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

28 points by turrini 3 hours ago | 12 comments

tptacek 17 minutes ago

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 very rare.

ummonk 5 minutes ago

How big is the OpenBSD kernel and userland actually compared to a virtualization layer?

Gualdrapo 43 minutes ago

"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

sidkshatriya 26 minutes ago

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 and till today has better leadership, and management compared to OpenBSD.

I also think GPLv2 was another good that happened to Linux. It just creates an irresistible force to contribute back. With *BSD, a company might contribute back or it may not.

TylerE 34 minutes ago

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.

pdpi 8 minutes ago

My read on Torvalds is that, coming from him, "asshole" is a much lesser criticism than "difficult".

metoobruh 25 minutes ago

I like Theo and the old Torvalds way better than I like most people. Too bad Torvalds allowed the Perpetually Offended Brigade to shame him into an apology tour. He did nothing wrong.

EDIT:

Since I am posting waaaaaayyyyy too fast for HN's Commodore 64 to keep up with, here is my inlined response to tverbeure below:

> There are many extremely competent engineers who can’t deal with the idea of exposing themselves to public humiliation.

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."

Imagine going through military basic training, getting screamed at by a drill instructor, and being scarred for life by that. Weak.

> Personally I believe being an asshole to people is doing something wrong.

You mean like downvoting and censoring posts because you don't like them, also blocking the victim from further participation in the discussion because he's now "posting too fast"? Yes, that is truly asshole behavior. I'm waiting patiently for HN's apology tour.

tverbeure 15 minutes ago

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 are links to Linus calling him an idiot. That’s a mark he will have for life. I would die of embarrassment.

It’s perfectly possible to critique without being a bully.

What Theo and Linus are doing wrong is scaring away a large pool of potential contributors who don’t want to take that risk.

ryanmcbride 15 minutes ago

Personally I believe being an asshole to people is doing something wrong.

oooyay 21 minutes ago

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.

cptroot 56 minutes ago

I would love to know how OP came across this email nearly 20 years after the fact

SoftTalker 51 minutes ago

It's one of Theo's more famous takedowns.