6 ms·

People often complain about his erratic and uncontrollable behaviour, but I find Theo de Raadt comes across entirely reasonable in this message. What's the his

by lenni 16y ago

People often complain about his erratic and uncontrollable behaviour, but I find Theo de Raadt comes across entirely reasonable in this message. What's the history there?

tedunangst 16y ago
Complaining about Theo is one of those things you do to prove you're tuned into the scene. Other people have read similar complaints, see your comment and think "hey, this guy knows something", and presto! Instant upvotes. Truth by consensus.
- tptacek 16y ago
  Some people that complain about Theo have longstanding direct experience working with him. But then, some people that have longstanding and direct experience working with Theo think the world of him. He's a complicated man and nobody understands him 'cept his codebase (theo!).
  - tedunangst 16y ago
    I think you're at least as capable as I am of determining when someone is speaking about an injury suffered first hand vs second/third/fourth hand retellings, and into which category most such comments on slashdot/reddit/HN fall.
dylanz 16y ago
He's a very opinionated person. Just a personality type. There are others in the industry, like Linus, Zed, etc. Theo can be very direct, and throw in some spice for flavor. Personally, I jive with these personality types, and, think Theo is a fantastic fit for OpenBSD.
j2d2j2d2 16y ago
It would be up to Theo to tell the story to full accuracy, but you can see where it starts here: http://www.theos.com/deraadt/coremail.html http://www.theos.com/deraadt/coremail.html
- protomyth 16y ago
  I often wonder how many open projects would would have problems if the private e-mails of some of the key developers were passed around.
- othermaciej 16y ago
  It's interesting that, in the years since, OpenBSD has surpassed NetBSD in mindshare and popularity. I vaguely remember the time of the split, and certainly wouldn't have expected such an outcome. It also seems that none of the original found NetBSD founders are involved with NetBSD any more.
rbanffy 16y ago
> Theo de Raadt comes across entirely reasonable That is what you experience when you agree with him. Try to disagree and argue with him someday.
- jrockway 16y ago
  I don't see why this upsets people so much. OpenBSD is his project; he gets to decide, rational or not. Yes, working together as a happy family in the land of rainbows and candy canes is a nice ideal. But the reality is that not a lot of code is written by unicorns :)
- jcr 16y ago
  I disagree. ;) In my dozen or so years of experience with Theo, we've disagreed and argued many times and he's always been reasonable. For the record, if I had bothered to keep track of our debates, he's ended up being "right" far more often than I have. Yep, I've been wrong, quite often, and he's been kind enough to drop-kick me in a better direction. He's a friend and I've learned a lot from him over the years. Your misconception comes from people showing up on the OpenBSD mailing lists with a prideful hostile attitude intending to prove how much they know, when in fact, they haven't done their homework correctly or completely. Things often go sideways in a hurry if people aren't willing to look at their own opinions critically and do the additional work to see the other sides. Of course, if you walk into someone else's home and shit on their couch, you get what you deserve. There are edgy debates between developers, particularly in code reviews and proposed patches, but the reason for them is simple; everyone wants to get to the "best" and "most correct" answer. In other words the goal is the same, but the opinions vary. Being friends with the person/people on the other side of a pointed debate is important, particularly across (human) language barriers. Jake Meuser recently wrote about this on undeadly.org and I can't express it any better than he has: http://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20101206081625 http://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=201012060... It's a worthy read.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    Your misconception comes from people showing up on the OpenBSD mailing lists with a prideful hostile attitude intending to prove how much they know, when in fact, they haven't done their homework correctly or completely. I can believe this happens, but De Raadt wasn't asked to resign from the NetBSD core team by new users who hadn't done their homework correctly or completely; it was a consensus decision of some of the world's most experienced BSD developers who had worked with him extensively. (Of course, it's possible some/much of the fault lies with them.)
tptacek 16y ago
I'm not sure I think that it's reasonable for Theo to suggest that one of his key contributing developers was "not fully transparent" about whether he wrote backdoors in the OpenBSD IPSEC code. Theo has no evidence to implicate Jason. Jason served the OpenBSD project with distinction. The matter at hand relates to Jason's personal honor. The instigator of the controversy is a known high-drama person. I might have hoped to see him stick by his guy. But then, that's Theo. You take the good with the not-so-good.
- zedshaw 16y ago
  But, I thought you weren't supposed to take people's "high-drama" into account when evaluating statements and arguments, and judge them entirely on the facts. Isn't that ad hominem as you love to point out?
  - daeken 16y ago
    The facts are simple: Jason worked on related code, worked for the named contractor, and has been accused of placing backdoors in the code. That's where things end. There's nothing to go off of but the accusation, really, so I think the background of the accuser comes into play.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Personally, Zed, I don't give a shit about "ad hominem"; my "hominem" has been the "ad" of many an "arguendo", just like you, and (unlike you, I know) my take is pretty much "that's life in the big city". So, I don't hold myself to this standard of not considering the source in arguments and controversies, even though I recognize the virtue of doing so. I'm a manifestly imperfect person. But I'm not talking about rhetorical purity here. I'm talking about a comment that implies Theo gave a reasonable (maybe even classy) response to the situation. Put yourself back in the position of being a lead dev at Bear. Imagine someone accused one of your better developers of, say, fraud. What's the standard you set for yourself for sticking by your people? From your demeanor, my guess is your standard for loyalty to your own people is even higher than mine. And that's my point here. How well is Theo acquitting himself here? He's not doing terribly. He's not necessarily doing great. But hey, either way, I'm out here with my name signed to my posts. If it turns out Theo was justified in questioning how Jason handled this, everyone can look this post up and hoist me with it down the road. I would concede up front that this is kind of not a whole lot my business; I have a minor, historical, emotional attachment to it and nothing more. You brought it up, I responded. There you go.
RexRollman 16y ago
Have you ever heard the phrase "it's not what you say but how you say it"? To me, that perfectly describes Theo. I often agree with what he has to say but the way he says it often leaves a lot to be desired.
- solinym 16y ago
  There are people who are smart, and primarily belittle other people with it. There's a lot of these in the computer security industry, for reasons that should be clear. There are people who are smart, who do not. There are people who are smart, give you ideas, and let you take all the credit. And there are people who are smart, and subtly guide you until you discover "your" idea on your own. I suspect that there's some positive feedback in this; if you are successful, you tend towards the latter, more cooperative end of the spectrum, and then people, seeing that you're kind, think more highly of you, and give you more respect and on balance you end up more successful. The converse is also true (I'm battling a little envy and frustration myself). There's a saying in politics that "nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care", and it's both corny and tainted by association with politics, but there's some truth in it; high intelligence is value-neutral - it can make you a more effective dick just as easily as it can make you a constructive force.

by lenni 16y ago

People often complain about his erratic and uncontrollable behaviour, but I find Theo de Raadt comes across entirely reasonable in this message. What's the history there?

tedunangst 16y ago

Complaining about Theo is one of those things you do to prove you're tuned into the scene. Other people have read similar complaints, see your comment and think "hey, this guy knows something", and presto! Instant upvotes. Truth by consensus.

tptacek 16y ago
Some people that complain about Theo have longstanding direct experience working with him. But then, some people that have longstanding and direct experience working with Theo think the world of him. He's a complicated man and nobody understands him 'cept his codebase (theo!).
- tedunangst 16y ago
  I think you're at least as capable as I am of determining when someone is speaking about an injury suffered first hand vs second/third/fourth hand retellings, and into which category most such comments on slashdot/reddit/HN fall.

dylanz 16y ago

He's a very opinionated person. Just a personality type. There are others in the industry, like Linus, Zed, etc. Theo can be very direct, and throw in some spice for flavor. Personally, I jive with these personality types, and, think Theo is a fantastic fit for OpenBSD.

j2d2j2d2 16y ago

It would be up to Theo to tell the story to full accuracy, but you can see where it starts here: http://www.theos.com/deraadt/coremail.html http://www.theos.com/deraadt/coremail.html

protomyth 16y ago
I often wonder how many open projects would would have problems if the private e-mails of some of the key developers were passed around.
othermaciej 16y ago
It's interesting that, in the years since, OpenBSD has surpassed NetBSD in mindshare and popularity. I vaguely remember the time of the split, and certainly wouldn't have expected such an outcome. It also seems that none of the original found NetBSD founders are involved with NetBSD any more.

rbanffy 16y ago

> Theo de Raadt comes across entirely reasonable That is what you experience when you agree with him. Try to disagree and argue with him someday.

jrockway 16y ago
I don't see why this upsets people so much. OpenBSD is his project; he gets to decide, rational or not. Yes, working together as a happy family in the land of rainbows and candy canes is a nice ideal. But the reality is that not a lot of code is written by unicorns :)
jcr 16y ago
I disagree. ;) In my dozen or so years of experience with Theo, we've disagreed and argued many times and he's always been reasonable. For the record, if I had bothered to keep track of our debates, he's ended up being "right" far more often than I have. Yep, I've been wrong, quite often, and he's been kind enough to drop-kick me in a better direction. He's a friend and I've learned a lot from him over the years. Your misconception comes from people showing up on the OpenBSD mailing lists with a prideful hostile attitude intending to prove how much they know, when in fact, they haven't done their homework correctly or completely. Things often go sideways in a hurry if people aren't willing to look at their own opinions critically and do the additional work to see the other sides. Of course, if you walk into someone else's home and shit on their couch, you get what you deserve. There are edgy debates between developers, particularly in code reviews and proposed patches, but the reason for them is simple; everyone wants to get to the "best" and "most correct" answer. In other words the goal is the same, but the opinions vary. Being friends with the person/people on the other side of a pointed debate is important, particularly across (human) language barriers. Jake Meuser recently wrote about this on undeadly.org and I can't express it any better than he has: http://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20101206081625 http://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=201012060... It's a worthy read.
- _delirium 16y ago
  Your misconception comes from people showing up on the OpenBSD mailing lists with a prideful hostile attitude intending to prove how much they know, when in fact, they haven't done their homework correctly or completely. I can believe this happens, but De Raadt wasn't asked to resign from the NetBSD core team by new users who hadn't done their homework correctly or completely; it was a consensus decision of some of the world's most experienced BSD developers who had worked with him extensively. (Of course, it's possible some/much of the fault lies with them.)

tptacek 16y ago

I'm not sure I think that it's reasonable for Theo to suggest that one of his key contributing developers was "not fully transparent" about whether he wrote backdoors in the OpenBSD IPSEC code. Theo has no evidence to implicate Jason. Jason served the OpenBSD project with distinction. The matter at hand relates to Jason's personal honor. The instigator of the controversy is a known high-drama person. I might have hoped to see him stick by his guy. But then, that's Theo. You take the good with the not-so-good.

zedshaw 16y ago
But, I thought you weren't supposed to take people's "high-drama" into account when evaluating statements and arguments, and judge them entirely on the facts. Isn't that ad hominem as you love to point out?
- daeken 16y ago
  The facts are simple: Jason worked on related code, worked for the named contractor, and has been accused of placing backdoors in the code. That's where things end. There's nothing to go off of but the accusation, really, so I think the background of the accuser comes into play.
- tptacek 16y ago
  Personally, Zed, I don't give a shit about "ad hominem"; my "hominem" has been the "ad" of many an "arguendo", just like you, and (unlike you, I know) my take is pretty much "that's life in the big city". So, I don't hold myself to this standard of not considering the source in arguments and controversies, even though I recognize the virtue of doing so. I'm a manifestly imperfect person. But I'm not talking about rhetorical purity here. I'm talking about a comment that implies Theo gave a reasonable (maybe even classy) response to the situation. Put yourself back in the position of being a lead dev at Bear. Imagine someone accused one of your better developers of, say, fraud. What's the standard you set for yourself for sticking by your people? From your demeanor, my guess is your standard for loyalty to your own people is even higher than mine. And that's my point here. How well is Theo acquitting himself here? He's not doing terribly. He's not necessarily doing great. But hey, either way, I'm out here with my name signed to my posts. If it turns out Theo was justified in questioning how Jason handled this, everyone can look this post up and hoist me with it down the road. I would concede up front that this is kind of not a whole lot my business; I have a minor, historical, emotional attachment to it and nothing more. You brought it up, I responded. There you go.

RexRollman 16y ago

Have you ever heard the phrase "it's not what you say but how you say it"? To me, that perfectly describes Theo. I often agree with what he has to say but the way he says it often leaves a lot to be desired.

solinym 16y ago
There are people who are smart, and primarily belittle other people with it. There's a lot of these in the computer security industry, for reasons that should be clear. There are people who are smart, who do not. There are people who are smart, give you ideas, and let you take all the credit. And there are people who are smart, and subtly guide you until you discover "your" idea on your own. I suspect that there's some positive feedback in this; if you are successful, you tend towards the latter, more cooperative end of the spectrum, and then people, seeing that you're kind, think more highly of you, and give you more respect and on balance you end up more successful. The converse is also true (I'm battling a little envy and frustration myself). There's a saying in politics that "nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care", and it's both corny and tainted by association with politics, but there's some truth in it; high intelligence is value-neutral - it can make you a more effective dick just as easily as it can make you a constructive force.