Linux For Losers According To De Raadt

elohim writes "Theo has some scathing comments about Linux in his new interview with Forbes Magazine. From the article: 'It's terrible...Everyone is using it, and they don't realize how bad it is. And the Linux people will just stick with it and add to it rather than stepping back and saying, "This is garbage and we should fix it."'"

If I was Theo de Raadt

[Raindance]

I'd be angry too. About how the Forbes article portrayed me as a raving lunatic out for blood, after giving what was probably a thoughtful interview.

All the article consisted of was trotting Theo out for choice quotes about how Linux sucks, and a tiny bit of BSD history. Only 2 out of the 16 paragraphs even started to cover *why* Theo thinks the way he does. The rest is tabloid-style trash-talk and what seems to be an ADD-inspired history lesson. There's nothing approaching a coherent argument.

I'm giving Theo the benefit of the doubt on this one- he probably gave a fleshed-out argument then Forbes eviscerated it. Even if that's not the case, they should have written a better article. This is awfully shitty journalism.

Theo

[evenprime]

Theo is openbsd's greatest strength (a fanatical security coder) and their worst handicap (a PR nightmare)

Dan Lyons

[Perl-Pusher]

Dan Lyons has made a career out of trashing linux in Forbes.

Dan's Resume [google.com]

Nitpicking

[allenw]

I think the coverage for the BSDs is great. Really. I think it will help them in the corporate mindset. But, Dan Lyons, the person who has the byline, really should have had someone technical proofread his article. Only three open source BSDs? When did Solaris switch back to using a BSD kernel? That last one is particularly embarrassing given the amount of coverage Sun is getting with the whole opensolaris thing.

All the way to the bank...

[qweqazfoo]

Too bad Forbes wouldn't know who Theo was if it wasn't for Linux.

Remember folks, UNIX was fragmented and dying before Linux became mainstream. BSD and GNU were nothing but obscure academic projects. The popularity of Linux brought UNIX to a whole new generation of users, and BSD has benefited from the uprising as much as anyone. Even the big boys, like Solaris and AIX, are trying to be more like Linux.

And the whole quality thing is a myth. Linus approaches the kernel with the approach of an engineer, and the rest of Linux mirrors this approach. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to work. Theo thinks of himself as an artist, and his arrogance does as much to hurt BSD as it does to help it.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[SatanicPuppy]

"It's terrible," De Raadt says. "Everyone is using it, and they don't realize how bad it is. And the Linux people will just stick with it and add to it rather than stepping back and saying, 'This is garbage and we should fix it.'"

Seems pretty scathing to me.

Of course, anyone who is that dedicated to OpenBSD is bound to have some issues. It must be hard to be devoted to the unloved stepchild of the Open source movement, and have to watch as everyone worships Linux.

I found it amusing how they touted the BSD foundations of OpenBSD as being superiour to Linux's from scratch origins, and whined, in almost the same breath, about the lawsuit that nearly shut them down. Need to make the connection there boys; where would linux be if SCO had managed to come up with solid evidence?

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[Southpaw018]

Torvalds, via e-mail, says De Raadt is "difficult" and declined to comment further.

Eloquent and refined as always. Apparently, De Raadt has chosen to be less so. If his OS were as superior as he claims, its merits would be apparent without him having to act like the -1 Flamebait posts that are to follow.

flame away!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great. That's all we need. Another flamewar curtesey of the Slashdot editors for the sake of ad revenue. How pathetic.

Linux development model is different than OpenBSD

[syslog]

As Theo says, his 60 person development team puts out quality code. Whereas Linux evolves by thousands of people putting in code that sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.

OpenBSD's approach reminds me of "regular" CPU development, where all elements of the CPU have to just work. Linux's approach reminds me more of the new CPUs being worked on which are fault-tolerant, simply because there are many, average quality pieces in it, and the system as a whole can recover from some pieces failing.

I guess what I am saying is, what happens if a few of "Theo's 60" don't pull their weight anymore? What if some knock off? He has a problem. Linux does not have the same issues simply because there are so many people who are allowed to step in and fix things, even if they are not aces like "Theo's 60". I think in the long run, the Linux development model is better, and will enable Linux to survive long after the high-quality OpenBSD is dust.

BTW, I get to be the guy who coined the "Theo's 60" phrase ;)

naeem

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[vandon]

The title of the article 'Is Linux for Losers?' was written that way to attract readers.
You get both:
"What?!? Someone said linux sux?" and "Ha! I knew linux sux!"

So now they get readers from both sides to view the advertisements on forbes.com. I wouldn't be surprised if they knew it would get posted to /. and they could get extra money from all the click-thrus to the story.

Re:BSDs=good stuff, De Raadt=nuts, it's the licens

[Zemplar]

"GPL offers a little more protection"

What?? Mac OS X is one of the mose secure OS's around, and it wouldn't exist without FreeBSD and their associated BSD license. Now if everyone used Mac OS X, the computing world be much safer as a whole.

In fact, if you contribute code to BSD project and "msft, and other" use this code, that use is encouraged and not considered "pirated"!

Pirate ?

[Animaether]

Is this the seafaring, raping, murdering pirate ?
Or the copyright infringement pirate ?
Or the license infringement pirate ?

You do realize that none of the above apply, right ?
If you contribute to a BSD under a BSD-style license then yes... others can use your code in their closed-source products.
Don't like it ? Don't release under that license.

As for the GPL.. crikey - which one ? which version ? There's too many of them out there already. You mean GPL 2.0, I take it - which doesn't stop a company from "pirating" your code by using it only internally on a webservice and just spitting out the results of the code. That's one of those things GPL 3.0 is supposed to address, I guess ? whatever

Re:What I don't like about BSD

[pdbogen]

For the record, I agree with parent; /usr/local is a very good thing. Now, then. I'd just like to point out that the situation is worse in Windows. "But," you say, "Anything I install goes in C:\Program Files!" And this is true. Except for the configuration, which goes into The Registry (cue evil-sounding organ music). This here is probably the worst idea ever. "Hey, let's have a single place to throw all of the configuration data that needs to be completely parsed repeatedly (I.e., when right-clicking on the desktop), and have no simple, clean way to differentiate who owns what so that entries can be removed when the software is! GRRRRRRRRRRR-EAT!

Recent FreeBSD convert

[uofitorn]

I started using FreeBSD three weeks ago on my desktop at work. Every day I use it I become more and more impressed by it, the integrated userland and kernel are like a breath of fresh air compared to linux. In fact, I'm having such a good experience with it, I already put it on a few sparc64 machines I'm setting up for an NSM platform. For anyone who's frustrated by the million linux distros and their slight incompatabilities, I'd suggest giving FreeBSD a try - it's really easy to get into, and you might just like it!

No excuse....

[jsimon12]

Actually the worst part is that Theo is often right, which means you do have to actually listen to him rather than the easier just ignore him.

Reguardless of whether Theo is right or wrong he should not be such an asshat. Honestly have you ever dealt with the guy? If you don't see eye to eye with him he treats you like a giant turd. WTF? This is why it is good to have social skills and to know when to keep your mouth shut and when to open it. Theo from my experiance appears to have niether.

Re:If I was Theo de Raadt

[Alioth]

No - Theo really does talk like this. He shoots from the hip very often. He's basically a walking PR disaster.

But he is more often than not right.

I strongly disagree with him on one point - "Linux is for those who hate Microsoft, and BSD is for those who love UNIX" - all the people I know who use Linux do so because they want a functional Unix-like OS, not because they hate Microsoft. The lawsuit he mentions has much more to do with Linux's popularity than hating Microsoft.

I use both OpenBSD and Linux, and I like them both but they are different tools for different jobs. I would never use Linux for a firewall - iptables is awful - poorly documented and has a terrible syntax that means you have to dive into random HOWTO docs on the internet to get anything done. On the other hand, pf is well thought out, everything you need is right there in the manpage, and the syntax is a lot more straightforward. On the other hand, OpenBSD is simply not much of a desktop OS - it doesn't have the polish that even Debian has for that use (and that's saying something). But as a secure web server, mail server, firewall etc. OpenBSD is fantastic, and I have to hand it to Theo.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[ArsonSmith]

Without the GPL I would be about the same place it is now. Like it or not the GPL requires that if a company uses and adds to Linux they have to give back. The BSDs would all be used and abused but wouldn't get the company support that Linux has. Look at how Microsoft ripped the TCP stack from BSD. Did BSD get any benifit from that? Other than bragging "Windows uses our network stack!!" Well not really something to brag about.

It may not make you or anyone happy but it does force the improvement of Linux as a whole.

Factoring

[Tony]

If the developer isn't confident about even *where* some part of the code should be, and code from that confused developer actually made it into the kernel despite that confusion, why should a user have confidence in it?

A specific feature may be implemented in many ways. If there are several equivelent or nearly-equivelent ways, it makes sense to question your implementation decision. It does not necessarily imply the developer was unsure if "it" really belonged in that particular location; it is far more likely that the developer was unsure if there wasn't a better way of doing it that he was overlooking.

Sometimes writing code, something just doesn't feel right, even if you know your implementation is just fine. You have the feeling there's a better way. Usually, when you come back to it later, the better way is apperant. Often, the better way is simply cleaner code, not a better algorithm.

Comments like that are markers that welcome improvement, not an indication of lack of developer confidence.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[jedidiah]

Hey, I just used the first PC Unix to support MY hardware.

This could have been NeXT.
This could have been Solaris.
This could have been FreeBSD.

As it turned out, it was Linux. End of discussion.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[SquadBoy]

Yeah. That and there is some very well reasoned arguments over on undeadly that Theo was taken out of context. Which given everything else I've ever read from him on the subject makes perfect sense.

Also the person here seems to have left out this link.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2005/0704/071.html [forbes.com]

Having said that I've been using Debian since 1997 and I'm in the process of switching over to OpenBSD. To a large degree this is because the "secure by default" mindset fits with where I want to be and want I want to do more than any Linux distro can or to be honest should. But to a large degree the attitude on behalf of Linux users is a *big* part of the reason I'm leaving.

It will be interesting to see what Theo has to say about the accuracy of this article. I'd suggest you watch undeadly to see what happens.

Overstatement

[chrispolarized]

From the article, De Raadt states:

"Linux has never been about quality. There are so many parts of the system that are just these cheap little hacks, and it happens to run."

If Linux just "happens to run", how come it knocks out [bulk.fefe.de] OpenBSD when it comes to performance? I very much doubt that Linux would win tests like these if "many parts" of its code were low quality and badly designed.

Granted, the test linked to above is soon two years old, and De Raadt refers to style of coding or general code quality rather than raw performance -- which other prominent people [66.102.9.104] also have commented (in a perhaps more balanced way), but the fact that Linux runs is not merely a coincidence, as De Raadt seems to insinuate.

Re:Hoo Boy

[killmenow]

I know a lot of *BSD people who don't care for Linux, and a lot of Linux people who don't care for *BSD.

And I know several people who provide *BSD and Linux services as consultants as well as a number of what I'll just call *BSD or Linux advocates. It has been my experience, however useless an anecdote may be, that a lot of "Linux people" appreciate the *BSDs and are willing to show some respect to them and their advocates even though the reverse is not true...again, in my experience.

Perhaps, this has something to do with many Linux advocates *also* being advocates of building strong communities...whereas, many *BSD advocates are less concerned with community.

IMHO, YMMV, OMGWTFBBQ.

But Also...

[EXTomar]

It should also be noted that Torvalds isn't unduly harsh about Windows either. On a couple of occations he has claimed an apathetic view of Windows. Torvalds works on Linux because of Linux and not because of Windows.

Is this stuff really what TdR said or is it Forbes trying to generate click-through by scandal? I can let some of it slide but I would be worried if the leader of an OSS project has a lot of venom for another project. It clouds their decision making.

Re:If I was Theo de Raadt

[Lucractius]

Thats the problem These days people bitch about not getting EVERYTHING.

I have no expectation that my "desktop" OS is a great server. I have no expectation that My server can play games, I have no expectation that my Sparc machine be anything other than more screen real estate.

As parent said. Linus and OpenBSD are very different Tools. As are FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Plan9, and Linux. Each has a role, (ok plan9 .. seems a little roleless but it does have uses ;) ) if i want a kick ass web server im going to go FreeBSD every god damn time cause i know it has the features. If i want to shoehorn some porgram onto my PS2 Dreamcast, Cobalt Qube, Router, Japanese toilet with LCD display or whatever the hell else with a CPU some ram and and some bootable storage, then damn strait ill go with NetBSD unless by some amazing chance theres some platform it isnt ported to, partialy functional on, or cant be gotten onto with help from the community. Then ill try porting linux that way. If i want THE best (my opionion is not a fully qualified fact) Security consious OS for creating a router, remote access box, Network Gateway, Firewall, etc. its openBSD all the way. Linux makes a damn good Desktop OS with little kicking around, these days its almost as easy to get a linux desktop as windows no matter HOW you setup linux (its only easier for windows cause its Built in and cant be gotten rid of, and thats not a good thing)

People need to start understanding that Open Source, means all these OSes work together. There are no MS related hassles involved in Transparent X serving over the net. SSH works from one OS to the other just the same. You choose the os you want for the reasons you want it.

But people please think about WHY you chose that OS and then dont just riticule others cause its not "yours"

(I use Windows XP Pro, Gentoo on Sparc, FreeBSD NetBSD and Debian. So i do have a good idea about this :P )

Re:Theo's being a goober this time

[pohl]

Your recollection of that moment in history is accurate, and I find it interesting because the BSD license is ostensibly "more free" than the GPL, because it doesn't require you to do a damned thing...but the surprising emergent property of using the BSD license is that improvements to the codebase did not flow as freely as did the changes to the linux kernel. There seems to be a tradeoff between the two licenses, and this is how the BSD license can work against you.

Theo's Missing The Point

[ubuntu]

From the article:

Sour grapes? Maybe. Linux is immensely more popular than all of the open source BSD versions.

De Raadt says that's partly because Linux gets support from big hardware makers like Hewlett-Packard and IBM, which he says have turned Linux hackers into an unpaid workforce.

The problem with BSD is not the technology, it's the license. The BSD license offers no protection for companies who want to work with them. The BSD license basically says "anything you give to us may be taken by your competitors, put under a closed-source proprietary license, extended to make it incompatible with your original version (a la MS Kerberos), and used against you." The GPL, on the other hand, encourages a culture of equality. What IBM donates under the GPL stays under the GPL, thus Microsoft can't close it up and use it against IBM. They have to keep it open, and release their improvements when they release their new code. GPL'ed code has got to stay as open as when the original author wrote it, and thus isn't a tool of unfair leverage for the mega-corporations of the world. The GPL at least offers companies who want to encourage openness some assurance that they are levelling the playing field; the BSD license offers them nothing in return for their work except the certainty that their generosity will fuel proprietary software which may compete with their own offerings.

I love OpenBSD, but I've never understood their addiction to their "weak" license. I've thought about it, and it's business suicide. They have no chance of ever getting a foothold in the market based on their featureset because anything they do can just be co-opted by Microsoft, Apple, and whoever else wants to take their code, close-source it, and sell it with a pretty front-end. To contribute through the GPL, however, is to make a capitalistic deal with the world: "I have created this product, and on these terms. If you want to deal fairly with me on these terms, and reciprocate, then good. We have a deal." The creator stipulates the terms that the code is to be used: open, free, fair, and transparent. The BSD guys stipulate pretty much nothing, save an ego stroke attribution line.

So, Theo, if anyone's an "unpaid workforce", it's the BSD guys. The GPL guys get code back when theirs is used. You get nothing. The GPL guys are expanding the size of the pool of GPLed software out there in proportion to the amount of proprietary software. For every piece of BSD licensed software, 10 corporations probably take their code and use it to strengthen the proprietary software world. So if I have my choice between the excellent technology of OpenBSD or the pretty good technology and the code freedom security that comes with GPL-licensed Linux, I'll contribute to Linux. At least I know my code won't strengthen my competitors -- unless they seek to become more open as well and accept the terms of the GPL.

Here's my take on how the licenses play out in "real life":

BSD Versus Proprietary
It's high noon on Bootable Hill. Tumbleweeds are floatin' by and the sun beats down. In the middle of the street, Chuck Berkeley faces off with his arch-enemy, Billy Proprietary (I know, I know. The names suck. So sue me). They stare off for a moment, then Chuck remembers his ideology. Chuck lowers his guns in true Gandhi style. BANG! Billy takes the opportunity Chuck offered, and shoots Chuck in the head. Yay. The bad guys win again. Our hero didn't think it was "ethical" to protect himself against the bad guy and is now dead. Evil reigns supreme and Cthulhu consumes the earth.

GPL Versus Proprietary
It's high noon on Bootable Hill. Tumbleweeds are floatin' by and the sun beats down. In the middle of the street, our hero, Richard M. Tuxman, Esquire faces off with his arch-enemy, Billy Proprietary. They stare off for a moment, then Tuxman remembers his ideology. Tuxman calls out: "Billy, I'll lower my guns if you lower your guns in return. It's your choice." Proprietary

Re:Classy Response to Theo by Linus Torvalds

[northcat]

Torvalds always takes personal jabs in response to technical arguments. He made comments about Minix and, more specifically, about Tanenbaum in the Microkernel vs. Monolithic debate. He made personal comments during the BitKeeper issue (although I can't seem to find it now). And now, when De Raadt, at his most personal, said that Torvalds isn't focusing on quality as the maintainer of the Linux kernel, Torvalds, in response, made a personal comment about De Raadt, saying that he is "difficult". I don't see how that's classy or "quality". It seems more like Torvalds thinks this is all a big popularity contest and this is really an argument about who has the bigger dick. This about BSD and Linux, not about the maintainers of BSD and Linux (kernel).

BTW, the idol worshipping on slashdot is appaling.

perfect is the enemy of good

[puzzled]

Theo is a paranoid, perfectionist, peckerhead. I say this in the most kind, loving manner possible, as I've got half a dozen OBSD boxes running on the internet right now, along with many more FreeBSD boxen and a few SuSe Linux machines that I'm learning to love.

BSD and Linux are different animals - on the development side BSD is like an American funeral home lawn - not a blade out of place, while Linux is more of an English garden, with all sorts of wild experiments happening.

I prefer BSD for server work because I like the discipline that exists in both development and maintenance, but I love the steady flow of GPL software that comes from Linux into the FreeBSD ports tree.

Both have an ecological niche to fill ... use Theo's software, but don't pay too much attention to the ranting.

Re:BSDs=good stuff, De Raadt=nuts, it's the licens

[Anonymous Coward]

And how is this not developing code for free for commercial systems?

You could look at it that way, so what? Where I work, we use GCC for free.

Didn't this Rat guy also say the same thing about Linux?

I dunno, did he? It sounds like something he might say in the context of someone making the exact same argument you just made. The BSD license makes no pretence to protecting the code from being exploited for profit. Some people like to think that the GPL does, but many companies use Linux without paying those involved a dime. Some even sell products that use it.

They should stop giving away all their code and make em share.

I bet you love it when people try to cram their ideologies down your throat... Maybe you should stop worrying about being ripped off and code for the pleasure of coding. Relish the beauty of elegant algorithms.

The BSD license guarantees that anyone who has the source code will have your name. Isn't that enough? Well, maybe you're not happy with that, but coders who put their work under BSD are.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[Anonymous Coward]

Bahh... Let us suppose you're digging into the kernel in order to fix a specific bug. So you isolate the section of code relevant to your work and read through it until you understand how it works.

During that process you note that if a portion of the kernel was organized differently (ala refactoring) bugs like the one you are dealing with would either not occur or be trivially easy to find/fix. Maybe there are reasons for the current organization you arn't aware of. Maybe you lack the knowledge or time required to do the refactor yourself.

So you fix 'your' bug, tack in a comment to nudge others (or remind yourself) into considering refactoring a few versions down the line.

Bad practice? Clear evidence of inexperience? Broken development process?

Nope. Nothing wrong with it. Cause for a code review, but there isn't anything wrong with that either.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[StenD]

And that was the reason that I began using Linux, despite the fact that the *BSD FAQ maintainer worked down the hall from me. My home system had only IDE drives, *BSD at the time did not support IDE drives, and Linux did. That choice flowed upstream - when the group I was part of decided to use an alternative to SCO Open DeskTop, Linux was chosen over *BSD because those of us who would have to support it were familiar with it, when we were not familiar with *BSD (the *BSD FAQ maintainer was in a different group). Then the sites that used our software were moved from SCO to Linux. I'm only talking about a few dozen systems here, but how many times was this scenario replicated, where the choice between Linux of *BSD turned on IDE support on a personal system?

There is an actual serious point here

[metamatic]

There is a genuine weakness to the open source world when it meets the mass market.

90% of computer users do not have the knowledge necessary to evaluate whether a piece of software is garbage or not. Because open source software can be forked and kept around by anyone, garbage often can't be removed. No matter how awful the code, someone will keep it alive.

This problem applies somewhat to the BSDs too; except that there aren't as many BSD distributions, so it's more likely that they'll all decide to remove a given piece of crap that should be removed. With Linux, there's practically no chance of getting something godawful removed from every distribution, because they all compete with each other for completeness. I mean, we still have sendmail, and RPM was even made part of the LSB. There are still IMAP servers that use mbox format, and one of them has such shitty code that it doesn't even check malloc return values for failure.

Actually, if we're talking about fundamental flaws in OSs, perhaps Theo could spend some of his time fixing BSD's syslog [xciv.org] before he turns his attention to ranting about Linux.

BSDs vs Linux

[pavera]

I jumped ship from the windows camp in 2000, and when I did I evaluated FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and 3 Linux distros to decide which one I would run on my home systems, which ones I would recommend to clients for solutions, etc.

I had 3 spare x86 boxes, and tinkered with all three OSs for at least 6 months.

I'm sorry Theo but the reason I use Linux instead of BSD has nothing to do with hating MS. I needed a better solution that was cheaper, I went looking, and Linux ran on 99% of my available hardware. FreeBSD while better than OpenBSD in the hardware support regard only supported about 60-70% of what I had at the time, and I could only get OpenBSD to even install on 1 of my spare machines, of course without sound or USB and I had to try 4 different NICs before I found a supported one.

Sure, the BSDs have better design, I agree, and I would love to run them, but if I'm limited to 10% of the available hardware and every time I need a new NIC I have to snoop around the store looking for that one magic NIC with the right chipset revision well I consider that a larger burden freedom-wise than MS places on its users. Stop yapping Theo and go write some firewire drivers, or whatever technology came out 5 years ago that your system still doesn't support.

Re:How is BSD better?

[smash]

Been using Linux for 10 years, and FreebSD for 6.

What stands out in my mind: better documentation, cleaner code, more structured filesystem layout, less distribution fragmentation, more informative kernel/log/error messages, "base" OS seperated from packages better.

BSD gets some things first, Linux gets other things first. IMHO, more often than not, when the BSD stuff comes out later, its generally because it was done the "right way" rather than the "quick and dirty way" and then re-written with an incompatible interface 3 months later :D

smash.

Re:OpenSSL/OpenSSH is Linux as bad as that?

[Nimrangul]

OpenBSD has nothing to do with the developement of OpenSSL. Let me say it again as this seems to be brought up every OpenBSD story: nothing .

OpenSSH flaws are pretty much entirely in the portable version, which is done by a seperate team of people that add the so-called portability goop - things like PAM support are not in the OpenBSD version.

OpenSSL is done by other people under an apache-like license and OpenSSH is done by OpenBSD under a modern BSD license. If you want another SSL make your own, if you want another SSH use lsh.

And your true free comment is something that doesn't belong here, take it to a GNU discussion - BSD users don't care.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[Anonymous Coward]

`grep -ri fuck /usr/src/sys` (that's the kernel) on OpenBSD 3.7 returns lines from 2 files.

compat/svr4/svr4_misc.c:

#if defined(COMPAT_LINUX) && defined(i386)
if (SCARG(uap, egid) > 60000) {
/*
* One great fuckup deserves another. The Linux people
* made this their personality system call. But we can't
* tell if a binary is SVR4 or Linux until they do that
* system call, in some cases. So when we get it, and the
* value is out of some magical range, switch to Linux
* emulation and pray.
*/
extern struct emul emul_linux_elf;

dev/ic/ncr53c9x.c:

if (sc->sc_phase != MESSAGE_IN_PHASE) {
int i = (NCR_READ_REG(sc, NCR_FFLAG)
& NCRFIFO_FF);
/*
* Things are seriously fucked up.
* Pull the brakes, i.e. reset
*/
printf("%s: target didn't send tag: %d bytes in fifo\n",
sc->sc_dev.dv_xname, i);

Searching for ' hell ' finds 10 matches. One example is in dev/pci/if_sis.c:

/*
* Reading the MAC address out of the EEPROM on
* the NatSemi chip takes a bit more work than
* you'd expect. The address spans 4 16-bit words,
* with the first word containing only a single bit.
* You have to shift everything over one bit to
* get it aligned properly. Also, the bits are
* stored backwards (the LSB is really the MSB,
* and so on) so you have to reverse them in order
* to get the MAC address into the form we want.
* Why? Who the hell knows.
*/

If a reporter wanted to take it out of context, "Why? Who the hell knows." would be a great line.

Re:Let me quote Theo in a recent interview

[MikeBabcock]

I agree, and I'm a die-hard Linux fan. I'm also a die-hard OpenBSD fan, but for different things.

I love Linux, and as such, I feel pain every time someone says "just fix it yourself". I'm tired of people who know the code inside and out and can't be bothered to document it or help people do something with it or just do it themselves instead of playing with new features nobody cares much about.

Its just selfish, is what it is.

Did you write your software for you and then give it away? Great. Now its in use by a million people, do you care about their opinions? If not, you're a jerk. That's all there is to it. If you don't want the opinions, don't publish it. Period.

Re:"Scathing" != "Untrue"

[Peaceful_Patriot]

I use and love adblock. I also understand that ads help pay the bills for the websites I visit and enjoy. My general rule of thumb regarding ads is simple: If it moves, blinks, flashes, or annoys me in any way, I nuke the ad, block the server and never see it again. I usually don't block ads that just sit there quietly. I have even clicked on a few of google's textual, relevent, non intrusive ads.

Like most other issues, I feel the reasonable ground is a shade of grey and lies somewhere in the middle between black and white. (i.e. 'All ads are bad / all ads are good.')

DNFTT. Lyons is a TROLL.

[Anonymous Coward]

I made myself a bet before I ever clicked on the article. I thought "wow, sounds like a Lyons piece" then I clicked on it:

Is Linux For Losers?
By Dan Lyons

So the Linux is for Losers part is from Dan Lyons. That's no surprise. He's still smarting from the thorough debunking PJ of Groklaw did. Speaking of which, I'd advise checking over there to see if PJ has made any comment on this story.

Lyons has to know he could get some flamebait out of Theo (not to difficult, but try comparing this interview to the one Theo gave to NewsForge).

This is just a troll for hits. Nothing more, nothing less. Lyons has just been studying up on how to rile people up. Please ignore him.

I mean look: Lyons chose that headline, Lyons chose to interview Theo, Lyons helped Theo look bad (not hard, given Theo's reputation).

This is nothing more than a cynical bid to sell ads on Forbes. Just like when Dvorak said that Maureen O'Gara should've gotten a medal for increasing readership when she stalked PJ of Groklaw, this is flamebait from an idiot meant to rile you into mindlessly clicking a Forbes story and generating ad revenue.

Lyons is laughing at you all the way to the bank. Have the last laugh; blackhole Forbes and their advertisers in your DNS and tell others to do the same.

Theo de Raadt, doing what he does best...

[drwho]

Theo is really good at making people angry. Sometimes, that's angry enough to get out and fix a problem (such as security issues) but just as often they'll tell him to fuck off.

But he's a good attack dog for the open source movement: He can yell and scream at vendors and make the Linux people look calm and collected by comparison.

Just for the record, I use both OpenBSD and Linux (and other OS as well). There's some really good stuff in OpenBSD. There's also some things that Linux does better. Or, I should say, operating system using the Linux kernel.

Theo says that the BSD lawsuit made people flock to Linux. Nope, that wasn't it for all of us: when I was getting involved back in '92, it was the fact that Linux would run on lesser hardware. Specifically, it was that I needed a math coprocessor to run BSD but Linux would run fine on my 80386SX at 16 mhz. I remember seeing somewhere that Alan Cox chose to work on Linux for the same reason. More broadly speaking, Linux was more egalitarian in its hardware support.

I think that Linux success has been largely due to the social impact of the GPL license.

Possible Theo response

[OmegaBlac]

Pulled from openbsd.misc:

From: Theo de Raadt cvs.openbsd.org>
Subject: Re: Theo gave an interview to Forbes Mag. about Linux
Newsgroups: gmane.os.openbsd.misc
Date: 2005-06-17 16:13:37 GMT (9 hours and 24 minutes ago)
> On Fri, Jun 17, 2005 at 04:48:31PM +0200, J. Lievisse Adriaanse wrote:
> > Theo gave an interview to Forbes Magazine, in which he stated: "It's
> > terrible," De Raadt says. "Everyone is using it, and they don't
> > realize how bad it is. And the Linux people will just stick with it
> > and add to it rather than stepping back and saying, 'This is garbage
> > and we should fix it.'"
>
> Heh. Theo never did pull his punches. I suppose there's now a war going
> on in /. ? :)

If the Linux people actually cared about Quality, as we do, they would
not have had as many localhost kernel security holes in the last year.
How many is it... 20 so far?

It speaks for itself.

Re:Theo de Raadt, doing what he does best...

[bruns]

A friend of mine just said to me (who happens to be a big FreeBSD user) - "think of him as a bsd manifestation of rms."

This is why the Debian camp and the FreeBSD camp turns me off of their distributions/OSs - the pig headed stuck up attitude of its leaders tends to cause friction with everyone else including people on the same side as them.

Point in case, from my experience, every Debian developer I've run across seems to be trained in the art of insulting and harassing RedHat users.

Now, thats just my experience, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who may have seen that.

Re:This is exactly why I LIKE Linux.

[Metrol]

I want Xen support before BSD has anything like it

Funny thing of it, primary reason I use FreeBSD for my servers is that Linux doesn't have jail support. I am NOT talking about a chroot jail either.

The Xen stuff would be pretty cool too, but I personally don't have much interest in running a bunch of virtual OS machines.

Step 1: Convince the user he's a moron

[try_anything]

Convincing a bunch of satisfied users that they're actually miserable and need to switch to your product is a great strategy - if you can afford to spend millions of dollars on TV ads. One guy whining in a Forbes interview isn't going to get anywhere.

Linux users know what it's like to run Linux. Lecturing to them about what Linux is like, using OpenBSD as a standard, is

1. condescending, because they already know about Linux; and
2. self-centered, because it addresses the issue from your perspective, not theirs.

Tell people about what OpenBSD does right, using Linux as the standard, and maybe you'll get somewhere.