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Interview: Ask Theo de Raadt What You Will
Theo de Raadt was a founding member of NetBSD, and is the founder and leader of the OpenSSH and OpenBSD projects. He is currently working on OpenBSD 5.5 which would be the projects 35th release on CDROM. Even though he'd rather be hiking in the mountains or climbing rocks in his free time, Theo has agreed to answer any question you may have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.
Given the pervasive nature of NSA compromising, do you know of any attempts by the NSA to put in backdoors or otherwise compromise OpenBSD--either by approaching you directly, or by infiltration?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
I recently needed a free software operating system that could replace Solaris on a couple of Sun UltraSparc machines. After testing out the relatively small number of alternatives I found that OpenBSD had by far much better hardware support than the others. I know that a lot of this is the result from the effort your group spent a couple of years ago to get docoumentation from what used to be Sun. How would you describe collaboration with Oracle now when they run the remains of Sun, in particular around supporting modern Sparc64 based systems?
Very often we admins have to make all kinds of hacks to get OpenSSH to support Chroot and ScpOnly. Would it be possible to make it simpler for these features to be added/configured without third party tools? OpenSSH is a foundational package, and making it easier to add these features would make it all that much better. Would be great to stick to your source 100%!! Thanks for your many contributions!
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
I would like to run OpenBSD on the Raspberry Pi.
I understand, sympathize, and accept your decision to avoid that platform, but what would you recommend as a stable substitute?
The BeagleBone Black seems like the endorsed alternative, although there were stability warnings until recently. The current status reads: "There are generally still a fair number of things to do on each of these boards, however OpenBSD is generally considered to be usuable on them. The platform is now self hosting, however there is no SMP support."
Would you point OpenBSD users interested in this hardware class at the BeagleBone Black? Any other advice? SLC media preference?
TI has announced that it is discontinuing the OMAP line. Will Beagle move to another ARM licensee, and does that matter much for OpenBSD?
Last time I saw pictures, you and others were working from a home. How is everything structured now? Are you living alone and working from your house, or are there others there, too? How has this affected you long term with your personal life and relationships? What type of job did you have before OpenBSD? Assuming you did before, do you ever miss working in an office?
Sig: I stole this sig.
Do you realize your project would be more successful and provide more value to the community if you weren't such an asshole?
How screwed up would the project be had he not been such an "asshole" as you describe?
The truth hurts. Just because people can't handle it and get butthurt doesn't make the person an asshole for pointing out the truth.
I'd also like to know how you feel about other CEO's out there that have proven far more of an asshole than Theo could do in 20 lifetimes. He's a nice guy by comparison. Trust me.