Linux For Losers According To De Raadt

elohim writes "Theo has some scathing comments about Linux in his new interview with Forbes Magazine. From the article: 'It's terrible...Everyone is using it, and they don't realize how bad it is. And the Linux people will just stick with it and add to it rather than stepping back and saying, "This is garbage and we should fix it."'"

Comments

"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[grub]

"Linux For Losers According To De Raadt"

Nowhere in that article does he say "Linux is for losers" or use that label. The headline of the story rhetorically asks that question, way to generate flamebait, Forbes & Slashdot editors!

Now I'm going to get a coffee and enjoy the comments which will probably not differ much from "Theo is teh ghey! L12nux r00lzzzzzz!!!"

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree the post was pure flamebait.

However the artical does hit one true thing.

When doing a speach in front of a group of people do you put on a clean set of cloths and at least comb your hair? Or do you roll out of bed with the cloths from 4 days ago with the holes in the shirt. Then give the presentation?

Apperace matters everywhere. Like or hate it you are judged by what you look like. In this case it will be code quality. It is getting better. But in some ways it is getting worse.

However Mr De Raadt seems to forget that he is where he is because he is standing on the shoulders of giants. He quite litteraly has a 10 year head start in code quality.

SHOW SOME PRIDE FOLKS. Your contributions will be seen by thousands of people. Run it through the debugger at least once. Make sure it is doing what you expect. If you have comments like 'does this belong here'. Do you *KNOW* you have the problem fixed or are you just guessing?

If you want to be taken seriously act that way.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[Anonymous Coward]

Non sequitur, smarty pants. The same could be said for linux and free software in general. I figure you'd have been modded into oblivious in the blink of an eye if the interview was with Linus or RMS and you'd said that.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[Pandora's Vox]

It must be hard to be devoted to the unloved stepchild of the Open source movement, and have to watch as everyone worships Linux.

is it just me, or isn't openBSD the unloved stepchild because of the assholishness of some *cough*theo*cough* of the developpers?

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[beq]

Well yes, BSD did get some benefit from Windows using the FreeBSD TCP stack - it got an assurance that 95% of the computers in the world would have a functional TCP stack - not a small thing.

The goals of the BSD license and the GPL are different, folks. The BSD license is all about building technology that can be come the standard everywhere. The GPL is about building a permanent ecology of free (as in freedom) code. A GPL project can pick up and use BSD-licensed code, and release said code under the GPL if they wish (provided they retain the copyright notices). The reverse is not true.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[danheskett]

It's a question of your goals. Many of the people pushing the GPL have three major things going on, (1) they want to promote the software, and GPL is good at that; many hands = quality, quantity, etc; (2) they want to promote a political and/or social philosophy and force down the costs of computing, software, and business; and (3) they want to take down Microsoft, and if possible, be famous doing it.

Which are all fine, valid goals. Great. Good for them. Happy for them.

The BSD people have a different goal. They want to write software that is suitable for a specific goal within certain parameters. And they want that code to actually be used as widely as possible. It's not about ego (Theo not withstanding), it's not about credit, it's not about changing the status of things, it's about doing something specific. And at the end of the day that's what the BSD style license is great for. Microsoft based their NT stack on BSD code. It's not about ego - it's about the fact that millions of users are using a much better TCP stack that is designed and produced to a much higher standard than was in place before. The people who wrote that stack aren't out bragging, they know that the work they did has advanced their goal of the Internet using quality software implementations.

GPL loves, go for it. Do #1, #2, and #3. But don't be pissed about the BSD people. They aren't much interested in #2 or #3, and that's good not just for GPL or BSD or Unix people, but for *everyone*.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[jedidiah]

Thus the crux of the problem.

Back in 1994, pretty much everyone else only wanted to support "server class hardware". If you wanted to run something like Solaris or NeXT on your PC not only did you have to shell out $400 for the OS itself but you also had to have SCSI hardware to do it.

Deciding to use something else that is not a part of the Lemming hegemony requires enough dedication all by itself. Adding in extra barriers is not helpful.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[Anonymous Coward]

"That isn't a Xerox machine! It's a Brother brand copier so stop calling those papers xeroxes!" the functionally austistic person exclaimed.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[iainl]

My guess is that he doesn't mean i386, but just the particular hardware configuration he has right there.

Assume for a minute that I'm not a developer. Assume for a minute that even if I am, I'm lazy and/or have other things to do with my time. Assume the only x86 Unixalike to already come with drivers for soundcard X, graphics card Y and motherboard Z is currently Linux.

Would you install it, or leave the box on the shelf until someone writes Solaris drivers?

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[harrkev]

But to a large degree the attitude on behalf of Linux users is a *big* part of the reason I'm leaving.

Can you please explain?

First, look at Microsoft XP. Large corporations (including the one that employs me) use it. Script kiddies use. Grandmothers use it. Uber-gamers use it. You cannot say that there is an "attitude of Windows users" because you cannot expect all of those people to have the same attitude.

I would expect the user base of Linux to be somewhat more homogenous than Windows, but attitudes still vary. And you have to remember that in any population large enough, you will get some jerks and butt-holes in the mix -- and that is the type of person who is most likely to chime in with their $0.02 (This includes me -- just look at this worthless post).

You also have to expect a certain amount of "Micro$shaft sux," of which I have myself posted one or two. And you have to allow for a certain amount of fan-boyism, as it is human nature -- just look at how non-geek males fawn over their favorite sports team.

So, I am sure the you have your reasons, but is it possible that your perception of reality is somewhat different from reality itself?

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[John Fulmer]

Funny. I rarely hear Linux-oriented people (including myself) badmouth *BSD. I don't think I've *EVER* heard anyone really badmouth BSD. It's a great, solid operating system, which tends to be fairly conservative in its goals and design decisions. I would never say anything negative about someone just because *BSD was their OS of choice.

I wish the opposite were true. Linux is a solid, popular, full-featued *nix clone with a different design philosophy. It also works very well. I wish that some of the *BSD people would just deal with it and get on with their lives.

jf

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[Shads]

Exactly.

The *BSD community hasn't ever supported the hardware *I* use as well as linux does. Shrug. The line I like the best is... the part about the comment saying "Does this belong here?" by a kernel hacker... realistically what was he asking?

Should this code be here?
Should we be doing this in the kernel?
Should we be doing this in an alternate part of kernel?

Becuase someone posts a comment in source questioning something doesn't seem to me to be a problem, it's there for a reason... a good reason would be to make other hackers take a closer look at it and make decisions based on it.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[Trelane]

Well yes, BSD did get some benefit from Windows using the FreeBSD TCP stack - it got an assurance that 95% of the computers in the world would have a functional TCP stack - not a small thing.

Actually, no. It assured that 95% of the computers in the world might have a compatible TCP stack. If MSFT made subsequent changes to the code and as a result made Windows TCP incompatible with standard TCP, BSD (and the world at large) is then incompatible with it.

The only assurance that "95% of the computers in the world would have a [compatible] TCP stack" would be if Microsoft adopted a GPLed TCP stack and released their source code as well. [LGPL may work, since changes to the *lib* would have to be released, but potentially one could write code to modify that outside the lib and one would then not have to release specs.].

In netto, all that the BSD license assures is that businesses can use the code as a stepping stone to get ahead faster. Whether or not they stay on that stepping stone is up to the business and the BSD license provides no assurances past that.

Now you'll very likely point out that MSFT would never [publically] use GPLed code, since they'd have to release the Windows source code [though they could conceivably use LGPLed code]. And you'd quite likely be right. But then they'd develop their own TCP-compatible stack on their own dime, not on yours. They'd make it as compatible or incompatible as they would like, just as they would if they used a BSD-licensed stack. The only difference between someone using a BSD-licensed stack and writing their own stack is that they can use the BSD-licensed code's developers to do the work for them--they can subsequently make the code as compatible or incompatible as they wish, no holds barred, no feedback to the rest of the world. Well, that, and they have to put the little bit of credits somewhere.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[setagllib]

Unless his hardware had an nVidia video card and it was the small alley of time in which nVidia released drivers for Linux but not FreeBSD, there should have been no such situation. The BSDs aren't often behind unless a vendor is being difficult, and sometimes ahead (in-tree Intel PRO/Wireless drivers are in the BSDs already, yet Linux still uses Intel's drivers and not in its own tree). I don't know about Solaris.

But sometimes Linux is the only thing that WILL work out of the box. On a certain Toshiba Satellite (exact model unknown: I have no idea where my friend got this, but it's still interesting to tinker with) Linux (2.6.11-gentoo-r9 via a LiveCD) boots just fine with some notes about what evil, twisted things the BIOS has done to the system, while FreeBSD 5.4 locks up before even a screenful of kernel messages, and NetBSD 2.0 a little bit later with at least the in-kernel debugger. So Linux won that fight. It surprises the willies out of me, but sometimes Linux actually does have more stable hardware support than -stable/-release BSDs. Or maybe Toshiba just sent in a patch to cover up their shoddy manufacturing. Either way...

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[saleenS281]

please, if you haven't learned by now that being the superior O/S has nothing to do with market share, I guess you never will. As if there haven't been a dozen other os's over the years that neither linux or windows could hold a candle too, yet they've been long since relegated to obscurity.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[setagllib]

I think his point is that a developer should never be asking a question in a comment - it implies that developer communication (and often individual competence) is at a low ebb. I don't know about all of the BSDs, but I have had the pleasure of witnessing developer discussions in #dragonflybsd (on efnet) and they always come to conclusions on where things should be and how they should be done, and can tell you volumes about it if you aren't convinced (but often won't because their time is precious).

Although there are many dedicated Linux teams getting the work done, there are also many individual hackers submitting things, and many inexperienced ones who aren't sure if something should work the way they did it - so questions come up. A sensible developer would at least ask before implementing, or a sensible committer would think/ask before committing. If a question like "Does this belong here?" emerged in a release kernel, it means somewhere the development process broke down.

Personally I wouldn't drop the whole system just off a comment like that, though. It probably means his code review was restricted to comments and their interpretation rather than what the code did and how it was put together. Which, okay, was probably not great either, but it would have been fair to look at that as well. I'd love to be proven wrong though.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[pootypeople]

But it's the "you must have knowledge" attitude that keeps people out of open source and sticking with Microsoft. I remember my early days in the Linux wilderness, seraching in vain for the stuff that would let me do anything fun/useful with this desktop operating system I'd spent months just getting working. Everywhere I looked were imprecations against noobies or people who didn't know everything about their systems. I'd go to help forums and it seemed like the only help that was being offered was sarcasm and RTFM. Sadly, it hasn't gotten much better. The linux/OSS world has become more and more fragmented (why do we have multiple packaging systems? WHY?) and more and more insular. We fight amongst ourselves about which UNIX-like operating system is better- I'm sorry- that's the dumbest argument I've ever heard. BSD can be just as insecure as Linux if you set it up that way. Linux can be just as secure as BSD if you set it up that way. WHO CARES! We're all going to disagree. If we were the kind of people who got along well with others, we wouldn't be playing at slashdot. For pete's sake- let's stop the flame war and get to making better software.
But then slashdot would no longer have a reason to be. And there would be much rejoicing.
James

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder why the slashdot crowd is so bent on ad blocking... This is a free Internet mostly, supported by ad revenues. This is what they do for a living. If you don't like the ads, don't go to their site... Not looking at the ads is like taking something from the grocery store without paying...

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[moyix]

Not looking at the ads is like taking something from the grocery store without paying...

Yeah! Or like getting up during commercials on TV!

Damn pirates, ruining it for the rest of us.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[Master of Transhuman]

What part of this didn't you understand?

"When we submitted the bug-report, with logs, version numbers, exact details on system setup and what was running, and everything else listed on the "how to file a bug-report" list, we got a response from Theo: "Come on! That's not nearly enough information!" He then closed the post, with no mention of what further information he wanted or needed, and no suggestion as to where else to try."

I've seen this attitude on Linux newsgroups, too, so it doesn't surprise me that BSD nerdboys have the same impatience.

While I see plenty of newbies posting totally inadequate questions on Linux newsgroups, the "How to Ask A Smart Question" document is NOT required reading for everybody on the planet by the age of five. Mostly I've seen it used to avoid dealing with newbie problems that might actually be a challenge to solve.

It also speeds things up if you at least try to be civil while pointing the newbie to the document while at the same time offering suggestions as to possible causes of their problem - something I've found a lot of nerdboys have difficulty comprehending.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[c0d3h4x0r]

No, that is not it, and you just don't get it... it isn't about having knowledge, it's about finding it. Asking a FAQ on a mailing list should get you flamed any where. "Asking" stupid questions like "I installed OpenBSD on my Dell but got no sound k thnx" sould also.

All anyone on misc@openbsd ever asks is that you do your homework (read the FAQ, search the archives, serch google), and if that fails then ask an intelligent question.

Actually, you and nearly all geeks just don't get it. Most non-geek people don't even know where to start looking or how to find the answers for themselves, so it's not their fault for asking "stupid" questions. They have to start somewhere, and the most obvious way and place is the e-mail list associated with the thing they are having trouble with.

Besides that, when newbies post vague or uninformed questions, it's not because they are looking for an answer. They are looking for a person to step in and solve their problem for them end-to-end, not a single answer to a single problem that is only one part of a larger hassle. In short, non-geeks just expect shit to work without hassle, and when it doesn't, they expect the people who created the shit to take responsibility for making it work. Non-geeks don't WANT to learn or to be educated -- what they want is for shit to work. And it's wrong to belittle them or look down upon them for holding those priorities. Instead, you should be catering to those priorities.

And why is it wrong to belittle or look down on those people who just want it to work without hassle? Because if you, the GEEK, stop and think about it, you actually want the same thing. Sure, you may love coding and problem-solving, and you may know Linux like the back of your hand, but I'm sure that even you can think of an instance in which you got PO'd at some other piece of software you were simply trying to install and use to get something else done when it didn't work smoothly and you had to go off on a 2-hour sidetrack to deal with that instead of getting your originally intended goal accomplished. So yeah, you're really not so different from the non-geeks after all. Chew on that for a while.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[c0d3h4x0r]

But that is the price of free software.

Then it's a hidden cost that needs to be honestly and accurately stated up-front. I get sick of seeing various Linux distributions touting themselves as "easy to use" when in fact you have to resort to arcane command-line tactics to accomplish the simplest of daily needs, or understand technical things like package dependencies or disk partitions just to install. If expectations were set realistically up front by the distros, stating something to the effect of, "This software is really only suitable for computer experts and you shouldn't expect it to be as easy as a Mac or Windows", then people wouldn't walk into it expecting it to be user-friendly.

If you have a problem that is interesting to the developers, the free support is better than anything you can buy. However, there is no guarantee that your problems have any interest to anyone else.

And that's exactly the major impediment that prevents the software from meetings the needs of ordinary people and which prevents ordinary people from having success with the software.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[atriusofbricia]

And why is it that people expect a very complicated and flexible piece of equipment to require no knowledge or skill on their part to use? The reason your toaster is so easy to use is that it does one thing, and only one thing. Computers will never be that easy to use, which is what you seem to want, until they do one thing and one thing only. That's why PS2s are so easy to use. They can't do anything but play games. Is that what you really want? Do you really think that most people want a machine that can write email and browse the web, and that's it?

I've known people who said that's all they want. And within twenty minutes of having something that can only do those things, they'd be pitching a fit. Why can't it play music? Why can't it burn CDs? Why can't it edit graphics? Why can't it do this, that, or the other?!?!?! Flexibility and some complexity are linked hand in hand.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[sirket]

That's funny because when I went to install my server FreeBSD supported the hardware and Linux didn't. This was when the first I2O RAID adapters were coming out and I tried numerous Linux kernels and patches to get it working. None of the versions I tried would boot or run reliably for any length of time. So I went and tried FreeBSD which had a "beta" version of the drivers for this hardware. Lo and behold it worked flawlessly for over a year before I upgraded to a newer kernel.

I contacted the devloper to see why it was still listed as beta and he responded by sending me numerous pages of documentation and stress tests that had been performed along with a performance analysis. Basically he said that it was still listed as beta because he wasn't sure it was perfect and although he had not seen a crash yet with the latest version he had some more stress testing to perform before he would release it as a final verison.

It was then that I realized I needed to be running FreeBSD and not Linux. The Linux kernels I tried all listed I2O support (including my card) but some would not see the card at all and some would see it but crash. Linux listed support (it was not marked as a beta driver) for a card that it did not work with. FreeBSD did not list any support for a card it worked perfectly with. That, in a nutshell, is the difference between the two.

Classy Response to Theo by Linus Torvalds

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:

Torvalds, via e-mail, says De Raadt is "difficult" and declined to comment further.

I must say, Linus really comes across as a classy, quality person. It takes mature restraint to deal with "difficult" people like Theo, and Linus does so with class.

Re:Classy Response to Theo by Linus Torvalds

[JohnFluxx]

Actually the worst part is that Theo is often right, which means you do have to actually listen to him rather than the easier just ignore him.

Re:Classy Response to Theo by Linus Torvalds

[47PHA60]

OpenBSD is a technical marvel. There is nothing else I would use for a firewall than OpenBSD, and as a router it has been replacing our Cisco systems one at a time. I buy their CDs every release to help support the project.

I use Linux as my desktop, and would not use OpenBSD unless I had endless hours to maintain my system. Just getting X to run reminds me of Linux in 1996. Linux is also easier to maintain depending on the distro.

If you disagree with any of that, fine.

As for behaviour, Mr. De Raadt is seriously inconsistent. In the past he has been quite rude to people who defend the GPL, in one post telling Richard Stallman to "bugger off." It's pretty immature. He has every right to say what he wants, but I have never seen him actually explain why the Linux kernel is "crap." He makes vague statements like "most people can't write 10 lines of C code;" when he is asked how to program with security in mind like OpenBSD does, he says he can't explain it, that you just have to learn it yourself. Again, all within his rights, but now he looks like nothing but a PR flack to be used by a hack like Dan Lyons. Then you go look at the project goals of OpenBSD. My favorite is that politics is secondary to technical merit. That would seem to imply that you can explain your point of view without insulting people who disagree with you, or treating a rival like an enemy of some sort.

And for historical perspective: look at a timeline of UNIX development, and you will see one thing very clearly, the fact that none of the Free BSD systems were released until well after GCC. If only for that, people should be more respectful of Richard Stallman, who started the GNU project by himself in 1984, long before the AT&T vs UC BSD lawsuit.

Re:Classy Response to Theo by Linus Torvalds

[PhraudulentOne]

I agree, Theo is a very intelligent guy and I think he is just trying to bring people up to his level. I have had a few discussions with him. I can see how people could just dismiss him as a pissed off a**hole, but then I found out that he is very similar to me. He is passionate about his software/movement, and he does a great job with OpenBSD. I find his personality very similar to mine when I am explaining problems to inexperienced users. I don't just give them a 3 step process, I explain what is wrong with the current siutation and why/how to move to a different solution to improve their experience. A lot of people don't want to hear this, they just want a cookie-cutter response in 30 words or less. A lot of the passion that Theo expresses might come off as anger, but really he is trying to drill better values/ways of thinking into peoples heads. He's a cool guy, but like me, he loses his patience when people can't relate to him on his level. The first UNIX I ever used was OpenBSD 2.1, and I would have to say that it was the best exerience I have had with computers/servers/networks. Somehow I lost those values when I wanted a unix-like OS with a flashy desktop. Linux had more driver support, so I switched. Now, IMO, Linux is getting slow and bloated, and is a lot more messy than obsd. I think I'm going to start migrating some of my work machines to OpenBSD. I've missed the last few years and want to see how far they have come. Long live Theo, that crazy coding canuck.

Hoo Boy

[TripMaster Monkey]

Talk about throwing gasoline on the fire...why would DeRaat say such hateful things?

From TFA:

De Raadt makes a rival open source operating system called OpenBSD.

Ahh.

Here's another quote from TFA:

"Linux people do what they do because they hate Microsoft. We do what we do because we love Unix," De Raadt says.

Apparently, you also do what you do because you hate Linux...

Don't be hatin'...

Theo has never run Linux

[pebs]

The funny thing is he has never run Linux. Quoting this interview:

Theo de Raadt: I don't know. I have never run Linux.

Re:Theo has never run Linux

[mrm677]

Theo de Raadt: I don't know. I have never run Linux.

Torvalds says the same thing about Windows. I suggest that creators and active developers of open-source operating systems should start using rival systems to learn and carry over the best practices. This is quite common in industry and the attitude displayed in these quotes show arrogance and ignorance.

Re:Theo has never run Linux

[Phleg]

No. No no no no no. I'm going to borrow from Joel Spolsky for a minute, but it shouldn't matter one iota what your competitors are doing. Listen to your customers, not your competitors. Your customers will let you know what they really want that your competitors have, and anything else isn't worth looking at.

Re:Theo has never run Linux

[iabervon]

Linus only works on the kernel (and a couple of tools, but not equivalents of what Windows comes with), and the Windows kernel is not accessible to users. There aren't really any practices of Windows, best or otherwise, that he'd be able to carry over.

Re:Theo has never run Linux

[dabadab]

I fail to see how running MS Office on Win XP could give Linus some insight into how the VM of Windows works.

Re:Theo has never run Linux

[Arkaein]

it shouldn't matter one iota what your competitors are doing. Listen to your customers, not your competitors. Your customers will let you know what they really want that your competitors have, and anything else isn't worth looking at.

Sorry, but this is a really dumb attitude. While it's a poor approach to copy feature willy-nilly, it's worse to ignore expereince, however it is gained. I think you've likely taken a Spolsky idea and warped it into something he himself wouldn't agree with. Ignorance is never a virtue, and should not be sought after.

Customers don't always know what they want, or what is possible (or feasible). A competing product is evidence of what is possible and how well it works, and can provide key insights for new designs. Chances are your competitors have thought of a few good ideas that you haven't. A customer may not be aware or fully informed about the competition; if you truly want to provide something better then you should be keeping abreast of new ideas so that you can share them with a customer.

I use the word customer loosely here, mainly because it is what was used in the above post, but what is really meant is audience, and applies to anything which will be used by others.

Re:Theo has never run Linux

[malikvlc]

But Linus is head of kernel development. Windows' kernel is closed source, so mucking around in a Windows environment won't really give him any insight into windows kernel "best practices".

And one really can't overlook that Windows EULA. Would the creators and developers of open-source OSes volunteer themselves for that enslavement?

And how would he know?

[jdaluz]

In a NewsForge interview a couple of days ago de Raadt was asked about technical comparisons between Linux and BSD and replied, "I don't know. I have never run Linux."

http://os.newsforge.com/os/05/06/09/2132233.shtml? tid=152&tid=8&tid=2

Suddenly, he's an expert on how bad Linux is?

Re:And how would he know?

[JamesTRexx]

He has commented on how messy the code's supposed to be (read also the comment on the bottom of TFA), therefore he doesn't have to run it to have an opinion of it.

Sigh......

[Anonymous Coward]

Theo has been (uncharacteristically) cautious with what he says in interviews lately, and particularly so when asked questions about other OS's such as Linux, so as to avoid headlines for trashing other peoples favorite OS (it's like insulting someone's religion). I hink he knew he'd said too much, and that Forbes would highlight anything he said that might cause controversy ... I doubt he will ever comment on another OS after this ... lesson learned.

Re:What I don't like about BSD

[mrm677]

1. /usr/local. Everything that you add afterwards goes in there. It's just extra to type. And is apache config in /usr/local/apache/conf or /usr/local/etc/apache/conf ?

Maybe a more experience sys admin can chime in here, but /usr/local is exactly where additional software, not included in the base OS, should be installed. More typing?? For what? /usr/local should be in your path and manually going to this directory should be rare.

There are many reasons why one might _not_ want to use BSD, but this is the silliest yet!

Re:What I don't like about BSD

[grimwell]

Ah, grasshopper... take a bath. Data hygiene is a good thing.

Funny, the default mixing of apps and OS in linux distros is what I dis-like the most about linux.

Keeping added apps seperate from the OS highlights the beauty of *nix over windows. With everything you installed after the OS in /usr/local, you can re-install the OS(e.g. partition corruption, junior admin fubar'ing, etc) without having to re-install your apps.

Trust me, I've been there. Windows admin hoses OS, I re-install OS and I'm done. The needed apps are already in place & configured. /usr/local , /opt is a good thing.

Switched from Linux because of a comment?

[cpn2000]

From the article ...

Lok Technologies, a San Jose, Calif.-based maker of networking gear, started out using Linux in its equipment but switched to OpenBSD four years ago after company founder Simon Lok, who holds a doctorate in computer science, took a close look at the Linux source code.

"You know what I found? Right in the kernel, in the heart of the operating system, I found a developer's comment that said, 'Does this belong here?' "Lok says. "What kind of confidence does that inspire? Right then I knew it was time to switch."

So this guy switched from Linux to BSD not because he saw some poorly implemented code, but because of a comment?
That is absolutely insane.

Re:Switched from Linux because of a comment?

[Stonehand]

That comment implies possible confusion on the part of the developer, and uncertainty regarding design.

It's not even "Is this the most efficient way to implement this?" or "Should we switch to blah's way?"; it's much more fundamental than that, and it is a worrisome comment. If the developer isn't confident about even *where* some part of the code should be, and code from that confused developer actually made it into the kernel despite that confusion, why should a user have confidence in it?

Re:Switched from Linux because of a comment?

[dozer]

It's pretty clear you're not a programmer.

Forbes bias

[zifferent]

Simply put I think Forbes has a teensy little bias.

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Red Hat's Mad Matt Vs. Humongous SCO Lawsuit

IBM Takes Linux To A New Level

Why You Won't Be Getting A Linux PC

The Limitations Of Linux

PeopleSoft Jumps On The Linux Train

The Cult Of Linux

Honestly, Forbes obviously is FUD central when it comes to Linux.

Re:Forbes bias

[zifferent]

My letter sent to Daniel Lyons a Senior Editor (see how high this goes up) at Forbes and the author of all these Linux nastygrams:

You seem to have a rather large bias against Linux.

Why is that?

Why is it that Linux should get under your skin so much?

Is it that companies that switch to Linux gain competitive advantage and hence make more money? No, it can't be. Forbes, is a magazine devoted to greed.

I think it's a devotion to suck up to your advertisers e.g. Microsoft. I suppose I can't judge you too harshly since the advertisers are the magazine's bread and butter. What is journalistic integrity in comparison to money?

Theo lacks class

[capn_buzzcut]

No matter what your endeavor is, blabbing about how bad your competitors are shows a lack of professionalism and class. If this is the prevailing mentality of the *BSD guys, I'll stick with Linux just BECAUSE they think it sucks.

Hmmm.

[kc0re]

Disclaimer: I love Linux.

He has a point. We keep adding functionality and then we'll worry about going back and improving the code. Such is human nature however..

Look at the .com boom. We were in such a rush to get everything set up.. hurry hurry! we must get connected!!! hurry!..that we forgot about security. Now we're paying for that mistake, but it's quite interesting.

But I think we should work in both directions. Old code, and new code. But who wants to fix someone else's code?

the real interview and netbsd comments

[richlv]

it seems that the interview itself is not linked :
http://os.newsforge.com/os/05/06/09/2132233.shtml? tid=152&tid=8&tid=2

while reading it, it seems so strange how polite both linus (in previous interview) and Christos Zoulas (netbsd) can be - especially in contrast to raadt.

well, there are some poeple in companies that are never ever again allowed to speak publicly after a single sentence - not so if you own the company, i suppose ;)

Re:BSDs=good stuff, De Raadt=nuts, it's the licens

[Ingolfke]

As I understand it: stuff you contribute to BSDs can be pirated by msft, and others, and put into their binary code.

The code is not pirated. The BSD license allows for distribution and modification of the code w/o the restrictions that the GPL places on code (namely that you must keep the code open).

The prom

[beforewisdom]

This guy is one of the people behind Open BSD which wants to fill the gnu/linux niche and for various unfair ( and fair ) reasons missed the boat.

This is coming off as jealous in the article, like the girl ignored at the high school dance who decides to talk trash about the girl the guys are dancing with.

He comes off looking bad and were I involved with OpenBSD it would be my wish for him to stop talking as his behavior is a bad reflection on that good project.

He is acting like a child.

Code comments vs public comments

[A nonymous Coward]

What will Simon Lok do? He doesn't like what he finds buried in the Linux comments, so he switched to OpenBSD; will he now switch again because of Theo's public comments? Does Theo actually inspire confidence, that he is so angry all the time, and that he has time to spare to disparage the competition?

Sour grapes indeed.

Re:Code comments vs public comments

[slurpster]

Simon Lok knows computer science right? Then he should knows people put comments in code to indicate that this fuctionality may be better moved elsewhere.

It usually means they are thinking ahead at when they revise the code on what to IMPROVE and not that they don't know what it is doing!

I have been writing code for ages, and I have many such segment ripe for improvement.

Re:try it first

[mindstrm]

Of course it is... like FreeBSD, it's a core set of tools that are updated as a whole. And OpenBSD is even more focused, with less clutter than FreeBSD, which is already quite tight.

Of course it's more coherently engineered.. BSD is about updating a core set of libraries and tools. When we say "OpenBSD" we don't just mean a kernel.. we mean the entire package.. similar to if we say "Debian Linux".

Linux isn't "well architected" because there is no "Linux".. there is a kernel, developed by some people, and a bunch of tools and libraries develoepd by a bunch of different people, which are together rolled into distributions by yet OTHER people.

Zealots come out swinging...

[Mephisto_kur]

We all know the guy is a bit off. Why is it that the Linux community can't listen to criticism, tho?

You talk about usability. The Linux people come out with "just because it isn't like Microsoft doesn't mean it's wrong."

The excuses are rampant in the Linux world. Do I use Linux? Sure. When I can get it running. Even modern distros are kludgey and clunky. Half the time the GUI does nothing but provide useless and cryptic error messages. I have a Win2k print server. I have tried (easily) a dozen distros to get things working. One will see the network. One won't without downgrading Samba. One will, but can't access anything. One sees everything and accesses everything but can't print. Sound is the same way. Some have issues with setting resolutions on the video side, others have other problems.

There are too many distros all in it for themselves. Even the ones that use one of the main distros as their base. Debian, Red Hat, what have you, all are kludgey and unrefined.

I want Linux to work. Desperately want it to get out there and do good. But it isn't going to, especially if every response to criticism is not "okay, let me see if I can work on that" and continues to be "Its better than Crapple and Microshit!"

No one wants another Microsoft Windows, but some friggin' usability isn't going to hurt your cause, and you may even be able to swing it without giving up your anti-Microsoft rhetoric. You can be different and still be intuitive and intelligent.

Re:Zealots come out swinging...

[Nasarius]

I want Linux to work. Desperately want it to get out there and do good. But it isn't going to, especially if every response to criticism is not "okay, let me see if I can work on that"

No no no. You want something done, you file a bug report in the appropriate place. Speaking as someone who does work on an open-source project, our time is not infinite. We'll work on what we have to, and what we want to. Anything else, you'd better put it on our to-do list. Want something done faster? Pay us! We're not your slaves.

anti-Microsoft rhetoric

When have you ever seen this from open-source developers (ie, the people who are actually working on it)? I see it from users all the time, but very rarely from the devs.

Re:What I don't like about BSD

[TheRaven64]

/usr/local is for stuff that is not included in the base distribution. This means that you can (for example) install the base system on a hard drive, but NFS-mount /usr/local from a central file server, meaning that you only need to update applications in one place. Stuff that is part of the base system is configured in /etc, stuff that is not is in /usr/local/etc. Stuff that is needed in single user mode is in /bin, stuff that is not needed in single user mode, but is in the base system (i.e. maintained by the same group that maintains your kernel etc.) is in /usr/bin, while everything else is in /usr/local/bin.

The exception to this is on OpenBSD, where Apache is run from a chroot environment by default, and so everything related to Apache is in /var/www, which adds to security.

I personally prefer having interfaces named after the driver, because it makes it easier to identify a particular interface. On Linux, you have to read the dmesg output (or similar) to know whihc eth0 and eth1 are. With *BSD, I can tell that rl0 is the cheap RealTek card I bought to connect to the cable modem, while fxp0 is the Intel card that connects to the Internal network. I previously had to tweak something on a Linux gateway which sat between 4 networks, and I had no idea whether it was eth0, eth1, eth2, or eth3 that connected to the outside world. Of course, as others have mentioned, it is possible to change the names to more sensible ones.

Confidence vs. bravado.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Bravado is never being wrong, even when you'd say someone else was if it were anyone else but you. It's never bothering to be introspective, to question yourself or your actions.

Confidence is knowing you'll get there eventually, even if you aren't there yet. You're allowed to ask questions along the way like "Should this be here?".

I would much rather rely on software that is like the latter, than I would the former.

Besides, I bet Simon Lok maintains a few hundred windows machines too, but since he can't read those comments at all...

not news...

[Daytona955i]

This would be like Bill Gates saying linux is for losers.

Let's face it, Raadt is pissed off that linux has supassed OpenBSD in terms of userbase. A little resentment? I think so.

Re:BSD = fragmented, Linux = unified

[uofitorn]

I can't tell if you're trolling or not.

"However, the difference with linux comes from the unified community behind it: Thousands of distros, hundreds of companies, one kernel."

Thousands of distros, all with their different quirks and slight incompatabilities. I wouldn't call that unified. In FreeBSD, the kernel is quite unified with the userland.

"Maybe its just my perseption but I don't see the same kind of unity from BSD"

From the FreeBSD Handbook: The goals of the FreeBSD Project are to provide software that may be used for any purpose and without strings attached...We believe that our first and foremost "mission" is to provide code to any and all comers, and for whatever purpose, so that the code gets the widest possible use and provides the widest possible benefit. This is, I believe, one of the most fundamental goals of Free Software and one that we enthusiastically support

That seems pretty focused to me, does Linux have a corresponding mission statement or focus?

Programmer comment

[J.R. Random]

At the end of the article:

"You know what I found? Right in the kernel, in the heart of the operating system, I found a developer's comment that said, 'Does this belong here?' "Lok says. "What kind of confidence does that inspire? Right then I knew it was time to switch."

In other words, the Linux kernel had an honest hacker. Every substantial piece of code has some sections that a competent programmer can see should be better organized, factored out, rewritten, deleted as obselete, etc. That doesn't mean it's broken.

Re:All the way to the bank...

[TheRaven64]

Remember folks, UNIX was fragmented and dying before Linux became mainstream. BSD and GNU were nothing but obscure academic projects.

Nice revisionist history. BSD UNIX was used in a lot of places before the AT&T lawsuit, and portions of it incorporated into other operating systems regularly. Time elapsed, and high-traffic web sites like Hotmail were powered by FreeBSD, while this little Linux thing was being touted as the next big thing.

Even the big boys, like Solaris and AIX, are trying to be more like Linux.

No, they're not. IBM is trying to cut costs by selling Linux instead of AIX, since they don't have to pay for Linux development. Solaris is still a long way ahead of Linux in many areas, and is trying to appeal to the generation of purchasers who bleat `Linux good, UNIX baaaad'.

And the whole quality thing is a myth.

The OpenBSD folk believe that code quality and security are inseparable - security holes are just a particular subset of bugs. They have a process of constant code review to fix any bugs, even those that are not directly exploitable. Compare the number of Linux exploits this year to the number of OpenBSD exploits ever, and then tell my it's a myth.

It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to work.

Work for whom? Work when? Is it okay if it just works on the system it was developed on, when it only does exactly the things the developer thought about? Or would you rather have a little more stability that that?

Theo thinks of himself as an artist, and his arrogance does as much to hurt BSD as it does to help it

Theo may not have the best people skills, but that doesn't make him wrong. And his arrogance does seem to generate a lot more awareness of the project than if he were a nonentity.

Theo's being a goober this time

[Roadkills-R-Us]

He blames Linux marketshare on the BSD lawsuit. I'm sorry, but in this case, he sounds foolish. The way BSD was developed and promoted a decade ago had far more to do with Linux' acceptance than the BSD lawsuit.

At the time, *very* few businesses used Linux. Well under 1%, probably more like 1% of 1% of 1%. At any rate, if you wanted to use a free *nix OS, you had three choices besides Linux:

1) Paying a commercial BSD license fee (BSDi). This was a bit expensive for an individual, and even the commercial version didn't have drivers for a lot of the better hardware (like reasonably new Dell servers).
2) Writing your own device drivers for anything unsupported.
3) Sending a BSD vendor equipment so they could write your driver.

I wish I could remember which prject was which for #2 and #3. Whichever group was #2, when I asked on the net about a SCSI driver for our server (a friend and I were starting a business on the side), I was flamed by a core BSD developer for not just writing a driver. HELLO! I need to run a business, not write drivers!

I tried really hard to make BSD work on our hardware. I finally gave up and tried Linux at another friend's suggestion. It just worked.

Linux caught on with individuals, then with startups and small projects in larger companies, and only in the past 3-4 years has started to matter in the corporate marketplace at large.

The BSD community chased people away (that's not an indictment of the community, it's just the effect of how things were handled).

There's an old adage that says, "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door." Even if that were still true (it's generally not), when you start beating them in the head with the mousetrap, don't complain when tehy don't buy it.

I'm not sure if Theo is merely ignorant of history, or is simply choosing to ignore it. Either way, he's in trouble. Those who ignore or forget the lessons of history are doomed to what? Repeat it. Theo's helping screw up BSD's chances all over again.

less fluff, more meat

[Intrigued]

The sad thing is that for a interview with a brilliant man immersed in details, the article is complete fluff.

This could have been a very interesting article if a little detail was given concerning what issues he has with Linux.

Instead the article relies on vague opinions, sweeping accusations, a bit of bragging and a quote by a computer professor that he dropped Linux because of a single comment he saw in the code.

So much promise, too pathetic.

We need articles that can really generate interesting dialog and journalists that write better than Jerry Springer transcripts.

IT ISN'T MICROSOFT

[Anonymous Coward]

Theo gets it completely wrong. Linux fans don't hate Microsoft. They hate monopolies and authoritarians and BEING TOLD WHAT TO DO.

Linus succeeded because he respected others and got their best possible effort from them. Stallman succeeded because he showed that it was possible for technologists to be in charge of their own life, and not just make the best of what's been foisted on them by Large Corporations (of which Microsoft is but one example).

No, De Rat doesn't get it at all.

Randy

Good cop, bad cop

[peacefinder]

As Linus says, Theo is difficult. This is well known, and I salute Mr. Torvalds for saying it so succinctly. Linus leads by gentle methods, and he's apparently damn good at it.

Theo does not take that path. He's a zealot... but he's not just a zealot. He's a clear-eyed, effective zealot who manages a solid project that produces the result he intends: a highly secure OS. If you'll recall from that other interview:

Christos Zoulas: I think it goes both ways, especially when it comes to porting Linux to architectures where NetBSD is already ported to or vice versa. Due to the relative size of both projects and the wealth of drivers on Linux, I would say that it is more common that NetBSD developers refer to code in the Linux device drivers to find about specific device quirks and undocumented device programming information. This is necessary because hardware manufacturers do not always publish proper documentation for their products (with all the errata) and the only way to get functional device drivers is by trial and error, reverse engineering, or getting the necessary information informally from the vendors. The situation is getting worse because all open source products (with the exception of OpenBSD) tolerate the status quo of supporting products that provide no documentation, using vendor-provided -- sometimes binary-only -- drivers. I don't think that OpenBSD's abrasive campaign is the way to go, although it appears to be producing results. I believe that the hardware vendors can be convinced that it is advantageous to them to publish proper documentation, but all open source products need to work together for that to work. If a vendor cannot be convinced, we need to vote with our feet and exclude support from our products.

Here we have a NetBSD guy saying, essentially, "I don't agree with Theo's approach, but it does work better than ours and we may all need to adopt it one day."

CZ is saying that Theo may be forging the path that many will need to follow before long. Theo was a security fanatic a long time ago, and I think events have proven that he made a good call on that. Events have yet to say if his abrasive approach to documentation will turn out to be a good call. CZ clearly recognizes that Theo may be ahead of the curve again, although it's too soon to say.

It seems to me that there exists a diversity of approaches to driving open-source and free software forward. At one extreme is Good Cop Linus, at the other is Bad Cop Theo, and everyone else is arrayed somewhere in the middle. A company being asked to provide documentation hears "It's in your best interest to get broad support from Linux" and on the other "Give me the goods or support for this device will be dropped." This is an effective combination, and the two together work better than either alone.

Theo is abrasive, yes... but the collective endeavor of free and open software needs someone abrasive, just as much as it needs a benevolent dictator.

One step from calling Linux coders "Stupid heads"

[Ximok]

Man this guy sounds bitter and angry. How big of an ego do you have to have to say that your product is better, even when you admit considerably fewer vendors support your product? Buddy, if you happen to read this (which I know you won't because you probably wouldn't touch Slashdot with a ten foot pole cause it runs on a Linux box) do some growing up. Code doesn't get accepted by users because its uber-secure. If that were the case I'd put 'Hello World' on a CD and sell it for ten bucks a pop. People buy code for usability, plain and simple. Even hardcore Unix (yes, UNIX) admins like a little usability.

Re:Lunix For Losers

[Exaton]

I believe you do well to point that out.

I blame Zonk for a lot of things included, but not limited to : many story duplicates, sensationalism bordering on disinformation, and often posting stories that plainly just don't know what they're talking about.

I realize one would have to Be New Here not to expect such stuff from /. , but Zonk really pushes it to extremes. I can't be bothered to go and fetch a recent very blatant example of an article which was obviously way out of his field of expertise, but I'm sure I wasn't the only one who noticed that it consisted entirely of stuff he squeaked out of his ass.

I admonished him very severely a month ago concerning dupes, and whether he saw the comment or not, I do believe he let fewer through after that, at least for a time ; somehow the positive impression hasn't stuck with me.

Anyway, I now start looking out for him in the news title the same way I keep an eye out for Roland Piquepaille, you know ?

Mod me whatever. I just say what I think out lout, and without AC cover.

Re:Also remember the tremendous debt...

[dougmc]

...that Linux owes to Theo.

And don't forget the tremendous debt that OpenBSD (and FreeBSD, NetBSD) owes to the GNU project.

The GNU project also produces gcc, which is used by all of the free *nixes to compile their code.

Theo can run his systems free of all code produced by Linus.

Linus, yes, perhaps. GNU/GPL, no. Well, he could remove his compiler entirely, but then it wouldn't be a very useful system. (And technically, some of the code in gcc ends up in the executables it creates ...)

Unless Linus wants to go back to telnet (or use an alternate, less tested sshd), he has no such option.

Perhaps we should talk about the history of ssh a bit here ...

ssh did not start with OpenSSH. ssh started as ssh, and it was good. But then they changed the license, and people did not like that, so they took the last release that was under the old license, and released it as OpenSSH. They then added ssh2 support and generally maintained it in parallel, and now OpenSSH is more used than the original ssh -- but the original ssh is still around. Perhaps Theo did contribute some code to the original ssh (it was open source, after all), but it still wasn't OpenSSH until rather late in the game.

As for using an `alternate, less tested sshd', are you sure you don't work for Microsoft's FUD department or something?

Fl@mew0rz

[dantheman82]

As a Windows fanboy who's kinda warming up to OSX and Redhat Linux (ignorant of other distros), it's kind of interesting to watch the apparent flamewars between *BSD and Linux.

First, there's the major hangup over the name - GNU/Linux or just plain Linux. Then there's the "our history is better than yours" or "our software is freer than yours" flamewars that are perpetuated everywhere. Ideally, open source was NOT a battle between egos, but it seems each OS is a huge battle between the spokespeople (De Raadt vs. Torvalds vs. Stallman).

How about a usability study (with young kids for example) with Windows XP and OS X as a control? Or a side-by-side comparison of security issues between the *NIX OSes ranked in an objective manner?

Is the F/OSS movement (within the OS space anyway) really about the community or a religious battle between egos?

Re:No wonder they threw him out of NetBSD

[jusdisgi]

See, you're missing the point. I didn't ever say Theo doesn't write great code. I didn't ever say that being an asshole has a negative effect on the quality of software one might produce. I just called him a dickhead.

Writing great software is nice. But it does not excuse being a total fucking dickhead. And when you go off spewing bullshit like this about how some rival software is "total crap" and how everybody who develops for said software must be an idiot who doesn't care about quality, you're a total fucking dickhead. And that's that.

And then of course, there's the fact that he's just wrong in so many ways. First this business of "Linux developers develop because they hate Microsoft." Horseshit. There might be a small percentage of people that feel that way, but I barely ever see it. I see some users talking that way, but the developer types are usually doing stuff because they love the system and want to make it better. Most of them don't even view this as a fight with Microsoft; Linux is just the natural system for so many things these days, it's just the place you want to develop. And as for Linux not being "high-quality" (subjective enough for everybody?) he's full of shit there too. Linux doesn't have the same absolute-security-is-all-that-matters mentality of OpenBSD, and most of us are glad. Because it'll whip the shit out of it in performance, functionality, ease-of-use/configuration, and a whole lot of other things.

Theo creates good software. But it's extremely single-minded in its purpose. The fact that he can't recognize that lots of people want other things from their software is a definite oversight. And the fact that he thinks he ought to go public with the kind of trash he spews is a major character flaw.

And BSD is any different?

[Haeleth]

haeleth@guthlac$ uname -srpi
FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE i386 GENERIC
haeleth@guthlac$ pwd
/usr/src/sys
haeleth@guthlac$ find . -name *.c -or -name *.h -exec grep "belong here" {} \;
* XXX doesn't really belong here I guess...
* This doesn't really belong here, but I can't think of a better
* XXX doesn't really belong here I guess...
* XXX FIXME: probably does not belong here
* XXX FIXME: probably does not belong here
/* XXX FIXME this does not belong here */
* XXX these don't really belong here; but for now they're

I'd say that's worse than the Linux sources, if one is judging quality by number of "doesn't belong here"s - all those FIXMEs and XXXes. Of course, it's a different BSD. I'm sure OpenBSD is perfect and entirely free of frivolous comments, unlike all these untrustworthy operating systems that are inexplicably more popular than it.

Re:Overstatement

[argent]

If Linux just "happens to run", how come it knocks out OpenBSD when it comes to performance?

Taking shortcuts is often a very effective way to get better performance. OpenBSD is particularly notorious for NOT taking shortcuts even in the BSD world.

Lunix For Losers, from Dan Lyons a known shill.

[Erris]

Blame Zonk for the "Lunix For Losers" title.

Actually, I'd blame Dan Lyons for inventing "linux for losers," because he titled his article that way. Only a Microturd could even think that way.

The whole article is flamebait by a known shill. You might also note he describes BSD as "a rival OS," and tries to build up as much animosity as possible. Linux and BSD are both free software and the whole notion of "rivalry" makes no sense. I'd suggest that no one ever talk to the loser again. It's like being interviewed by SCO, you can't win.

Re:Dan Lyons....

[Knnniggit]

"Dan Lyons" is where I stopped reading. He's proven himself to be somewhat lacking in journalistic ethics before, and I won't give him the satisfaction of me reading his articles.

It would appear to be the opposite.

[Some Random Username]

OpenBSD was pretty obscure, despite everyone using openssh. As Theo has been more and more provocative, openbsd has gotten more and more publicity. The number of people using OpenBSD is WAY up in the last few years. Believe it or not, any publicity really is good publicity, and alot of people use products based on the product, not the person who made it, so people find out about openbsd because of this stuff, and then ignore this stuff and use openbsd because its good.

And did you notice how it didn't help netbsd?

[Some Random Username]

NetBSD kicked him out because they thought him being mean to users would scare away their userbase. OpenBSD long ago surpassed NetBSD for number of users, so maybe speaking your mind isn't the worst thing in the world huh?

Re:All the way to the bank...

[evilviper]

Remember folks, UNIX was fragmented and dying before Linux became mainstream.

Complete bullshit. You must be the "BSD is dying" troll.

If you'd even read the article, DeRaadt clearly explains the situation. The AT&T lawsuit against BSD was scaring developers away from developing the BSD code, and sent them to Linux. If not for that lawsuit, I wouldn't be surprised if FreeBSD was the mainstream free OS.

BSD and GNU were nothing but obscure academic projects.

BSD was not obscure in the slightest, it was a popular commercial Unix distro, and when it was open sourced, it started gaining popularity very quickly.

GNU, though not an OS, had plenty of popularity. Linux was started because of people upset that they couldn't get GNU tools working on Minix. Many Unix vendors were including the GNU tools in their OS before Linux came along.

The popularity of Linux brought UNIX to a whole new generation of users,

Of course, the queston is, if Linux wasn't the one to go mainstream, wouldn't FreeBSD be in it's place, and just as popular?

Re:No wonder they threw him out of NetBSD

[Cally]

Hehe. This guy is obviously a great coder. Too bad he's such a total dickhead.

Just as well that I run his code, not his personality. As the personality doesn't seem to affect the code - or if it does, the quality is inversely proportional to what you call 'dickheadedness' - why should I care? My firewall and fileservers keep ticking away on OpenBSD...

Typical Linux user misunderstanding of OpenBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a common misunderstanding by Linux users about OpenBSD. Let me clear it up for you.

- OpenBSD isn't developing a user base;
- OpenBSD isn't developing a product;
- OpenBSD isn't about converting users to OpenBSD;
- OpenBSD isn't about hand holding newbies to accomplish the above.

OpenBSD is about one thing - producing an OS which meets these goals:

- free for all, recognizing contributed work through copyright notices, and avoiding restrictions (such as the GPL open source stays open restriction);
- maintaining simplicity of the system over rushed in features;
- security, security, security.

OpenBSD developers work on what they want, not what the user base wants. If we as users like what they do, we use it. If we don't, we move on. The developers don't care because they can use their system and I'm just thankful they allow me to use it as well.

As for Theo, he's a decent guy. He's opinionated and very blunt, but he has beliefs and ideals which he stands behind and defends. He doesn't eat children for breakfast, he isn't trying to screw everyone to make himself filthy rich, and he is giving his work away for free for anyone to use.

Sure, he doesn't have a high opinion of Linux. So what? Get over it. Go attack someone who deserves to be trashed (this last statement is aimed generally at everyone complaining, not so much specifically at the root author).

If OpenBSD stated in its' goals that it was going to hand hold people through the process of using it, then I'd say you have a reason to be upset. But it doesn't, so you don't. There is notobligation for OpenBSD developers and users to answer every half assed lazy question posed on misc@. Frankly, I like it that way. It helps keep the crap to a minimum.

Re:Why do developers use BSD?

[tigga]

What *I* don't understand is why a bunch of *USERS* are so rabidly pro-GPL/anti-BSDL and worried about us poor developers and the evil corporations that "steal" our work ...

Those are LUSERS.
They have a two-bit wisdom, thinking that socialism is good, corporations are bad. Thinking is alien for LUSERS. The only source for morale they got are Ten Commendments. There is DO NOT STEAL commendment, so they don't know software might be shared...

Re:Why do developers use BSD?

[tigga]

One of differencies between BSD and GPL is freedom subject.

BSD understands Freedom as freedom for people to do anything with software.
GPL understands Freedom as freedom for the software.

Those points of view are SO different...

Re:Show Us The Code, Raadt

[Nimrangul]

Theo de Raadt (note the "de" son, it's part of the name) does not want something like Windows XP or Mac OS X Tiger.

Theo wants exactly what OpenBSD is; OpenBSD is an operating system that works how Theo says it is to work, thus it shall remain how he likes it.

Automatically? You mean you want it to come with a virus? Hmmm, OpenBSD already allows one to surf the web with it's default install and it's drivers are already installed as a part of the kernel. man ports if you want to watch videos, if you cannot read then that's not the fault of the programmers. Your nonsense about posting websites I do not understand, ftp, scp, and sftp are available, is there anything else you would ever need?

Theo has not worked on Linux for two reasons that I know of.

1. Because Theo started working with BSD code before there was a Linux and has not stopped since then.

2. Because he does not believe in the complete bullcrap that the Free Software Foundation touts to the masses - however, he is perfectly fine with Linux people using his code. So the question may be more like, "why hasn't Linus looked into OpenBSD to see the better solution in action?"

I think you needed to proof read your post Dave, cause you didn't come off making too much sense.

Re:Show Us The Code, Raadt

[Nimrangul]

Son, are you blind or stupid? I don't think you've been sharpened in a while cause you seem very dull indeed.

de Raadt has no interest what so ever in toadying up to idiots, if the person cannot understand how to use the operating system they are to learn or use another, hand holding leads to the idiocy that is the average Windows user.

Theo doesn't care about media plugins, which are a concern for the programme using the plugin, not the underlying operating system.

He doesn't care about the end user, the end user is nothing to Theo de Raadt, nothing . He also doesn't seem to really care about his status in the press or the public opinion - else he would not be so blunt and coarse with people who piss him off.

de Raadt could probably make Linux more secure, but that isn't something he cares about, he has his own operating system to work on. He doesn't propose to change Linux code, he proposes that Linux developers learn from the successes of OpenBSD and change the code based on those successes.