OpenBSD 3.0 Release, Interview with Theo 307
mvw writes: "Here is an interview with OpenBSD's Theo de Raadt. Interesting is his comment on Soft Updates and the comparison to the rivaling Journaling file systems technology. Further he links to a very interesting paper by some Soft Updates researchers." And although OpenBSD 3.0 has an "official" release date of December 1 for whatever reason, it seems to be available by FTP or CD already. Lots of changes since 2.9.
MandrakeBSD? (Score:5, Insightful)
b) I'm surprised (not to say hurt, disappointed and disconsolate) that no one (am I wrong?) has come out with the equivalent of Mandrake to at least one of the BSDs -- and by equivalent I mean in a certain superficial but important way: user-friendly, pretty install, emphasis on user experience, intelligibility.
c) Really, I'm just talking about the install. Something with some graphical flair, built-in help system for new users, and a game or two, or a little slideshow, or some interesting history text files, *something* built in to play while slow parts of the install proceed. No accounting for taste, but I think there are a lot of good graphic artists (all the Ximian stuff, for instance, and many great KDE examples) working in the world of free software. (Hey, I also like the BSD art, so obviously I am open for attack by the art critics;)).
I name Mandrake as my prototype here, just because I happen to like their stuff -- RH also makes a pretty install, not quite as cute, and so do several other distros. But Mandrake is in Walmart, which suits my example ("Walmart: making things accessable to the masses")
Cheers,
Tim
Re:The origin of OpenBSD (Score:4, Insightful)
He's got a right to be an asshole, and god knows I'm the pot calling the kettle black, but to link to those emails and think they provide vindication is heavily disconnected from reality.
Re:MandrakeBSD? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The origin of OpenBSD (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically, Theo had a history of being abusive and petty to anyone who didn't meet his standards of cluefulness. He pretty much admits this himself in the interview. This was alienating a large number of NetBSD developers who ended up leaving the project (I was one of them.)
The Core team repeatedly asked him to tone it down; their feeling seemed more of a "anyone who wants to help with NetBSD will be welcome," instead of "You must be this elite to code NetBSD." Theo maintained that he was doing nothing wrong.
Eventually, they shut Theo down, which is where the email thread starts. A large part of the thread deals with Theo's requests to regain CVS access. The Core group was willing to submit his code as patches themselves, but Theo would only submit code if he could have CVS write access. Core was worried that Theo might decide to get "revenge" by damaging the CVS tree; This might seem worry-warting, except they all knew that Theo had been previously fired from a SysAdmin job at the U of C for doing something like that.
Eventually, Theo started OpenBSD and now has his own sandbox where nobody can tell him what to do. In the end, I guess that's good, because both OpenBSD and NetBSD regularly crib from each other's trees anyways and people now get the choice of whether they want to deal with Theo or not.
Re:The origin of OpenBSD (Score:4, Insightful)
Then I guess you are just stupid.
That made me laugh like mad. I love it. Sounds like me. Sounds like my friends. Hey, he cycles. He caves. He founds OpenBSD. He speaks his mind. He has a sense of humor. He sounds cool, not like an asshole at all.
Some of the other people I was reading... Like the guy who kept on about professionalism and representing your organization, even in private e-mail... sound like pricks/assholes to me. I've had to deal with people like that -- people who feel like the dollars and the "drive to succeed" are all that matter and that individuality and honesty have no place in America.
But then, I will never sell me soul to my employer or anyone else, no matter how much cash or recognition it would get me. Guess that makes me a commie.
Rant, rant, yaddah, yadda...
I dig Theo. OpenBSD just scored personality points in my book.
Re:The origin of OpenBSD (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, an asshole with a good gift for programming (at least to my uneducated eye). The work Theo and the other OpenBSD team members have done is good stuff. I, too, am an OpenBSD user.
I went back and re-read the whole mail archive again, and I don't see from where you derived this label as an asshole. A significant portion of the archive were messages from Theo exclaiming or proclaiming some bit of hackery he had done to further the sparc port. These were interspersed with messages from core members asking again and again, "will you promise to do items 1, 2, and 3", with Theo replying again and again, "yes, I will, can I have cvs access again?" to, apparently deaf ears. There were plenty of dirty sphincters to go around; I wouldn't be so quick as to fling one on Theo's back.
Actually, I'll give Theo some credit here: I would have left in much less time and found other diversions. I have less patience (if more tact) than Theo does.
Re:MandrakeBSD? (Score:3, Insightful)
Believe what you like.
I'm not even sure the OS race has started yet, let alone ended.
Besides, not everyone is after "world domination", some people just want a secure, reliable OS.
The same can be said of cute ncurses-based installers. Why not just make everybody edit a text file on the boot floppy?
Some things (NIC detection, for example) are better when interactive, and a console-based installer provides that capability with a minimum of work on the coder's end, and maximum compatibility for the user.
(But in some cases (like setting up a bunch of identical boxes) a text install config file can be
Or of EMACS; why not just use ed? All that extra functionality is just frippery.
Where'd that come from? The original post was talking about making a GUI installer
that had no more inherent functionality than the console installer.
Your analogy is bogus, as it misses my original point.
C-X C-S
Re:MandrakeBSD? (Score:4, Insightful)
VMS is the original anti-UNIX. It later added some general POSIXy behaviour simply because everyone was using UNIX. Windows NT also had the stated goal of becoming "a better UNIX than UNIX," but they certainly haven't spent much time actually trying to be Unix compatible. Their POSIX layer is a joke, and they don't even have a decent way to fork() for crying out loud.
Besides, while Microsoft almost certainly is looking into "borrowing" portions of BSD code (which will then magically become innovative), they aren't ever likely to actually release an OS that is Unix like. Part of the fun of the BSDs, Linux, and Commercial Unixen is that it usually isn't too much trouble to port your software from one of these platforms to a different one. This is precisely what Microsoft wants to avoid. Microsoft wants the equivalent of a one way valve when it comes to software portability. They want for it to be easy to port from Unix to Windows, but they want it to be impossible to port from Windows to Unix. Clearly shifting to a BSD based OS would work against them.
Re:The origin of OpenBSD (Score:3, Insightful)
That made me laugh like mad. I love it. Sounds like me. Sounds like my friends. Hey, he cycles. He caves. He founds OpenBSD. He speaks his mind. He has a sense of humor. He sounds cool, not like an asshole at all.
This sort of social stuntedness is what you find novel, fresh, and daring? Cripes, it's just the typical petulance one normally comes to expect from this guy. Churchill could be quite an asshole, but he had style (e.g. "when I wake up, I'll be sober") Theo's an organizational genius, not a half bad coder, he's probably even nice to his own team
There are a lot of stupid people out there. Most of them aren't even worth dealing with. But it certainly doesn't make one an iconoclast to throwing around petty insults to prop up one's feelings of superiority. It makes for a pathetic maladjusted loner