Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years
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Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years
#2Quote from Website: "For the past 30+ years I’ve been the maintainer of sudo. I’m currently in search of a sponsor to fund continued sudo maintenance and development. If you or your organization is interested in sponsoring sudo, please let me know."
Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years
#3This 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 global infrastructure but this guy gets bupkis for it screams volumes about the current state of technology.
We must do better, or it’ll be closed systems (OpenAI, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Oracle) all the way down as maintainers age out, go bankrupt, or die without succession plans in place.
Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years
#4Have used sudo millions of times. It's so smooth I don't even consider it software. Thinking that sudo could give me bug one day haunts me now. Thanks Miller for your work!
Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years
#5I would love to know were IBM is on this. They use sudo everywhere, even on AIX. Not to mention IBM owns Red Hat Linux.
IBM should be able to send a decent amount to Todd once in a while, but based upon how much IBM supports ssh ($0), all they are proving is they are very cheap and only wants be a parasite living off other's work.
Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years
#6This 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…
Honestly, it seems like the idealism of open source shouldn't have survived its contact with capitalism, but I suppose the contact wasn't painful enough the the exploitation continued for a long time.
Maybe we need a license that's even more onerous to corporations than the AGPL, like something with a revenue share clause.
Or maybe the problem is the naivete of software engineers. In aggregate, there was so much embrace of libertarianism that no groundwork was laid to protect ourselves from things like AI and offshoring.
Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years
#7This 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…
>"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 $$ in their own very fat pockets
Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years
#8This is why Big Tech is so desperate for AI to work as a wholesale replacement for software developers: they do not pay for their Open Source consumption as-is, and new maintainers aren’t stepping up because they can’t afford rent, let alone to devote their full time to FOSS work free of charge like a lot of older project maintainers do. The fact that sudo is a critical security pillar for trillions of dollars of glo…
Sounds like the system is working as intended...
Not trying to be glib here. This feels like the embrace, extend, extinguish pattern that we jokingly used to think was only Microsoft. It is now becoming more and more obviously the modus operandi of the entire enterprise software ecosystem.
I believe you are correct to be frustrated and ringing the alarm bell. This is a "death of the commons" moment for OSS.
Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years
#9This is why Big Tech is so desperate for AI to work as a wholesale replacement for software developers: they do not pay for their Open Source consumption as-is, and new maintainers aren’t stepping up because they can’t afford rent, let alone to devote their full time to FOSS work free of charge like a lot of older project maintainers do. The fact that sudo is a critical security pillar for trillions of dollars of glo…
>"it screams volumes about the current state of technology." about the current state of Big Corp vampires who are happy to bleed everyone dry to put more $$ in their own very fat pockets
Exactly
Re: Todd C. Miller – Sudo maintainer for over 30 years
#10This 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…
Honestly, it seems like the idealism of open source shouldn't have survived its contact with capitalism, but I suppose the contact wasn't painful enough the the exploitation continued for a long time. Maybe we need a license that's even more onerous to corporations than the AGPL, like something with a revenue share clause. Or maybe the problem is the naivete of software engineers. In aggregate, there was so much embr…
Been pitching that with my FOSS colleagues and peers for years, now. A license for individual and educational use, but pay-to-play for anyone tangentially making revenue from its use. Then the conversation boils down to the business engineering of how much should something cost, with some arguing for flat yearly rates, and others arguing for cost-per-unit, while others still fret about "disrupting" the status quo immediately after acknowledging its untenability.
It's...frustrating, but those who do the work are the most qualified to explain what they need. For the rest of us, it's encouraging them to seek reasonable compensation for their work from those who exploit it for profit, and that doing so doesn't necessarily go against the spirit of open source.