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Theo de Raadt: "You've been smoking something mind altering" (2007)

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Re: Theo de Raadt: "You've been smoking something mind altering" (2007)

#21

Post by scythe »

sidkshatriya wrote: post #8
Gualdrapo wrote: post #5

"Torvalds, via e-mail, says De Raadt is “difficult” and declined to comment further." https://www.forbes.com/2005/06/16/linux-bsd-unix-cz_dl_0616t... Imagine being so hard you're labelled as "difficult" by no other but Linus Torvalds

Thanks for sharing the forbes link. From the link: "De Raadt says BSD could have become the world's most popular open source operating system, except that a lawsuit over BSD scared away developers, who went off to work on Linux and stayed there even after BSD was deemed legal." There is some truth to that. And who knows where BSDs might have been if the lawsuit never happened. However, I think Linux has always has an…

It's hard to blame OpenBSD's management when there are three other BSDs. You didn't have to work with Theo de Raadt to work on BSD. But while the lawsuit may have been the catalyst, the game was really over when GNOME took off. BSD was sort of an equal target under KDE, but GNOME prioritized Linux pretty hard and had a lot of fans. At that point pretty much everyone making interesting desktop stuff went to Linux and never looked back. Which is not solely a license issue; you can definitely release GPL software for FreeBSD, but the "license war" culture (to the extent it really existed) may have been an issue.

And I guess I do think that FreeBSD had a saner organization pattern than the sort of haphazard ecosystem of projects that grew up around GNU and Linux. Maybe the chaos was necessary for growth, but it still seems to be a hurdle for new Linux users in the current day.

Re: Theo de Raadt: "You've been smoking something mind altering" (2007)

#22

Post by tptacek »

boricj wrote: post #18
tptacek wrote: post #13

One of his dumber takes. Virtualization replaces an ultra-functional general-purpose kernel evolved over decades to support every conceivable application with a drastically smaller "kernel" (KVM and the userland hypervisor). It's a drastic attack surface reduction, and the empirical data bears that out: kernel LPEs aren't even newsworthy (there's whole repos full of unnamed, unremarked-upon LPEs), and KVM escapes are…

Doesn't that message date back to a time that either predates or is almost concurrent with the introduction of x86 hardware-assisted virtualization? I wasn't around playing with VMs back then, but I'm not sure that the track record of x86 virtualization 20 years ago was that great.

It does, but that's an argument about implementations, and his comment is an argument about design. Just read it again and see if you think it's reasonable. Pay attention to the tone and (especially) the conclusory certainty he deploys.

Re: Theo de Raadt: "You've been smoking something mind altering" (2007)

#23

Post by estebank »

oooyay wrote: post #11

Even very smart, very accomplished people can be very wrong. Xen is seeing a resurgence from Xen Orchestra and I've used it in my homelab. It's quite pleasant. I also, of course, use de Raadt's software as well.

I think that everyone has the power to be wrong, but to be very wrong with convincing arguments, you must be smart.

A smart person can come up with post-hoc rationalizations that hold up under some scrutiny, to the point it is very hard to convince them otherwise. Add to that people who became famous or successful on the back of "being right" on some subject matter, getting used to "being right even in the face of overwhelming push back", and you have a recipe for very smart people being very wrong in very visible/loud ways.

Re: Theo de Raadt: "You've been smoking something mind altering" (2007)

#24

Post by SoftTalker »

tptacek wrote: post #22
boricj wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't that message date back to a time that either predates or is almost concurrent with the introduction of x86 hardware-assisted virtualization? I wasn't around playing with VMs back then, but I'm not sure that the track record of x86 virtualization 20 years ago was that great.

It does, but that's an argument about implementations, and his comment is an argument about design. Just read it again and see if you think it's reasonable. Pay attention to the tone and (especially) the conclusory certainty he deploys.

And since then, OpenBSD has developed its own VM subsystem vmm(4), vmd(8), vmctl(8).

Re: Theo de Raadt: "You've been smoking something mind altering" (2007)

#25

Post by DonHopkins »

My favorite Theologism:

    "My favorite part of the "many eyes" argument is how few bugs 
    were found by the two eyes of Eric (the originator of the 
    statement).  All the many eyes are apparently attached to a 
    lot of hands that type lots of words about many eyes, and 
    never actually audit code." -Theo de Raadt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus%27s_law

Re: Theo de Raadt: "You've been smoking something mind altering" (2007)

#26

Post by MajorTakeaway »

metoobruh wrote: post #9
TylerE wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, Torvalds has called basically every person on earth an asshole at some point, hasn’t he? He’s the opposite of being sparing with critisicism, and frankly has historically often used his bully pulpit to do it.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: Theo de Raadt: "You've been smoking something mind altering" (2007)

#27

Post by tptacek »

SoftTalker wrote: post #24
tptacek wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does, but that's an argument about implementations, and his comment is an argument about design. Just read it again and see if you think it's reasonable. Pay attention to the tone and (especially) the conclusory certainty he deploys.

And since then, OpenBSD has developed its own VM subsystem vmm(4), vmd(8), vmctl(8).

Sure, I mean, he was wrong, and I assume he knows he's wrong, and wouldn't say the same thing today. He's not dumb. Just this take is.

Re: Theo de Raadt: "You've been smoking something mind altering" (2007)

#28

Post by lstodd »

tverbeure wrote: post #15
metoobruh wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

There are many extremely competent engineers who can’t deal with the idea of exposing themselves to public humiliation. That’s especially true in today’s environment where these kind of bully rants have become a spectacle for outsiders. Just google the name of the person who was the subject to one of Linus’ rants about a year ago. Despite being a very accomplished figure in the RISC-V world, top results for his name…

[dead]

Re: Theo de Raadt: "You've been smoking something mind altering" (2007)

#29

Post by tverbeure »

MajorTakeaway wrote: post #26
metoobruh wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

> I don't classify thin skinned snowflakes who do stupid things that get them screamed at by Linus, and then are butthurt about it for years, as being "extremely competent."

There is no reason to believe that there is a causation between being a “thin skinned snowflake” and being incompetent. That said, it doesn’t surprise me at all that some kind of people would make that assumption.

Re: Theo de Raadt: "You've been smoking something mind altering" (2007)

#30

Post by mmh0000 »

sidkshatriya wrote: post #8
Gualdrapo wrote: post #5

"Torvalds, via e-mail, says De Raadt is “difficult” and declined to comment further." https://www.forbes.com/2005/06/16/linux-bsd-unix-cz_dl_0616t... Imagine being so hard you're labelled as "difficult" by no other but Linus Torvalds

Thanks for sharing the forbes link. From the link: "De Raadt says BSD could have become the world's most popular open source operating system, except that a lawsuit over BSD scared away developers, who went off to work on Linux and stayed there even after BSD was deemed legal." There is some truth to that. And who knows where BSDs might have been if the lawsuit never happened. However, I think Linux has always has an…

Ha! That’s some rose-colored-glasses view of BSD history.

The lawsuit didn’t help. But the BSD developers shot themselves in the foot when they refused to support x86, referring to it as a “toy”.

It wasn't until Linux came along and started eating up all of BSD's user base that they freaked out and decided x86 support might be a good idea. But by then it was too late.

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