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Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years

millert.dev

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Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years

#21

Post by whatis991 »

functionmouse wrote: post #15
htx80nerd wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"it screams volumes about the current state of technology." about the current state of Big Corp vampires who are happy to bleed everyone dry to put more $$ in their own very fat pockets

Our economic system starves you to death if you don't People aren't vampires because they're on top, they're on top because they're vampires. Shit flows downstream

A change in economic system might be neither sufficient nor necessary, especially if the new economic system turns out to be even worse, or a scam.

One approach is to have expectations to not only the economic system, but also other systems, and the different people involved, no matter if they're on the top, on the bottom, or somewhere in the middle.

Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years

#22

Post by divbzero »

fdupress wrote: post #13

Seeing the server temperatures go up as this gets posted to HN is fun. I'm not sure his server agrees.

“Machine Room Temperature” from Todd C. Miller’s website:

https://www.millert.dev/therm/

Server exhaust fan temperature was typically 94°F (ranged 92°F to 96°F) over the previous week and has climbed to 97°F.

Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years

#24

Post by SoftTalker »

stego-tech wrote: post #3

This is why Big Tech is so desperate for AI to work as a wholesale replacement for software developers: they do not pay for their Open Source consumption as-is, and new maintainers aren’t stepping up because they can’t afford rent, let alone to devote their full time to FOSS work free of charge like a lot of older project maintainers do. The fact that sudo is a critical security pillar for trillions of dollars of glo…

Why should something like sudo not be "done" after 30 years?

Sudo is one of the poster children for creeping featuritis, to the point that the sudoers man page is a meme ("Don't despair if you are unfamiliar with EBNF ...")

Even OpenBSD gave up and implmented their own simplified replacement (doas).

Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years

#25

Post by zerotolerance »

But today people can just vibe code their own sudo "with blackjack and hookers!"

/s

Really though, it is remarkable just how high we've built this towering house of cards on the selfless works of individuals. The geek in me immediately begins meditating on OSS funding mechanisms I've seen in the past, and what might work today. Then I remember that I don't believe it can work, but hope desperately that people like Todd can keep paying rent and continue getting some satisfaction from the efforts.

Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years

#26

Post by aw1621107 »

whatis991 wrote: post #17
drnick1 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and new maintainers aren’t stepping up because they can’t afford rent, let alone to devote their full time to FOSS work free of charge like a lot of older project maintainers do. What about the Rust rewrite (sudo-rs)? I think it shows people are interested in maintaining and/or modernizing tools taken for granted.

It has a more lax license AFAIK. Also, many Rust projects and libraries have been abandoned, or are in so-so shapes. Edit: To specify, new projects like sudo-rs may seem promising, but going by observation and experience with similar projects, there is no guarantee that sudo-rs and similar projects will be successful, good and continued to be maintained. The problems with old projects can end up applying to new proje…

> Also, many Rust projects and libraries have been abandoned, or are in so-so shapes.

This seems like a bit of a non-sequitur; the state of non-sudo-rs projects/libraries says nothing about the state of sudo-rs itself.

Not to mention that I'd imagine a similar statement would probably be true for projects and libraries written in any reasonably popular language.

Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years

#27

Post by OsamaJaber »

30+ years maintaining one of the most critical pieces of infrastructure on nearly every Linux and Unix system, and he's currently looking for a sponsor to fund continued development. Every company running sudo in production owes this man. Someone should fix that

Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years

#28

Post by markus_zhang »

whatis991 wrote: post #16
stego-tech wrote: post #3

This is why Big Tech is so desperate for AI to work as a wholesale replacement for software developers: they do not pay for their Open Source consumption as-is, and new maintainers aren’t stepping up because they can’t afford rent, let alone to devote their full time to FOSS work free of charge like a lot of older project maintainers do. The fact that sudo is a critical security pillar for trillions of dollars of glo…

This might be a controversial view: What if the exploitative aspect is open source itself? Trick some above average but naive developers into giving their talent, effort, insights and time away for free or very little? Maybe open source or something similar could have been organized in a way that wasn't exploitative and wasn't (possibly) unsustainable, but that is not how things ended up with what Richard Stallman an…

I think at least the license should say something like we will charge on a per CPU or whatever basis for commercial usage.

You give it away for free so don’t be surprised to get abused. Human nature working at its best and worst here.

Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years

#29

Post by tokyobreakfast »

drnick1 wrote: post #14
stego-tech wrote: post #3

This is why Big Tech is so desperate for AI to work as a wholesale replacement for software developers: they do not pay for their Open Source consumption as-is, and new maintainers aren’t stepping up because they can’t afford rent, let alone to devote their full time to FOSS work free of charge like a lot of older project maintainers do. The fact that sudo is a critical security pillar for trillions of dollars of glo…

> and new maintainers aren’t stepping up because they can’t afford rent, let alone to devote their full time to FOSS work free of charge like a lot of older project maintainers do. What about the Rust rewrite (sudo-rs)? I think it shows people are interested in maintaining and/or modernizing tools taken for granted.

By modernizing do you mean rewriting mature software in a meme language with less features than the original and introducing new bugs in the process?

The Rust smokescreen is mostly being used to slowly eradicate the GPL.

Like Lenin said, "Who stands to gain?"

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