Following NetBSD, DragonFlyBSD Now Has "COVID"

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Following NetBSD, DragonFlyBSD Now Has "COVID"

There is now covid going around the BSDs... DragonFlyBSD has ported it from NetBSD...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=DragonFlyBSD-COVID

[cl333r]

The "here" link doesn't work.

[bonob]

The "here" link doesn't work.

https://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/blob/1975d09eeb449df1192c97c0419380768b658a20:/usr.bin/covid/covid.1

[StarterX4]

That would be funny if it was on Fool's Day

[CochainComplex]

...first thought after reading the headline: big exploit and the virus/maleware making use of it is called COVID. I was not expecting this.

[avem]

This all looks a tad silly and useless as the sequence along with its new variants could be googled in a few seconds.

[dillon]

I probably won't keep it in the tree forever. I thought about putting it in /usr/games (which is like the dustbin for BSD distributions), but ... obviously not very P.C. to do that. For now though, its in the distribution as a statement to the sheer stupidity that a large-enough portion of our population exhibited which resulted in over 600K deaths in the U.S., including the older parents of several long-time friends of mine (but not mine, thankfully).

-Matt

[waxhead]

I probably won't keep it in the tree forever. I thought about putting it in /usr/games (which is like the dustbin for BSD distributions), but ... obviously not very P.C. to do that. For now though, its in the distribution as a statement to the sheer stupidity that a large-enough portion of our population exhibited which resulted in over 600K deaths in the U.S., including the older parents of several long-time friends of mine (but not mine, thankfully).

-Matt

You know of course that putting this in the distro will make those kind of people just believe that "everyone" is forced to do it and it is all part of a "grand scheme" right?
Anyway, something more interesting - Have you ever considered adding something similar to OpenMosix/LinuxPMI natively to DragonFly?

[gabber]

What is worse then categorically being against a medical procedure? Forcing one on people.

This is not helping one bit:

• some want to be vaccinated and already are (i.e. risk group where you choose between a high chance of dying and a rushed vaccination)
• some will not be vaccinated, no matter what (antivaxxers)
• some are not so sure <- This is the groups you're targeting

People who listen to authorities are in the first group. The third group likes to make up their own mind. If they see a benefit, they'll get vaccinated.
When you where on the fence on a topic, did it help if somebody tried to push you?

[gabber]

There's a tool in a BSD system now that prints a genetic sequence, and a man page that summarizes the scientific consensus. AFAICS that tool or man page isn't made part of /etc/motd or anything else visible, so nobody even notices unless they happen to check out what that "new covid tool" does, or reads reports about it on websites.

Any other effect? ~50kb of space used on disk. The last time this has been an issue was in the 80s (or early 90s in the less affluent regions of the world)

So how is that "forcing a medical procedure on people"?

You know what would be forcing a medical procedure on people? An installed-by-default PAM module that only lets you log in after checking for positive vaccination status using one of those digital certificates that grow left and right these days. But that's not what this commit is doing.

I can see that this change is small and barely anybody would have noticed. But it got it's own news, that's noticable.

"This covid utility from NetBSD follows Linux creator Linus Torvalds recently encouraging everyone to get vaccinated against this coronavirus." - This makes it sound like it is intended as a push.

The "forcing" part is a general comment on the way the public "discussion" is evolving. And this is part of this "discussion".