OpenBSD Journal

Kerneltrap Interview with Theo

Contributed by jolan on from the straight-from-the-horses-mouth dept.

Jeremy Andrews of KernelTrap has interviewed Theo. The typical topics like blob busting, hackathons, and funding are covered, but the questions in this interview are much better than usual and I think that is reflected by Theo's answers.

There's also, uhm, off beat questions like, "You have a reputation among non-OpenBSD projects as being difficult to get along with. Why do you suppose this is, and how does it affect you?". Check out the article for the answer ;)

(Comments are closed)

Comments

  1. By sniket (145.254.156.217) on

    This is probably the best Theo interview i've seen so far. After reading it, you might think that he's actually a nice guy. I'm saying this as a Linux user. I also liked that he acknowledged the work some Linux users had done to reverse-engineer the Broadcom Wlan Chipset. And as always great questions by Jeremy!

  2. By Mike Erdely (65.222.245.131) on http://erdelynet.com

    This definitely was one of the better interviews with Theo that I've read. Most of them that I'd previously read seemed to be leading questions towards an "About OpenBSD" article. The questions and answers here actually gave some information that I hadn't seen elsewhere.

    -ME

  3. By Anonymous Coward (69.132.2.5) on

    I especially liked the part mentioning multi-path routing being worked on for a future release! :-)

    Comments

    1. By henning (80.171.8.98) on

      > I especially liked the part mentioning multi-path routing being worked
      > on for a future release! :-)

      but that is not really true... we will work on teh routing code a lot at the routing hackathon, but multipath routing as what you expect it to be is not a goal.

  4. By Anonymous Coward (131.130.1.143) on

    Ok, it's a slashdot-related question, but in my opinion it is, while rather insignificant to the development of openbsd, still interesting: what does/would Theo say about linus's statement about freebsd's devs beeing idiots? (source) (yes, it is not really important, i am just curious)

    Comments

    1. By Anonymous Coward (71.255.97.21) on

      It just goes to show, Theo may get all the flak for being a jerk sometimes, but Linus is just downright mean-spirited.

    2. By Anonymous Coward (202.45.125.5) on

      > Ok, it's a slashdot-related question, but in my opinion it is, while rather insignificant to the development of openbsd, still interesting: what does/would Theo say about linus's statement about freebsd's devs beeing idiots? (source)

      > (yes, it is not really important, i am just curious)

      "I claim that Mach people (and apparently FreeBSD) are incompetent idiots. Playing games with VM is bad."

      That is pretty damn rich. After the Linux 2.4 VM debacle, which had the stable tree being used for some fun VM system exerimentation games, if I were Linus, I definately would not be calling people idiots with that history hanging over my head. Especially in regards to VM.

    3. By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on

      Calling them "incompetent idiots" was just wrong, not on a social level, but on a technical level.

      It isn't incompetent, as ZERO_COPY_SOCKET works well.

      The recent bug in linux, the panic_if_kernel(), that was incompetent.

      Wether or not vmsplice() is a better idea is open to discussion.


      I'm not sure what this has to do with OpenBSD though ?

      Comments

      1. By Anonymous Coward (24.226.127.231) on

        > Calling them "incompetent idiots" was just wrong, not on a social level, but on a technical level.
        >
        > It isn't incompetent, as ZERO_COPY_SOCKET works well.
        >
        > The recent bug in linux, the panic_if_kernel(), that was incompetent.
        >
        > Wether or not vmsplice() is a better idea is open to discussion.
        >
        >
        > I'm not sure what this has to do with OpenBSD though ?

        Heh. When Linus rants, I have to chuckle. Talking up the superiority of a technology that he himself has yet to implement, while ragging on other developers for using the very same technology that is currently in his own kernel.

        Clueless fanboys talk up Linux like it is the pinacle of creation, yet its so badly designed (if you could even call it that) and managed that it absolutely requires the billions of dollars being dumped into it by corps like IBM and Redhat in order to progress and stay competitive, whereas better thought out and managed systems like OpenBSD and its relatives are advancing at a nice clip with far fewer monetary and developer resources.

        But whatever. Both systems will be around for quite a while, and IMO OpenBSD will continue to be of higher quality, wheras Linux will continue to win the popularity contest. To each their own.

  5. By Anonymous Coward (62.252.32.11) on

    When I read stuff about OpenBSD and the auditing involved, I always wonder if you guys have a comprehensive list of specific types of bugs you've found in code? Sure, there's newsposts here and there about out-of-bounds writing and integer overflowing and whatnot, but that's all scattered around the place.
    Seems to me like knowing your enemy would be a first step in kicking him in the nuts, no?

  6. By Anonymous Coward (60.47.218.205) on

    I'm new here. And I failed to find an answer with google.

    > Theo de Raadt: ... Twice, DARPA money paid for the event (hackathon).

    > Theo de Raadt: ... essentially they (DARPA) ... paid for 3 hackathons.

    Which is true? Both?

  7. By Anonymous Coward (202.45.98.158) on

    "Jeremy Andrews: The OpenBSD project recently had some media attention due to being low on funding. What are project funds used on, and where does the project get its funding from?

    Theo de Raadt: First, I must clear up some misconceptions. We received some funding for a 2 year period when DARPA provided us with some funding -- essentially they paid the salaries of 5 people to work completely fulltime, bought about $30k in hardware, and paid for 3 hackathons). The original grant amount might have sounded positively gigantic at $2 million, but I swear I will never get over how incredibly much money a University acting as a middle man between DARPA and us can bleed the flow of financing. It was just astounding.

    ..." (Kerneltrap Interview of Theo, http://kerneltrap.org/node/6550)

    Now it is difficult to pay for even one full time developers salary.

    Sheesh, if I was Theo I would have just shut up about the war.

    Comments

    1. By Shane J Pearson (202.45.125.5) on

      > Sheesh, if I was Theo I would have just shut up about the war.

      So you think someone who got OpenBSD to where it is today, could get it there by prostituting his ideals?

      You think Theo should not have spoken out against the killing of innocent people, including children, because his project would stand to lose some money?

      I'm glad you are not Theo.

      Comments

      1. By Anonymous Coward (203.113.233.17) on

        > Sheesh, if I was Theo I would have just shut up about the war.
        >
        > So you think someone who got OpenBSD to where it is today, could get it there by prostituting his ideals?
        >
        > You think Theo should not have spoken out against the killing of innocent people, including children, because his project would stand to lose some money?
        >
        > I'm glad you are not Theo.
        >

        The war was neccessary to liberate the Iraqi people from Saddam Husseins brutal dictatorship. Would you rather see him still in power in Iraq, many thousands more innocent people would be dead or tortured if he was

  8. By Anonymous Coward (202.45.98.158) on

    "
    Blobs are bad, m-kay?
    Comment posted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tuesday, May 2, 2006 - 12:44
    Theo: First off, can we trust the code to do what it should do? I don't think so.

    The companies are preparing us for the day when the NSA makes a deal with a company to insert undocumented back doors into our operating systems through our video cards and netwrok adapters. A Redmond company will be complicit, but it maintains plausible deniability because it's not their code.

    Ok, ok, that's just a wild conspiracy theory, but without source code for people to review, how will we really know?
    "

    True? Can backdoors really be hidden inside device firmware?

Latest Articles

Credits

Copyright © - Daniel Hartmeier. All rights reserved. Articles and comments are copyright their respective authors, submission implies license to publish on this web site. Contents of the archive prior to as well as images and HTML templates were copied from the fabulous original deadly.org with Jose's and Jim's kind permission. This journal runs as CGI with httpd(8) on OpenBSD, the source code is BSD licensed. undeadly \Un*dead"ly\, a. Not subject to death; immortal. [Obs.]