Time for Theo to grow up [LWN.net]

Time for Theo to grow up

Posted Mar 29, 2006 17:45 UTC (Wed) by Junior_Samples (guest, #26737)
Parent article: Interview: Theo de Raadt of OpenBSD (NewsForge)

Theo's outbursts over the years have raised many an eyebrow. I suppose we all expected that he'd eventually mature and outgrow his tantrums. Evidently not.

Theo should realize that most people are not so fortunate as to have others pay for their hobby. It's great that Theo likes playing in his sandbox. But most other Free Software authors have to hold down a day job. Maybe it's time for Theo to bite the bullet and join society.

If Theo's skills really are any good, there should be plenty of employers willing to pay him what he's worth. If he saves his money, and spends wisely, then he can pay for his trips and vacations out of his own pocket. He can even plan his vacation schedule so that he can attended a "hackathon", or maybe the Sci-Fi convention. Welcome to real world, Theo.

(Log in to post comments)

Time for Theo to grow up

Posted Mar 29, 2006 20:31 UTC (Wed) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]

You know, I think you might be on to something there.

Imagine Theo starring in his own sit-com about Theo deRaat getting a real job and working for a major corporation. Say, 'JCN'. They could call it rot('IBM', +1)

It wouldn't be much different from his work with OpenBSD and OpenSSH. He could just be himself and give us all a laugh. Kinda like he does now. ;-)

Time for Theo to grow up

Posted Apr 1, 2006 3:21 UTC (Sat) by Shanep (guest, #36879) [Link]

Theo should realize that most people are not so fortunate as to have others pay for their hobby. It's great that Theo likes playing in his sandbox. But most other Free Software authors have to hold down a day job.

Most other Free Software authors do not LEAD a project which is the size of OpenBSD and OpenSSH. Projects which provide high quality software which Apple, Sun, Cisco, Novell, IBM, RedHat, Microsoft, etc etc etc continue to use. It's not much to ask for donations for software you have written and projects you have managed, when they are so large and important and have been so successful as to be used by some of the industries biggest names.

If Theo's skills really are any good, there should be plenty of employers willing to pay him what he's worth.

He has. I seem to remember that Theo has written satellite control software amongst other things. Now his position is obviously much more needed heading OpenBSD and OpenSSH. There he has acheived a great deal.

Over Christmas, I sent an email to the OpenBSD sparc64 mailing list. I got some auto-replies because obviously at that time of the year, some people are on holidays and being away from work, they set those auto-replies. One of the auto-replies I got, was from someone at the Pentagon Computer Incident Response Team. So, the US DoD donates $2M US to OpenBSD and the Pentagon are watching OpenBSD development, but you don't think what Theo does is important?

So, tell us about your acheivements. And please grow up.