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Commercial Support Now Available For Sudo
Mr. Christmas Lights writes "sudo has been free software for over 20 years and 'allows a system administrator to give certain users (or groups of users) the ability to run some (or all) commands as root or another user while logging the commands and arguments.' (Previous /. stories include how you can use it to distribute root access and also how Microsoft patents sudo - ummmm, have they heard of prior art?!?) While it will continue to be freely available, Todd Miller (the sudo maintainer for the last 10+ years) has decided to offer commercial support. For those thousands of Sysadmins out there who have benefited from sudo, here's your chance to thank Todd for a wonderful tool and also help support further development of sudo."
It's not like sudo's a particularly difficult-to-use program. What's the point?
Many large companies like to have commerical support for the tools they use. Large companies benefit greatly from using sudo. Large companies buy commerical sudo support. sudo author gets money.
Everybody's happy.
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
I submitted this story because Todd is one of the "good guys" out there IMHO. I agree that USING sudo isn't that difficult (especially in simple environments), but writing it is a bit more work and remember that sudo is a privilaged program so it needs to be pretty darn "tight" in terms of security stuff, and if you read through the release notes, there are all sorts of interesting subtle issues that have been addressed, plus the feature set has expanded - for example, LDAP support.
Todd has selflessly maintained/updated/supported sudo for over a decade - anyone on his Email lists know that he responds pretty darn quick. And he's not trying to "pull a RedHat" here - you can continue to use those channels and get the same code base for free. I.e. he's done such a good job that it is fair to ask the question "why buy support" since you get it for free anyway!
First, as correctly pointed out, if you are a big Corporation, they often like the "security" of having a support contract - yea, it's kinda dumb, but anyone who works at a big company knows what I'm talking about.
And second, if you appreciate good software, here's an easy way to toss a few $$$ Todd's way to thank him for all his work. In this day-n-age of spammers/slimebags all trying to make a buck, Todd is a throwback to the "free sharing" of an earlier era of the Internet.
Disclaimer: I have used sudo for over a decade (and also live in the Boulder, Colorado area), but otherwise have no profession/personal relationship with Todd. Like I said, I just think he's a "good guy" who deserved a little bit of recognition.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
What's the point? Well, the main point is I need to eat :-) But in all seriousness, various people have enquired about commercial support over the years so this is an attempt to provide that. While the average user with a simple sudoers file won't need support, large installations with complex configs may wish it.
This is also an experiment to see if I can make free software pay the bills. I'm currently without regular employment and I need to find ways to fund my sudo and OpenBSD developement work...