OpenBSD Journal

R.I.P. OpenBSD/Pegasos - All the story

Contributed by jose on from the no-more-support dept.

ghugha writes: "Amazing story about a promising OpenBSD port...

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=107726669308049&w=2

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=108018155011702&w=2

And the Dale version of this facts

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=108028112117093&w=2 "

(Comments are closed)

Comments

  1. By Anonymous Coward () on

    I remember 'Pegasos' from my Amiga days. In my experience, virtually any company associated with Amiga-anything is a disreputable 'investment scam' company (with one or two notable exceptions over the years)). This has been true for a long, long, time now.

  2. By Alan Post () aisa@cybermesa.com on mailto:aisa@cybermesa.com

    I was really digging these boards, and planning to buy one.

    I really like "odd" hardware like this. I own a netwinder that I am still quite fond of.

    Maybe I'll still get one of these to run linux, but openbsd was making it a shoe-in.

    Comments

    2. By Otto () otto@drijf.net on mailto:otto@drijf.net

      Hmm, i don't thuink you should buy products from a company
      that screws developers.

    3. By Anonymous Coward () on

      Maybe you can play duke nukem forever on it too.

    4. By grey () on

      Dude, did you even read Dale's post? You shouldn't give a flying fuck about how obscure or weird this hardware is. It's obviously a complete piece of crap, and you, as a consumer/end user are certainly not going to be treated better than an employed developer who himself was treated like crap. Don't give anyone even remotely near one of these projects one red cent.

      If you want some more unusual hardware, it's not hard to find some that is well supported. Just look at soekris.com. Soren is just one blooming guy, and he manages to put out quality kit, fixes bugs, and provides people with all the info they could possibly want, 99% of the time, directly. If one guy can do that, and deliver working hardware on time as promised it should be obvious that such basic things shouldn't be hard - they should be requirements.

      Hell, revel in the second hand market, find a BeBox on ebay, or some classic computer gear that actually was decently developed at one point (Lisp machines, I would wager _still_ have better support than you'll EVER get from this outfit).

      Maybe, in ten years you'll see one of these boards rotting in a second hand shop long after they've closed shop. If you can be confident that your purchase in no way supports these guys, go for it. Hell, send Theo & Dale some cash to pay the charge for them (though I sure as hell hope they don't pay).

      Seriously, there are better places to spend you money. Just think of the AMD64 + motherboard you could buy for $600-$700 for the pegasos kit. You really want to buy hardware that is out of date by the time it's released? a G3/G4 aside from being several years old as a start, also has an outdated memory bus, outdated PCI bus, etc. etc.

      I would rather spend my money on something like an itanium, you still run into the doomed platform issue there but at least it would be decently put together.

      Comments

      1. By Alan Post () aisa@cybermesa.com on mailto:aisa@cybermesa.com

        I did read Dale's post. It is an unfortunate situation that from the looks of things is entirely the fault of Genesi/bPlan.

        Without knowing more details of Dale's employment arrangement, the only question that comes to mind for me is why would you work for 4.5 months without pay? Perhaps hindsight is 20/20, but I wouldn't let myself be exploited for so long. Perhaps I make a straw man out of the situation, but you are doing the same to me.

        Thank you for mentioning I can get an AMD64+ (or any other higher performing mass market computer) for the same or better price. Unfortunately, you make an assumption about my motivation that just isn't true.

        *I* would rather spend my money on unique and interesting (often expensive) platforms. I also never pay retail. It isn't worth explaining in this space why, save that it is worth it to me.

        I'm sorry you felt the need to point out something that I thought was obvious from the story (Gensai sucks), but that isn't going to stop me from liking this computer.

        Comments

        1. By Anonymous Coward () on

          http://weirdstuff.com/commerce/catalog/product.jsp?product_id=3070&czuid=1080441580843

          (g3, memory, and more for $175) is that weird enough?

  3. By Bas Keur () viper@dmrt.net on http://www.dmrt.net

    Didn't you got some sort of contract or so ?
    What is the problem of sueing them for your money ? Where talking about a lot of $$$ here wich you have worked for.

  4. By amighista () amighista at iksnet dot it on www.iksnet.it

    Another victim of this story:

    http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=108027872117087&w=2

  5. Comments

    1. By Anonymous Coward () on

      It's always good to know all sides. What they claim from your link is they want to protect IP on the documentation and can't release it. I was wondering why they want OpenBSD support in the first place? Don't they know OpenBSD will not tollerate even the GPL, so why would the NDA be more acceptable?

      With their troubled cash flow, as they claim, they can't afford investing in OpenBSD without knowing everything about OpenBSD, especially the BSD goals. Their decision to invest in OpenBSD seems to be for dishonorable intentions.

      The documentation licensing conflict is highly questionable, and not paying their employees/contractors just add up to fraudulent.

      Comments

      1. By Anonymous Coward () on

        Exactly. It's not as if it is very difficult to find OpenBSD's goals

    2. By Anonymous Coward () on

      Seems that story has been pulled down.

      Comments

      1. By Anonymous Coward () on

        MorphZone appears to be primarily sponsored by the Genesi/bPlan investment scam, so this is no suprise that they would want to take down any thread which would question their product, their ethic, and their goals. It was taken down, and my newly created 'MorphZone' account removed, when I posted there and explained in plain english what was happening. Until that point, people were trying to "solve" the conflict in their own minds, "Oh, gee, if you guys would just do XYZ, everyone would be happy!"... Once I posted in plain english that it is unethical, immoral, and illegal to do what this company did, the entire thread was removed.

  6. By Bruno Rohée () on

    Bill Buck and his wife Raquel Velasco (Genesi "General Managers", Genesi being the makers of the Pegasos PPC) have been involved in more than their share of dubious business operations...

    If you want to see something bigger than the Pegasos scam look at the history of the company Pretory. Following September 11 the market for airline security exploded and they founded Pretory that selled "security" to Air France (a Google for Pretory and "Air France" is enlightening, speaking French helps as most of it happened in France). Basically it looks like they hired a bunch of ex-easter block mercenaries and a few ordinary criminals to "do the job", bribed a few people before it became too visible and they closed shop... Real dirty business...

    And btw they live in the nicest part of Paris, in a flat worth at least a few hundred thousand euros, they most likely could easily have paid Dale...

  7. By netchan () netchan at cotse dot net on mailto:netchan at cotse dot net

    This whole thing is just plain sad.
    http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=6499&offset=75&rows=90#216868

Latest Articles

Credits

Copyright © - Daniel Hartmeier. All rights reserved. Articles and comments are copyright their respective authors, submission implies license to publish on this web site. Contents of the archive prior to as well as images and HTML templates were copied from the fabulous original deadly.org with Jose's and Jim's kind permission. This journal runs as CGI with httpd(8) on OpenBSD, the source code is BSD licensed. undeadly \Un*dead"ly\, a. Not subject to death; immortal. [Obs.]