Continuing a long standing tradition, OpenBSD [1] creator Theo de Raadt [interview [2]] announced the availability of the official OpenBSD 3.6 [forum [3]] song titled, "Pond-erosa Puff (live)". Each song has its own unique sound and theme different from the one before. For 3.6, it sounds to be inspired by the late Johnny Cash, and the theme is regarding software that starts out being free [4], then changes licenses. Three specific projects mentioned are XFree86 [5], IPFilter [6], [story [7]] and Apache [8]:

"While not exactly bait-and-switch, this is something which has been causing the community continual grief, and therefore we decided to honour a few of the projects that have decided to go non-free. After all.. having gone non-free, noone is going to remember them in the end. This song is dedicated to a few worthy groups who have made this Free-to-Non-Free transition with their offerings in the last few years".

Following the above announcement, Theo warned that OpenBSD CD sales have dropped dramatically, "if this follows previous sales .. shall I say curves... that we have seen, this will make it difficult for us to make releases on CD in the future." The decrease in CD sales is partially attributed to an increase in FTP installs. OpenBSD 3.6 became available for preorder [9] one month ago [story [10]], scheduled for release on November 1'st, 2004.

From: Theo de Raadt [11] [email blocked]
To:  misc
Subject: 3.6 Song
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 15:30:32 -0600

The 3.6 song is available http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html [12]

We typically make the song available a little bit early to remind
people that CD sales keep our project operating...


From: Theo de Raadt [13] [email blocked]
Subject: OpenBSD 3.6
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 16:02:56 -0600

I think now is a good time to say that I am disappointed at the
pre-orders we have received for the OpenBSD 3.6 CD, thus far.  We know
that increasingly people are moving to FTP installs (especially since
we made it just as easy as the CD), but the donations which could
balance out the loss in revenue are not coming in are not even close
to balancing this out.

If this follows previous sales .. shall I say curves... that we have
seen, this will make it difficult for us to make releases on CD in the
future.

I thought I should say something.  Of course, I don't know what there
is that we can do about it.

But please don't give me or the list suggestions.  Suggestions will
not get us anywhere.

• Archive of above thread [14]
• KernelTrap interview with Theo de Raadt [15]