The monoculture of meritocracy

The security approaches that we know work--code and design simplification, rigorously applying basic security practices like privilege separation, etc--are the areas that Linux fares worst compared to the BSDs. If security could be assessed by name dropping (papers, projects, w'ever), then Windows and other commercial systems would be granite mountains.

The OpenBSD folks don't want to chase features. What they want is to chase minimalism while staying relevant and useful. That's obviously a difficult path. It's made harder because many in the Linux community openly challenge even the pretense of portability, and like evil companies of yore have begun co-opting the standardization process, i.e. POSIX, and adding whatever crap features already in their toolbox regardless of merit.

Also, the idea that the "the BSD folks screwed us in the 1990s with a lack of concern for portability, so it's okay if we screw them now" is a little silly. Regardless of the veracity, it's just plain evil. Linux is not sacred. Not all Linux features are perfect, or worthy of adoption. Innovations which are strong enough to be accepted by other operating systems are likely innovations with far more merit. When you write something which only _you_ think is awesome... that should give you pause.

Monoculture sucks because you lose positive feedback. The bad features soon begin multiplying just as much as the good features, and eventually you end up with a cancerous wreck.