The NetBSD team has decided to do away with any selective moderation for postings originating from the openbsd.org domain based on an email announcement on behalf of NetBSD. This rule was instated to protect the NetBSD mailing lists from abuse or denial of service attacks by the founder of OpenBSD, Theo De Raadt, who some time ago threatened to attack the NetBSD project machines. The original report can be found at BSDForums.org.
OpenBSD Moderation Removal by NetBSD Team
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Theo de Raadt threatened to crack the NetBSD project servers? I’m sorry, but that is a rather assinine thing to do. Why would he do such a thing?
Cause Theo often comes off as an ass. He may be doing Good Things for security, but he isn’t always the nicest person to be around.
What kind of FUD is this???
Yea, he can be a jerk, but we live in a world of free speech, right?
If you want to know the real history of what did happen, and why Theo was kicked out of the NetBSD team go and read it:
http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:vOYZ9C8pzTwC:
http://www.theos.com/deraadt/coremail.html+theo+the+raadt+coremail&hl=en&ie=U TF-8
And any way, what a lame excuse to ban @openbsd.org, if Theo wanted to attack anybody, the last thing he would do is to do it from @openbsd.org…
IMHO some of the NetBSD people were too afraid that the developers/users would listen to Theo and see how stupid some of the NetBSD core had been.
(IIRC At the time he was kicked out, Theo had a few hundred Kb of patches to the Sparc port of NetBSD that many users wanted, but he wasn’t allowed to
check them into CVS and started distributing them directly to the users, until he got tired of the situation and created OpenBSD)
This accusations are ridiculous, and it’s sad to se OSNews reporting this kind of sensationalist FUD
*sigh*
\k
I think Eugenia isn’t going to be very happy with my last post
, well, can I know how I’m expected to write a link if the <a> tag is not allowed?
\K
K, check out the following messages to see why openbsd.org was filtered:
1. http://mail-index.netbsd.org/current-users/1996/10/20/0004.html
2. http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?
fetch=56044+0+archive/1996/freebsd-hackers/19961020.freebsd-hackers
In a nutshell, Theo threatened to set up mailbomb the NetBSD and FreeBSD servers. To make such a written threat, he obviously didn’t really care if he was “suspected.”
Reasons for Theo’s “Bad Blood?” How about being kicked off of a project that he was a major contributor for? (Based on his “interpersonal” skills, to put it diplomatically…)
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/1994/12/23/0000.html
Looks like they did a Jobs on him.
Drastic threats are not a good thing and drastic results are usually the consequence.
Were either party over reacting? I don’t know Theo, so I don’t know if he’s the type of person to mouth off and make idle threats.
Was one or both party’s actions childish? If Theo was just “mouthing off,” then did the NetBSD and FreeBSD project use it as a way for petty vengeance?
I wouldn’t consider this FUD. Sensationalism? Maybe. Personal attacks and grudges? Dunno – I don’t know the people involved to make the judgement. In fact, it’s safer to not judge either party, as we’ve all said something we regret when emotions get high.
What I’d like to know is what is FreeBSD’s position? Do they still filter?
Interesting, good to know about this…
Maybe I was wrong on my judgment, it’s clear that probably Theo have a too strong personality, and sometimes makes quite irresponsible statements, but IMHO he is also a great hacker that have done important contributions to the BSD family, and for that I’m grateful.
I also think that as much as he have been rude some times, quite often he have been unjustly accused and criticized, it isn’t clear to me that he deserved at all to be kicked off from the NetBSD project, much less in that way it was done.
Any way, I hope that all this is part of the past, and now we all can follow the Path of great God Itojun in the collaboration between all the great BSD* projects
\k
and now we all can follow the Path of great God Itojun in the collaboration between all the great BSD* projects
A God with a Daemon?
Nah!
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
To: “Jordan K. Hubbard” <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/lib/libc/db/hash hash_buf.c
In-reply-to: Your message of “Sun, 20 Oct 1996 00:51:41 PDT.”
<[email protected]>
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 1996 01:52:58 -0600
From: Theo de Raadt <[email protected]>
the anon mailer is coming up. in 10 minutes you’re in trouble.
you guys persist in getting the last word of flaming at me,
and it isn’t going to work.
^^^ LOL
I swear, Theo has the maturity of a 12 year old. It’s funny to think that mentality is what’s responsible for OpenBSD’s existance.
and to think that my SPARCstation 2 had NetBSD with Theo’s code! YUCK! Thank god I installed Solaris 2.6 over it.
whew
Is this based on threats from way back when OpenBSD split off from NetBSD? That sure is a long time to block emails from an entire domain. I once read Theo’s account of what happened, and it seemed to me that both sides acted very unprofessional in that incident. I’ve never spoken or written to Theo, but based on my occasional perusal of the OpenBSD mailing lists and of his website, he seems like a strange combination of a really nice guy and a real asshole. I’m not quite sure what to make of him. It’s good to see that there is communication between the two projects though.
Have you seen http://www.theos.com? Theo has his own batch of emails and they give different outlook.
For sure he is a little mad, but he sort of realizes that. NetBSD core were not too diplomatic with him either.
Best thing to do about this is just use it a lesson not to overreact.
Yes, Theo is an ass – along with most of NetBSD core. He’s also a good programmer. Either ignore it and use the software you like, or attempt to find an operating system that isn’t maintained by childish jerks or monopolistic corporations, and is also open source and free. Good luck.
lx
>This accusations are ridiculous, and it’s sad to se OSNews reporting this kind of sensationalist FUD
OSNews is reporting on the *Moderation Removal*, not on the issue that maybe Theo said or did not say, or did or did not something right or wrong. Get your facts right, READ what *our* article is all about and then talk that OSNews is spreading FUD or not. There is a fact here: And this is the *Moderation Removal*. And this is what we exactly report on. Nothing more and nothing less.
In fact, I have already emailed Theo to comment on the issue, as we will be happy to host BOTH sides of the fence. We are NOT taking ANY sides on OSNews. We never did. For any OS. Theo hasn’t reply yet.
RJW & Mr Love correctly point out that Theos has a different story to tell.
This is why I’m not prepared to judge either party’s actions and comments.
Besides, there are always going to be 3 sides to a story. In this case:
1. Theo’s Truth.
2. NetBSD Core’s Truth.
3. The Real Truth.
What I’m still interested about – does FreeBSD still block the openbsd domain? Or are they keeping up the squabble like a bunch of Linux Zealots?
(No offense to Linux Zealots. I’m one, after all!)
… wanting to bring down NetBSD’s servers, but why FreeBSD? FreeBSD has probably nothing in common with NetBSD/OpenBSD except once being based on the same OS.
Reminds me to reinstall FreeBSD anyway… lol
Reading through all of this – yes the entire archive (by Theo) too. I don’t see him as an ass as such, only his anon emailer stuff.
I cannot comment on earlier flames or whatever he did to get thrown out of the ‘core’, but the way it was handled by the rest of the core members was pretty lame. They too we’re acting childish by not communicating with him properly…
How did all of this end? – he got filtered, but was he ever given CVS access, or did he fork to OpenBSD from there?
> the anon mailer is coming up. in 10 minutes you’re
> in trouble.
> you guys persist in getting the last word of
> flaming at me, and it isn’t going to work.
Looks to me like the NetBSD guys tried to stop the argument by banning his address, so Theo said “This argument’s not over – you want the last word, but if you ban me, I’ll just post anonymous.”
I don’t see any threats of “violence” here except what the NetBSD guys wanted to see. Kinda the same way we call whatever we don’t like a “terrorist” and try to demonize them to destroy their following. And on the OpenBSD newsgroups, Theo is perfectly normal and respectable – not any worse than Eugenia, who also gets upset with morons on occasion.
It’s natural and good to flame morons. It’s just that in Theo’s case, the morons owned the board, and you should never declare war on people who buy ink by the barrel or own the BBS you’re on.
Mattman
From the link about why Theo et all was blocked, it looks like Chris G Demetriou was also acting childish. Personally, when someone is really annoying me and causing me grief I don’t go around saying If you talk to me again im considering it abuse. Please. Technically if I touch you on the shoulder, it *could* be assault. But making that charge just shows how petty you are too.
That was what, 8 years ago? People change… things change in 8 years. Let it pass, I say…
But if Theo really wanted to bring down netBSD’s servers, firstly, why would he do it from an @openbsd.org address? Or why would he warn them in advance? NetBSD’s action seems a little stupid.
I’m sick of the “Our Take” segments. All they do is start flame wars and get people angry and most of the time they are wrong.
Please, no more. This is osnews.com not EugeniaOpinionOurTakeWrongStats.com.
To be fair, I havce not seen an “Our Take” in a while so keep up the good work, I guess.
> This is osnews.com not EugeniaOpinionOurTakeWrongStats.com.
You are wrong.
THIS is whatever *I* want it to be.
And you are completely offtopic and one step from moderating you down. There was no “our take” in this article.
I live in the same city as Theo and I was taking an operating systems course at the university so the professor invited Theo to come speak to our class. Theo first demanded that he’d speak on a different topic than the prof requested (which was fine) and then cancelled at the last possible minute. The guy’s not exactly a “people person”.
You are off topic as well.
Looks like I hit a nerve :-p
A long time ago a lot of people were very rude to eachother. Like little children they acted, but with much longer memories.
OpenBSD was started, which is great. The paranoid security freak in all of us is happy. Is there a lot of duplication of effort, sure. The duplication is like natural selection, the best code usually wins.
Code still flows back and forth between OpenBSD and FreeBSD and NetBSD more than most people realize. A lot of people weren’t involved in the original dispute and don’t really care. From a cooperation point of view the battle was over a long time ago, except in the minds of a few very hurt individuals.
Now those individuals are starting to make amends. Letting bygones be bygones, and from a human point of view that is very nice.
WooHoo! Hope you’ve got “Anonymous’s” full IP address on file – not just the partial-FQDN.
I mean, he/she/it might start mail bombing you soon!