OpenBSD Developers Work on AerieBSD

The AerieBSD project page with its minimal mission statement and mailing lists is entrusted to (former) OpenBSD developer Michael Shalayeff. The team describes itself as "a group of individuals who like to hack operating systems." There is no business or corporate backing, nor are there sponsorships.

Its goals show a clear proximity to OpenBSD, starting with broad hardware support, regular release cycles, an attention to security, code correctness and adherence to standards – all of this under the leadership of Theo de Raadt. Licensing likewise has a BSD flavor. The fruits of their labor will come under BSD or ISC licenses; they consider GPL to be "counter-progressive," having proved to be "troublesome" over the years. OpenBSD project lead de Raadt has repeatedly openly criticized Linux developers and GPL. The OpenBSD songs and advertisements with "Puffy" the pufferfish are prime examples of their opposition to GPL.

Next to promoting free software and transparency, ÆrieBSD has one goal that could hint towards a conflict with de Raadt: "First of all hacking shall be fun and thus we resent any sort of political gaming and ego worshipping inside the project. If you want to be famous and naked – here be a wrong place for you."

The team is currently working on its first release with a time frame not yet announced.