report should be available the second week in
   September and will cover the issues discussed by core during August 2001.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

FreeBSD Java Project

   URL: http://www.freebsd.org/java/

   Contact: Greg Lewis <gle...@eyesbeyond.com>

   Most of the work this month has focused on development of the native JDK
   1.3.1 patchset. The 3rd patchset is out and has been accompanied with the
   creation of a FreeBSD "port". This has allowed early adopters much easier
   access to the code and naturally resulted in a number of bugs being found.
   Development work has mostly focused on fixing these problems and the
   project is now set to release fourth patchset over the weekend, which
   should see the JDK in a reasonable useable state. One of the big
   challenges left is producing a working HotSpot JVM, which looks like it
   will require some heavy hacking.

   We also welcome OpenBSD's Heikki Korpela to the porting team :)

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

FreeBSD PAM

   Contact: Mark Murray <ma...@FreeBSD.org>

   Development is continuing; pam_unix has gained the ability to change
   passwords, login(1) has had PAM made compulsory (and is going to have more
   PAM-capable features handed over to PAM).

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

FreeBSD Release Engineering

   Contact: FreeBSD Release Engineer Team <r...@FreeBSD.org>

   The FreeBSD release engineering process for FreeBSD 4.4 started to ramp up
   around August 1st when the "code slush" took affect. During this time all
   commits to the RELENG_4 branch were reviewed by r...@FreeBSD.org (over 250
   code snippets had to be reviewed). After the first release candidate on
   August 15th, all submissions were scrutinized under a more strict
   potential risk vs benefit curve. The best way to help get involved with
   the release engineering process is to simply follow the low volume
   freebsd-qa mailing list, help out with the neverending supply of PRs
   related to our installation tools (sysinstall), or to work on a possible
   next-generation replacement for our installation technology, such as the
   libh or OpenPackages projects.

   Many companies donated equipment, network access, or paychecks to finance
   these activities. Including Compaq, Yahoo!, Wind River Systems, and many
   more.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

FreeBSD/sparc64 port

   Contact: Jake Burkholder <j...@freebsd.org>
   Contact: Thomas Moestl <t...@freebsd.org>
   Contact: Robert Drehmel <rob...@freebsd.org>

   Sparc64 development is still continuing rapidly and we're making some
   excellent progress. Of note, some problems with the way the pmap module
   implements copy-on-write mappings have been fixed and fork() now works as
   expected, support for signals has been added, and the port has been
   updated for kse in the perforce repository. Thomas Moestl has begun work
   on pci bus support, and a basic nexus bus for sparc64 has been written.
   The driver for the Sun `Psycho' and `Sabre' UPA-to-PCI bridges and
   associated code has been ported from NetBSD (the Sabre is the on-chip
   version found in the UltraSparc IIi and IIe). PCI configuration, I/O and
   memory space accesses do already work, as well as interrupt assignment and
   delivery for devices attached directly to the bridge, and the first PCI
   device drivers can attach and seem to work mostly. Interrupt routing and
   busdma support still need much work.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

GNOME Desktop for FreeBSD

   Contact: Maxim Sobolev <sobo...@FreeBSD.org>
   Contact: FreeBSD GNOME Team <gn...@FreeBSD.org>

   Getting GNOME Fifth-Toe metaport ready for 4.4-RELEASE was the main focus
   of activity this month. In the process many components were updated, many
   bugs were tracked down and solved, which allowed to make this 97-component
   meta-package building and working properly.

   Next month the project will be focused on organising work of the FreeBSD
   GNOME Team as well as on attempts to increase amount of people
   participating in the team (anybody who is willing to participate is
   welcome to drop a note to gnome@FreeBSD with a short explanation of how
   he/she could help).

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

ia64 Port

   Contact: Doug Rabson <d...@FreeBSD.org>

   Current status is that the ia64 kernel builds and runs in a simulator
   environment up to single user mode and has been tested lightly in that
   environment. My current focus is on completing the ia64 loader so that I
   can start to get kernels working on the real hardware. The loader is
   coming along well and I expect to be able to load kernels (but not
   necessary execute them) soon.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Improved TCP Initial Sequence Numbers

   Contact: Mike Silbersack <si...@silby.com>

   In mid March, 2001, Tim Newsham of Guardent identified an attack possible
   against the initial sequence number generation scheme of FreeBSD (and
   other OSes.) In order to guard against this threat, a randomized sequence
   number generation scheme was ported over from OpenBSD and included in
   4.3-release. Unfortunately, non-monotonic generation was found to cause
   major problems with applications which initiate continuous, rapid
   connections to a single host.

   In order to restore proper operation under such circumstances while still
   providing strong resistance against sequence number prediction, FreeBSD
   4.4 uses the algorithm specified in RFC 1948. This algorithm hashes
   together host and port information with a piece of secret data to generate
   a unique sequence number space for each connection. As a result, outgoing
   initial sequence numbers are again monotonic, but also unguessable by an
   attacker.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Intel Gigabit Ethernet

   Contact: Matthew Jacob <mja...@FreeBSD.org>

   No new status to report. This driver will be worked on again soon and
   cleaned up to work better.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

IP Multicast Routing support

   Contact: Bill Fenner <fen...@FreeBSD.org>

   FreeBSD's IP Multicast Routing support was recently updated in several
   ways. One big change is that it's now able to be loaded as a KLD instead
   of statically compiled into the kernel; this is especially useful for
   experimentation or updating of an existing system. It also now coexists
   nicely with the kernel IP encapsulation infrastructure, so that multicast
   tunnels can better coexist with MobileIP, certain IPSec tunnels and
   generic IPv4-in-IPv4 tunnels.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

jpman project

   URL: http://www.jp.FreeBSD.org/man-jp/

   Contact: Kazuo Horikawa <horik...@psinet.com>
   Contact: <man...@jp.FreeBSD.org>

   Targeting 4.4-RELEASE, one team has been translating newly MFC'ed section
   [125678] manpages. The other team has been updating section 3 since May
   and one third (1/3) is finished. The port ja-groff is updated to be
   groff-1.17.2 based, and now it has the same functionality as base system
   does. The port ja-man is updated to have the search capability under an
   architecture subdirectory, as base system does. The doc/ja_JP.eucJP/man
   hierarchy update (adding architecture subdirectories) is planned after
   4.4-RELEASE.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

KAME

   URL: http://www.kame.net/

   Contact: Munechika Sumikawa <sumik...@FreeBSD.org>

   The KAME project (http://www.kame.net/) has merged its IPv6 and IPsec
   implementation as of July 2001 to FreeBSD CURRENT and STABLE, in
   cooperation with some contributors of the project. The latest code
   includes a number of bug fixes, has been fully tested in FreeBSD STABLE,
   and will appear in FreeBSD 4.4 RELEASE. Thus, the new RELEASE version will
   be quite stable in terms of IPv6 and IPsec.

   The project has assigned a talented guy to be responsible for merge from
   KAME to FreeBSD, so future merge efforts will be smoother.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

KSE

   Contact: Julian Elischer <jul...@elischer.org>
   Contact: Peter Wemm <pe...@FreeBSD.org>
   Contact: Matt Dillon <dil...@FreeBSD.org>

   Work in adding supporting infrastructure to the kernel for KSE threading
   support has reached "milestone 2".

   Milestone 2 is where the kernel source consistently refers to its
   resources in terms of per-thread and per-process resources, in the way
   that it will need to when there are > 1 threads per process, but the
   LOGICAL changes to such things as the scheduler, and fork and exit, have
   not yet been made to allow more than one thread to be created. (nor have
   new threading syscalls been added yet). This is an important milestone as
   it represents the last point where the kernel has only "mechanical"
   changes. To go further we must start adding new algorythms and functions.

   The kernel for milestone 2 is reliable and has no noticable performance
   degradations when compared to a matchung -current kernel. (the differences
   are less than the margin of error, so that sometimes the new kernel
   actually fractionally beats the unaltered kernel).

   We hope that by the time this is published, the KSE patches will have been
   committed. The Major effect for most developers will be only that the
   device driver interface requires a 'thread' pointer instead of a Proc
   pointer in the open, close and ioctl entrypoints.

   I'm sure there will be small teething problems but we are not expecting
   great problems at the commit.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

libh Project

   Contact: Alexander Langer <a...@FreeBSD.org>
   Contact: Nathan Ahistrom <n...@FreeBSd.org>

   I have access to the libh CVS repo again and am testing a new, OBJDIR
   capable build structure at the moment. Done that, I'm going to continue
   testing the package library and implement the missing functionality.
   Currently, import of libh into the base system is under discussion (arch
   mailinglist). Now that 5.0-RELEASE has been shifted, I want 5.0 ship with
   a libh installer and package system. We can really need people who are
   good in C++, are able to understand what the current implementation does
   and also feel that working on libh is fun and thus are willing to help.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

LOMAC

   Contact: Brian Feldman <gr...@FreeBSD.org>

   The port of LOMAC to FreeBSD is progressing well, and already has a very
   high level of stability (no known outstanding bugs!). Aspects which have
   already been implemented include a stacking filesystem overlay with
   fully-functional access controls (for files and directories) based on path
   names, access controls for sending signals, and file-backed-memory
   revocation for processes.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Mbuf SMPng allocator

   URL: http://people.freebsd.org/~bmilekic/code/mb_slab/

   Contact: Bosko Milekic <bmile...@FreeBSD.org>

   The allocator appears to be stable. Mbtypes statistics have been
   re-activated thanks, in part, to Jiangyi Liu <jy...@163.net> although the
   diff has not yet been committed (I'm just in the process of cleaning it up
   a little and final testing). More work to come: cleanups, follow TODO from
   the original commit, and perhaps an eventual generalization of the
   allocator for various network-related allocations (in a more distant
   future).

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Netgraph ATM

   Contact: Hartmut Brandt <bra...@fokus.gmd.de>

   The ATM stack has been tested with a number of FreeBSD machines and a
   Marconi ATM switch and seems to be quite stable running CLIP. Multi port
   support for the native ATM API has been implemented but needs some
   testing.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

network device cloning

   Contact: Brooks Davis <bro...@FreeBSD.org>

   Support for cloning vlan devices via ifconfig has been committed to
   -current and will be MFC'd after further testing. Additionaly, Maksim
   Yevmenkin submitted code to allow cloning of tap and vmnet devices on
   devfs systems. Code for faith and stf should be committed shortly.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Network device nodes

   Contact: Jonathan Lemon <jle...@freebsd.org>

   Currently, all network devices (fxp0, lo0, etc) exist in their own
   namespace, and are accessed through a socket interface. This project
   creates device nodes in /dev for network devices, and allows control and
   access in that fashion.

   This is experimental work, and suggestions for APIs and functionality are
   strongly encouraged and welcomed. In is not clear whether it will be
   possible (or desirable) to provide the exact same set of operations that
   can be done through the socket interface.

   Benefits of approach include the fact that a kqueue filter can be attached
   to a network device for monitoring purposes. Initial code exists to send a
   kq event whever the network link status changes. Other benefits may
   include better access control by using filesystem ACLs to control access
   to the device.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Network SMP locking

   Contact: Jonathan Lemon <jle...@freebsd.org>

   For 5.0, the goal is for the network stack to run without the Giant lock.
   Initial development in this area may focus on partitioning the code and
   data structures into distinct areas of responsibilities. A first pass of
   locking may involve using a several smaller mini-giant code locks in order
   to reduce the problem to a manageable size.

   Progress for this month includes the creation of a perforce repository to
   officially track the locking changes, and the initial submission of locks
   for the &ifnet list. Some code cleanup has also been done to the main tree
   in order to better support future locking additions.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

OLDCARD improvements

   Contact: Warner Losh <i...@freebsd.org>

   The OLDCARD improvements have been completed, except for a few edge cases
   for older laptops with CL-PD6729/30 chips and some pci bios issues. Some
   minor work will continue, but after 4.4R is released, only a few remaining
   bugs will be fixed before the author moves on to greener fields of NEWCARD
   development.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Porting ppp to hurd & linux

   Contact: Brian Somers <br...@freebsd-services.com>

   Status is unchanged since last month. Patches have been submitted to get
   ppp working under HURD, and mostly under Linux. There are GPL copyright
   problems that need to be addressed. Many conflicts are expected after the
   commit of IPv6 support in ppp.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

PPP IPv6 Support

   Contact: Brian Somers <br...@freebsd-services.com>

   The software has been committed to -current and seems functional.
   Outstanding issues include dealing with IPV6CP events (linkup & linkdown
   scripts) and allocating site-local and global addresses (currently,
   ``iface add'' is the only way to actually use the link).

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

pppoa

   Contact: Brian Somers <br...@freebsd-services.com>

   I looked at bringing PPPoA into the base system, but could not because of
   an overly restrictive distribution license on the Alcatel Speedtouch modem
   firmware. It has been committed as a port instead and is running live at a
   FreeBSD Services client site.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

pppoed

   Contact: Brian Somers <br...@freebsd-services.com>

   Making pppoed function in a production environment. All known problems
   have been fixed and committed.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

PRFW - hooks for the FreeBSD kernel

   URL: http://www.freesoftware.fsf.org/jailuser

   Contact: Evan Sarmiento <e...@open-root.org>

   PRFW is a set of hooks for the FreeBSD kernel. It allows users to insert
   code into system calls, for such purposes as creating extended security
   features. Last week, PRFW reached 0.1.0, with many bugfixes and cleaning.
   I urge anyone who is interested to please visit the site, join the mailing
   list. Also take a peek at lsm.immunix.org, the Linux hooks. It will be a
   good contrast.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Problem Reports

   URL: http://phk.freebsd.dk/Gnats/

   Contact: Poul-Henning Kamp <p...@FreeBSD.org>

   We are making some progress, we are now down to 2170 open PR's down from
   an all time high of 3270 just 3 months ago. The aim is still to get rid of
   all the dead-wood in the PR database so only relevant PRs in the database.
   A big thanks from me to the people who have made this happen!

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

RAIDframe for FreeBSD

   URL: http://people.freebsd.org/~scottl/rf

   Contact: Scott Long <sco...@freebsd.org>

   After two months of little progress, RAIDframe work is gearing up again.
   The port to -stable has some known bugs but is fairly stable. The port to
   -current was recently completed and patches will be released soon.
   RAIDframe is a multi-platform RAID subsystem designed at CMU. This is a
   port of the NetBSD version by Greg Oster.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

RELNOTESng

   URL: http://people.freebsd.org/~bmah/relnotes/

   Contact: Bruce Mah <b...@FreeBSD.org>

   RELNOTESng, the DocBook-ified set of release documentation files, has been
   merged to the RELENG_4 branch. 4.4-RELEASE will be the first release of
   FreeBSD with the new-style release notes, hardware list, etc. Some of
   these documents are being translated by the Japanese and Russian
   translation teams.

   Snapshots of RELNOTESng for CURRENT and 4-STABLE in HTML, text, and PDF
   are available at the above URL and are updated irregularly but frequently.
   Dima Dorfman <d...@FreeBSD.org> and Nik Clayton <n...@FreeBSD.org> have been
   working to have automatically-generated snapshots on the main FreeBSD web
   site.

   On my TODO list: 1) Resynchronize the FreeBSD installation document with
   the installation chapter in the Handbook. 2) Update the hardware lists
   (with particular emphasis on PCCARD and USB devices). 3) Update the
   infrastructure to allow the architecture-dependent parts of RELNOTESng to
   scale to more hardware platforms.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

SCSI Tape Support

   Contact: Matthew Jacob <mja...@FreeBSD.org>

   A major update to error handling was done on 8/28/2001 which should
   correct most of the EOM detection problems that have been around for a
   while. There are several things to fix. The principle thing to fix next is
   the establishment of a loader(8) mediated device quirks method.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

SMPng

   URL: http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jasone/smp/

   Contact: John Baldwin <j...@FreeBSD.org>
   Contact: Peter Wemm <w...@FreeBSD.org>

   Updates to things from last month:

     * The ast() fixes were committed last month.
     * The work on the preemptive kernel is stalled for the time being. It is
       still unstable on Alpha and SMP systems.

   New stuff since last month:

     * sx locks now support upgrades and downgrades.
     * Witness now supports lock upgrades and downgrades.
     * Jason Evans has committed a semaphore implementation.
     * Matt Dillon has pushed Giant down into all of the syscalls.
     * John Baldwin has been working on proc locking in a p4 'jhb_proc'
       branch.
     * John is also currently working on making the ktrace code use a work
       thread to asynchronously write trace data out to the trace file. This
       will make ktrace safe almost completely MP safe with the exception
       that a few ktrace events need Giant in order to call malloc(9) and
       that ktrgenio() is still synchronous. Specifically, however,
       ktrpsig(), ktrsysret(), and ktrcsw() no longer need Giant.
     * Jonathan Lemon has started work on locking the network stack in a p4
       'netlock' branch.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

sppp(4) merge

   Contact: Joerg Wunsch <j...@uriah.heep.sax.de>

   sppp(4) should be merged with the ISDN4BSD offspring variant. This will
   merge some features and bugfixes from the i4b branch (like VJ
   compression), and eventually end up in a single sppp(4) in the tree. While
   being at that, incorporating many changes and bugfixes from NetBSD is
   considered as well.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

SYN cache implemetation for FreeBSD

   Contact: Jonathan Lemon <jle...@freebsd.org>

   The syncache implementation is completed, and currently under testing and
   review. The code should be committed to -current in the near future, and a
   patchset for -stable made available.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

TrustedBSD

   URL: http://www.TrustedBSD.org/

   Contact: Robert Watson <rwat...@FreeBSD.org>
   Contact: <trustedbsd-disc...@TrustedBSD.org>

   The TrustedBSD project continues to move ahead, with progress made in the
   ACL, Capability, and MAC implementations. In addition, support from DARPA
   is permitting new work to improve the extended attribute code, improve
   security abstractions, and work on security documentation. Due to the
   push-back of the FreeBSD 5.0 release, it should now be possible to include
   a complete MAC implementation in that release. Specific status reports
   appear for components where substantial progress is being made.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

TrustedBSD Capabilities

   Contact: Robert Watson <rwat...@FreeBSD.org>
   Contact: Thomas Moestl <t...@FreeBSD.org>
   Contact: <trustedbsd-disc...@TrustedBSD.org>

   Capabilities support is currently being comitted to the base FreeBSD
   tree--userland libraries are now fully committed, and kernel
   infrastructure is being integrated.


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			  SCO's Case Against IBM

November 12, 2003 - Jed Boal from Eyewitness News KSL 5 TV provides an
overview on SCO's case against IBM. Darl McBride, SCO's president and CEO,
talks about the lawsuit's impact and attacks. Jason Holt, student and 
Linux user, talks about the benefits of code availability and the merits 
of the SCO vs IBM lawsuit. See SCO vs IBM.

Note: The materials and information included in these Web pages are not to
be used for any other purpose other than private study, research, review
or criticism.