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Theo de Raadt Discusses OpenBSD and Beyond
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Mar 29, 2006 12:41 AM
from the first-rule-of-corporate-spending-is-not-to dept.
from the first-rule-of-corporate-spending-is-not-to dept.
emil writes to tell us that NewsForge (Slashdot Sister Site) is running an interview with OpenBSD project leader Theo de Raadt. In the interview Theo explores the upcoming release of OpenBSD 3.9, continuing financial difficulties, and some of the tension between the OpenBSD team and other businesses that some feel are taking advantage of the free software without giving anything back. In related news the Jem Report has an interesting writeup that expounds on widespread difficulties that could be faced if the OpenBSD project continues its downward spiral because of their parallel development of OpenSSH.
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Theo de Raadt Discusses OpenBSD and Beyond
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
stay on topic (Score:3, Funny)
(Last Journal: Friday May 05 2006, @11:53PM)
All other posts are off-topic. Enjoy!
Hmm... (Score:2, Insightful)
(http://godgab.org/)
Damn. I wonder if there was anything [wikipedia.org] they could have done about that?
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Monday September 25 2006, @01:19PM)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Damn. I wonder if there was anything they could have done about that?
No there wasn't, BSD as in Berkeley Software Distribution, as in University of California Berkeley, as in "Copyright 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.", as in paid for by California taxpayers including corporations and individuals who should not be denied access to what they paid for.
BTW, you shouldn't confuse BSD with a very talented but potentially mismanaged team that has a tendency to piss off lucrative sources of income.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Subsequently, their moaning about how their self-inflicted mortal wounds hurt horribly is going to rightfully fall on deaf ears, if they are lucky, or will become a butt of jokes, if they are not.
This is what happens if someone is given good advice not to drive their car off the road and into a bog and which they derisively reject and proceed at "what can possibly happen?"-speed into the mud. Following which they sit on top of their sinking vehicle, far into the swamp, waving frantically and complaining loudly about "selfish" people who fail to stop to pull them out of there. So that they can ignore good advice, as soon as rescued, derisively, again.
I say onto Theo: Tough Cookies! You made your bed, you sleep in it! Perhaps placing product placements into the BSD code or performing in a clown outfit at conferences will bring the required revenue, now that the commercial interests do what you have always encouraged them to do: take, take and take ... whatever they can get in return for as least as possible. Its called "business", Theo. Look it up sometime.
BSD vs GPL is not relevant (Score:4, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/)
BSD vs GPL is not relevant. Theo's bed was made by driving away potential sources of income like DARPA.
Re:BSD vs GPL is not relevant (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes it is, as a part of a very long list of good advice he received over the years on a lot of things, and all of which he proceeded to sneer and snicker on, as only Theo can. DARPA's help is just one item on that very, very long list.
Re:BSD vs GPL is not relevant (Score:4, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Yes it is, as a part of a very long list of good advice he received over the years on a lot of things
No, that's a fallacy. In general under open source the money is in consulting, not in the development. A BSD based project is more likely to get inside a corporation and possibly more likely to create consulting work. Whether a project is BSD or GPL, if someone doesn't want to code themselves, they can hire others to do the work. The only difference is whether that work goes back to the community at large and for the company that needed specialized changes that is irrlevant and it may even be counterproductive to the company. The GPL is not some magic pill. We've seen numerous GPL based projects in financial trouble and begging for donations around here as well.
Re:BSD vs GPL is not relevant (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, really? You mean it does not depend on what the purpose of the project is?
In general under open source the money is in consulting, not in the development.
Oh I see, making money for Theo was the whole idea of OpenBSD? NOW you tell us!
A BSD based project is more likely to get inside a corporation and possibly more likely to create consulting work.
Which is a good thing if you are planning to make people appropriate, modify and sell your code while not letting you look at it ever again, in hopes that somehow your celebrity status will make some of them hire you.
Whether a project is BSD or GPL, if someone doesn't want to code themselves, they can hire others to do the work.
True enough, that is why BSD offers no advantage over GPL in this area.
The only difference is whether that work goes back to the community at large and for the company that needed specialized changes that is irrlevant and it may even be counterproductive to the company.
Which, in most cases, as Theo is finding the hard way, is the only type of return expected from commercial involvment in your project. Hoping to get hired by someone using your code is wishful thinking in vast majority of cases. GPL folks understand that, and operate accordingly.
The GPL is not some magic pill. We've seen numerous GPL based projects in financial trouble and begging for donations around here as well.
Of course it is not. But it was never its purpose. The purpose of GPL is to ensure that regardless of who is using or contributing to the code, and regardless of financial circumstaneces of a project, the code remains the property of the community and cannot be stolen and then sold back to us. That is all.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.sigsegv.cx/)
They started with a fork of the NetBSD codebase and maintained compatibility for a long while. Many drivers in the Net/OpenBSD tree used to be ifdef-ed for specific OS related parts. In fact one of the reason for OpenBSD to survive for so long especially on obscure architectures has been the fact that it used to rely heavily on Net for low level hardware specific code (disclaimer - I do not know if this is still the case as I have not looked at their source since 3.3).
As a result GPL-ing is not an option. Your codebase is heavily dependant on somebody's else's codebase which is BSD.
As far as the financial difficulties, all business and businesslike entities using GPL rely on support, custom code and consulting for their day to day living expenses. You do not get that money if you have this attitude:
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/428749/30/
Another essential factor is that if you write software in the real world you have to go out of your ivory tower on a daily basis and check what your competitors doing. OpenBSD tends to believe its own PR about their security prowess and does not follow Linux, FreeBSD and other OS development as much as it should. One example for this is how it missed the appearance of hardware RNG in AMD hardware for several years. They simply did not know it is there (I actually pointed it to Theo myself a year ago). I bet that they have missed other stuff in a similar fashion as well.
Frankly, the days when Open Source OS projects were PFY jobs and flaming each other out of existence on mailing lists was business as usual are long gone.
Time to grow up or face the dark stairway down down and down towards oblivion.
Let's be Objective about this, was Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, no, he's not claiming that the world owes him something. He's claiming that his act of creation and contribution does not cause him (well, specifically, the OpenSSH developers) to be owe anything further to the people who take advantage of their contribution.
That is an entirely different issue.
"From the beginning of history, the two antagonists have stood face to face: the creator and the second-hander. When the first creator invented the wheel, the first second-hander responded. He invented altruism.
"The creator - denied, opposed, persecuted, exploited - went on, moved forward and carried all humanity along on his energy. The second-hander contributed nothing to the process except the impediments. The contest has another name: the individual against the collective." - Howard Roark [davehong.com] in The Fountainhead [amazon.com] by Ayn Rand [wikipedia.org].
Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Thursday January 27 2005, @09:21PM)
"Free" is an illusion.
When we use "free" software, we pay for it one way or another. Time or money, and, no, time is not money.
Money is green stuff that you through around on the crops to make things grow, as somebody in some famous musical once said, quoting somebody else, I'm sure. When you collect too much money in one place, it goes fetid.
Time is the true currency, although too much time can go fetid as well.
The licenses are gentlemen's agreements. It's a trade of time for time, with rules of courtesy. (EULAs are _not_ gentlemen's agreements, I am not taking about those licenses, they don't deserve to be called licenses.) The licenses form the ground rules for the community that forms around the software. It's very much like the old guilds, although much more open in a very good way.
With the GPL, some of the rules of courtesy which are important for maintaining the infrastructure of the guild are explicit. We might assume that this is because Stallman is a cynic, or because he is a realist, but must people are still confused and think he is an idealist.
With the BSD license, the rules are implicit, derived from the external society, the (Christian, though not entirely uniquely so in the current view of history) principle of casting one's bread on the water. It is expected that the waters will bring the bread back, multiplied. And this is where things have broken down.
Even under the BSD license, the rules of giving back are natural laws, and are not suspended. Humans whose primary product are sales presentations have no idea that they have to give back or the resource will be depleted. Stallman recognized that, Theo has not yet.
People have to be reminded to be courteous, and that's why an idealist and general nice guy like Theo ends up making enemies. The license doesn't remind people, so he has to spend his energy reminding them.
Putting new source under GPL would be one solution, but, as is well known, it is not one that can really be considered yet. A new modified BSD that contains a non-binding reminder that the resources don't renew themselves may be what's in order right now.
Classic Theo de Raadt (Score:2)
(http://rtfm.insomnia.org/~qg/ | Last Journal: Wednesday November 16 2005, @07:11AM)
Gee, I don't know, maybe they had lives they didn't want to sacrafice for the cause Theo. He then goes on to slag linux developers in general but maintains that he doesn't really go into advocacy.
SunSSH (Score:3, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Monday September 25 2006, @01:19PM)
I'm sure they'll find out when everyone else does.
Re:Sounds almost like a threat (Score:5, Insightful)
what a whiner (Score:2, Insightful)
What part of the BSD license does Theo not understand? Apple and SCO aren't "freeloaders", they are using the software under the intended license.
Furthermore, what makes Theo think that people want to run OpenSSH? At this point, it's as entrenched as Windows--nobody has a choice.
For our work on OpenSSH, companies using OpenSSH have never given us a cent. What about companies that incorporate OpenSSH directly into their products, saving themselves millions of dollars?
No, they haven't been saving themselves "millions of dollars". If OpenSSH didn't exist, people would implement some other free ssh client or switch to a different standard.
If you release something under a FOSS license, figure out your business model beforehand. Of course, Theo actually did: his work on BSD has given him plenty of exposure and celebrity status, which many would consider ample reward for his work, and something he wouldn't have gotten if he had founded a small software company instead. And I'm sure he could (or could have) translated this into consulting opportunities and other business, without even changing the license on anything. But, like many celebrities, it's just never enough.
Re:what a whiner (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3675.html)
That part wasn't written by Theo, as far as I can tell.
Re:what a whiner (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.pce-net.com/)
For a business that uses OpenBSD code, it would just make good business sense to support the project at a fraction of what it would cost to develop the same code in-house. It is ridiculous that Sun wouldn't even cover the travel expenses of an OpenBSD developer to go their conference, because the value of the developer's hours would have far exceeded such travel expenses. That's just simply bad business.
Let's Add Some Context Here (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://arc.nucapt.northwestern.edu/F/OSS)
OpenBSD has done good work & currently depends on receiving financial donations. Enlightened companies should notice that OpenBSD needs some funding right now & that it would be cheaper to fund them than to have to adopt the support and development of the OpenBSD products they use.
Re:what a whiner (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you talking about? People use OpenSSH because it's by far the best out there. Nobody is locked into using it, the specs are open, anyone can code a replacement. It's just not easy to produce something of the same quality and security as OpenSSH. People are locked into Windows because of proprietary file formats and closed source applications; how is that in any way similar to OpenSSH?
But, like many celebrities, it's just never enough.
Sorry. CELEBRITIES? Hmm.. yeah sure, Theo is a celebrity. I'm sure he has paparazzi knocking on his door every day.
Sure Theo can be abrasive, but it's weird to see how gleefully people at the receiving end of his charity will attack him. It's always easy to be an armchair critic.
Re:what a whiner (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure you're right, it's not like we wouldn't have another SSH client, but would it be as good? The fact is that Theo and his team writes really good, really secure code. Someone who does security "for fun" is very rare and valuable. Most developers are quite naturally more interested in cool features than tedious code review.
Re:what a whiner (Score:4, Funny)
which would suddenly turn off encryption on your channel and pop up RMS's face saying "You are using this software for something *I*, his Imperial Majesty RMS, happen not to like today or maybe in the future, therefore I will stop it. I also hope your OS crashes and burns because it's not running HURD."
Thanks, I'll keep using the *really open* OpenSSH.
Re:what a whiner (Score:5, Informative)
(http://wilmer.gaast.net/)
Actually, it isn't. You can also use LSH [lysator.liu.se] or Dropbear [ucc.asn.au], and for SSH clients there are even more alternatives (PuTTY is available for Linux, for example).
This article almost makes me consider using one of them...
Re:what a whiner (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.process64.com/)
Furthermore, what makes Theo think that people want to run OpenSSH? At this point, it's as entrenched as Windows--nobody has a choice.
Dear friend, herein lies the indelible mark of your misunderstanding of the free software _Movement_, and will live on even after you are dead and gone.
The help he is asking is pocket change for the companies which use OpenSSH. For the work done in making it compatible with major projects of those companies. __If you read the article__ you will also note how IBM sends customer complaints to the OpenSSH team. And how Sun refused to pay for travel!
I find it painful.
Bitchy (Score:2)
(http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3675.html)
You doity raht (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.nutters.org/user/famous | Last Journal: Saturday March 22 2003, @12:57PM)
Problem with BSD licencing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Problem with BSD licencing (Score:5, Interesting)
They paid for ancient BSD development. However after the court cases were over, that went away.
They have every *legal* right to use it.
They have an ethical responsibility to contribute but this is in no way required.
Morality is individual, so were you talking about a person it would be their choice as to what their morality is. As you're discussing corporations, they inherently and as required by law are entirely amoral.
This is certainly about as clear a demonstration as you can find of the difference between the BSD license and the GPL, but other than that, which wasn't explicitly in there, there really isn't anything to your post.
Is Theo justified in calling the people who used his code without giving anything back asshats? Absolutely.
Can he force them to? Absolutely not.
That's the license he chose and he's well aware of the ramifications.
The thing to me that most sucks was that Stallman and the BSD folks basically made a bet on human nature.
The optomists are losing badly.
I bought the T-shirt (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Saturday April 07 2007, @04:55PM)
I bought the T-shirt [openbsd.org]; does that count?
Job interview question (Score:2, Insightful)
(and my interviewer is probably reading this, in which case, "Hi there!")
I said I wanted Dan Bernstein to come out alive, because I actually use his stuff in production as opposed to OpenBSD... but after thinking about it for a while I realised that OpenSSH is perhaps more important that Dan Bernstein's stuff. I mean, Dan never updates qmail and any of his tools... Theo may as well bump him off for all I care.
Re:Job interview question (Score:4, Funny)
At which question I would have gotten up, broken off a leg table, and proceeded to ask "Where are they?!" so that I can proceed to give Dan a hand, musing to myself that it is at times like these that I wish I were a gun nut.
I am afraid this kind of a reaction would have been rather popular amongst those who had a pleasure of reading Theos' "conversations" with people on some of the USENET groups of old. Theo is just such a charming, loveable guy that swiss army knives open spontaneously in people's pockets at the very mention of him.
Re:Job interview question (Score:5, Insightful)
Was it me, you would have found out that it takes only 0.3 seconds to have a horrible accident with your coffee spilling all over your lap. Applogies and all that, why, I am just such a horrible klutz!
Joking aside, but that sort of question would have me thanking you for the lovely opportunity to get interviewed by you, followed by a mental note not to ever do business with you, under any circumstances.
Has it ever occured to you that these types of smart-ass, self-congratulatory questions, main purpose of which is to show who is the smart alpha-dog in that interview room, are absolutely useless in ascertaining someone's workplace abilities? Oh, what am I talking about, if it had, you would not be asking that and all the other ridiculous "logic" puzzles I am sure you are inflicting on your poor hapless, victims ... err ... applicants.
It's not just openSSH (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Tuesday February 24 2004, @06:10PM)
If you're a Linux user and you like your madwifi driver, you can thank the OBSD ath driver. Also if you ever want a RALink driver, OpenBSD is the only OS that has one right now and it seems almost certain any ports will be based off it. Anonymous CVS? Theo came up with it after NetBSD kicked him off the commit list. Randomized mmap, stack protection ... there's a lot of development being taken from openbsd. We've all got an interest here.
... and licenses (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.lectroid.net/)
TCP Wrappers IIRC was one of them, pppd another (again IIRC).
Like Theo or hate him, he's done more for the Open Source community than just piss people off.
Oh really? (Score:4, Informative)
I thought RALink supported Linux themselves, otherwise, what's this [ralinktech.com]?
I love OpenBSD