For those of you who are interested, these are what the desktops for my two machines Fenris and Bytor look like.

Fenris runs Windows .NET 2003 Standard Server RC#2 all gussied up to look like Windows XP. (Normally Win2K3 it looks like the old Windows 2000 style.) The desktop is 1152x864, and the programmes running when I took this snapshot were Netscape, News Xpress and TeraTerm SSH.

Bytor run OpenBSD-current (as of 2003/09/28). I use WindowMaker as my window manager for X11R6 in 800x600 mode. The programmes running at the time of the snapshot were WTerm and GKrellM along with iconised The GIMP, XConsole and ASClock.

The saying used to be "If you had an infinite number of monkeys banging on an infinite number of typewriters, they would eventually produce all the works of Shakespeare". Well, that's changed, thanks to the monkeys at Primate Programming™ Inc.. Now, with just a on-infinite number of apes and a bunch of computers you can outsource the production of software tailored to the needs of your organization. And who knows — maybe you'll even get something as good as all the works of the Microsoft Windows programmers.

Open source software — gotta love it. Sometimes, though, I think it's more like "gotta love to hate it". Now don't get me wrong — my other computer (Bytor) runs OpenBSD and I love it. On Bytor I have my development webserver, my mail server(s), a DNS server, a FTP server and my archive directory of almost everything I've ever downloaded, as well as all the home directories for every account on my Windows machine.

I spent this past week upgrading Bytor from version OpenBSD-3.3 to OpenBSD-current in order to take advantage of the latest patches and upgrades made to not only the OS but also any packages I have installed. Part of the reason I spent most of the week upgrading Bytor is because I am behind a normal phoneline, so downloading takes forever. But that wasn't the only reason it took me all week. The major problem with open source, IMNSHO, is documentation or lack thereof. Few programmers like writing documentation and as a result few open source programmes have the amount of documentation that commercial software has.

In my professional opinion as a freelance computer consultant, OpenBSD is simply the best, most reliable and certainly the most secure of all the free un*xes out there. If an organization wants to host their own website, whether it is for only internal use or to be shared with the 'Net, I tell them to take one of their older server or desktop machines and load OpenBSD onto it, add Caucho Resin and MySQL and it will be competitive with a new Windows machine that is twice as fast and has twice the memory, if not better. And for $0 too, compared with potentially $3000 for a new machine plus Windows. That same OpenBSD machine could also be their corporate mail server, and the firewall for their entire office network if they wanted security.

But in spite of this glowing performace report, OpenBSD has less documentation for it than un*xes like FreeBSD or the various flavours of Linux (RedHat, Debian, Mandrake, etc...). It is not really for the casual office or home user, and even for a geek like me it's much better as a server than as a desktop. After you factor ot slow download times via modem, the reason it took me a week to upgrade Bytor was because every time but one I came up against a problem I couldn't find the answer on the OpenBSD site.I had to go search the 'Net and dig through reams of archived mailing list posts to find an answer, and about half the time I had to adapt from answers to similar problems on FreeBSD or NetBSD.

A few years ago in a newsgroup, I posted my opinion that OpenBSD is destined to remain on the margins unless good documentation was produced, and Theo deRaadt (the original force behind OpenBSD) got rather annoyed at me for saying that. At the time I volunteered to produce or coordinate a comprehensive "OpenBSD HandBook" formatted like the FreeBSD Handbook, and I asked how would be the best way to go about getting significant documentation like that started and put on to the OpenBSD website. Except I got no answers, not evan a "So-and-so manages the website, talk to him". When I asked for pointers or URLs on how to go about writing device drivers for OpenBSD, all I got was "RTFM you idiot" Unfortunately there was no (f***ing) manual for OpenBSD device drivers to read, and reading the poorly commented code that was part of the OpenBSD sources helps only if you already know what you are doing. That's when I made my comment about marginalization and then Theo got mad at me (and it made me see why some people call him arrogant). While there are a few more docs on the OpenBSD website 3 years later, it still doesn't approach the level of the FreeBSD Handbook or everything available for Linux. And that's a shame, because OpenBSD is the best free un*x out there.

Here is the letter to the editor form Henry Brunsveld to which mine was a response:

Gay equation is wrong

Besides getting his facts about the Bible wrong (the Bible does condemn sexual relations between women -- read Romans 1:26), Corey Schlueter's June 21 letter stated that homosexuality cannot be equated with, among other things, pedophilia. His reason is that homosexuality is legal, whereas pedophilia is not.

In fact, there are many similarities between the two. Like pedophilia, homosexual behaviour was once illegal. Like homosexuals, pedophiles comprise a tiny percentage of the population, and are able to live otherwise normal lives, coming from all walks of life. Most people seem to think pedophiles can't change, like homosexuals.

One of the major factors in conditioning people to accept homosexual behaviour as normal was the American Psychiatric Association's 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its diagnostic manual of mental disorders. At a symposium on May 19 in San Francisco, sponsored by the APA, some psychiatrists proposed removing pedophilia from the manual.

Our courts will have no problem in changing our laws to make pedophilia legal and grant pedophiles the same rights homosexuals have.

They won't even have to change the definition of "sexual orientation," since it is nowhere defined in our laws.

If pedophilia becomes legal, will that make it right?

Henry Brunsveld, RR 2 Puslinch

Yesterday my local newspaper, The Record, printed yet another of my letters to the editor. Perhaps I should write a book? :-) Anyways, it was once more on the topic of same sex marriages. This is a majorly hot topic, because the letters to the editor have just not stopped coming in! Ot's also a hot topic in the constituency of he mennonite Churche of Canada. Last week was MC Canada's General Meeting in St. Catharines, ON there was a resolution put forward on the same-sex marriage issue. The resulution was this:

Since we believe that marriage is the joining of one man and one woman in a life-long covenant of love, and

Since the Prime Minister has indicated his intention to have the Federal Government redefine marriage in future legislation,

Be it resolved that the General Board communicate to the Federal Government Mennonite Church Canada’s understanding of marriage and our encouragement that, whatever action the Government should take to redefine marriage, all religious groups be guaranteed the freedom to practice and proclaim their understanding of what marriage is.

People got up and commented from various sides of his debate — people who were "out of the closet" wanting to vote No for this resolution and people who wanted it to be strengthened from simply advocating for religious freedom for churches to having MC Canada to explicitly lobbying against same-sex marriages. One opinion expressed was that it was already over and done with because MC Canada (and it's predecessors) had already made a statement on this issue in years past.

It was asked that this resolution be voted on by secret ballot, rather than by the usual show of hands, and I think that is a good idea. To do it publicly would have made many people feel very uncomfortable about showing what their true feelings are on this cointentious subject. But when it came time for the moderator to announce the results, he merely said that the motion was carried. I know that annoyed me, and it must have bothered otehr people as well, because he eventually announced the results. When he sauid that the count had been 131 for, 130 against and 16 spoiled ballots, the audience reacte dnoticibly with "oohs" and "oh mys" all over the place. Clearly the issue is not over and done with!

Anyways, here is my letter to the editor, with typos corrected. I will try to find the original letter to which this is a response and enter it here.

Put love in same-sex case

Henry Brunsveld, in his letter to the editor on July 7, has got it all wrong when he tries to compare homosexuality with pedophilia, and I feel that it is dishonest of him to imply that homosexuals are child molesters.

When an adult attempts to entice or coerce a child into having sex, that harms the child, no two ways about it. The child suffers from the physical abuse at the time of the sexual encounter and from mental and emotional hardships as he or she deals with the ordeal.

When two consenting adult men or adult women choose to have sex with each other, they are not harming anybody. At most, they might have the same regrets that those of [us] who are heterosexual might have.

Brunsveld is right when he says that homosexuality as a mental disorder was removed from the accepted manuals in 1973, and this was done based on overwhelming empirical evidence.

For me, the underpinning of Jesus' teachings is "Love your neighbour as yourself" from the parable of the Good Samaritan. It saddens me that I see no love in all the letters to the editor written by so many professed Christians.

Cory Albrecht, Kitchener

If you're ever going to grow anything like spearmint or peppermint, do yourself a favour and grow it in a pot. The word "invasive" is a little bit on the light side for some mints. I have heard it said "the only two things that could survive worldwide nuclear war are cockroaches and mint".

About 6 or so years ago I got a small spearmint plant when I started container gardening, and on my Mother's suggestion in the fall I transplanted it to one of the flower beds right next to the deck. The next spring it grew well and I was delighted, since I like mint teas, except it did more than merely "grow well". It sent out roots and shoots all around itself, spreading quite fast. So I transplanted it from the flower bed to the eastern side of the house, but it had sent roots underneath the deck where we couldn't dig them up and it was 2 or 3 years until we stopped finding spearmint shoots to pull up. And on the side of the house, well, I can no longer tell where I originally transplanted it to because it has almost taken over that flower bed. Good thing the chrysanthemums and the lamb's ear (another member of the mint family) are hardy plants.

Anyways, what got me on to this was that today was harvest time for some of my herbs. I cut off large amounts of bergamot, spearmint and fennel, as well as a little bit of rosemary. The only reason I didn't harvest my peppermint, catnip and lemon balm was because I ran out of space on the dining room table for drying them out. :-) As you can tell, what I grow in my containers are mostly plants of the mint family — catnip, lemon balm, peppermint, orange mint bergamot, spearmint, pineapple mint, grapefruit mint, greek oregano, english lavender and persian catmint. But I also have cherry tomatoes, cubanelle, hungarian wax, purple bell and hot cherry peppers, ginger, chives, onion, garlic, fennel, chamomile, bloody sorrel and a licorice plant.

Some day I would love to have big garden instead of just containers out on the deck and the occasional plant in my Mother's flower beds.

Today, in my local newspaper there was response to my recent letter to the editor on the subject of same sex marriages. Lo and behold, it was written by somebody who goes to the same church as I! Here is the text of Dawn's letter as published:

Do not call it marriage

This is in response to the June 14 letter written by Cory Albrecht: Welcome Gay Marriages.

I don't hate gay people; I know some and they are people just like the rest of us. They deserve happiness just like we do and if they find it in this lifestyle, then that's their choice.

But I can make choices, too. My choices are to not choose that as my lifestyle and please do not call it a marriage. What the judges say and what the marriage licence says is up to them. But what I believe in and how I live my life according to the morals I was taught is up to me.

I don't care how society changes. I don't have to change and neither do the gay people. But please don't expect me and many others to live and believe as they do. I accept this. The same-sex marriage issue is getting far too much publicity and who is benefiting from it?

I accept any race, colour and person for who they are. But when Albrecht asks what is the difference between an interracial marriage and a same-sex marriage, there are lots. But the main one is that interracial marriages are between a male and a female. Same-sex marriages are not. Please call it a union, not a marriage.

Dawn Rees, Kitchener

Dawn talks about homosexuality as a "lifestyle choice", but I don't see it that way. I know that as a heterosexual man I did not chose to be attracted most to certain types of women — it is simply whom I am naturally, normally attracted to. From that I can easily generalize to a gay person not having chosen to be homosexual. After all, who would willingly chose to have so much prejudice and bigotry heaped upon them?