LWN: Comments on "How free software hijacked Philip Hazel's life"

Many thanks

jzb — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 20:06:27 +0000

Thanks to everyone for their kind comments about this article. It was a joy to work on, and I'm so pleased that it seems to have been received well. I'll definitely be looking for other folks who have interesting stories to tell. Suggestions always welcome, though I can't make any promises.

People of Open Source

jjs — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 20:03:06 +0000

Also +1. Would love to see more stories about open source developers - especially those whose names aren't familiar to most people.

Some of the best technical writing ever.

bduncan — Sun, 23 Jun 2024 20:18:51 +0000

My best wishes for Philip. I've been using Exim for about 25 years, read his two books on Exim and of course the documentation that it comes with. My highest respect and I hope he enjoys a well deserved rest..

Recommended (re-)reading: David Wells

buck — Sat, 22 Jun 2024 03:59:08 +0000

Another long-suffering (literally, in this case) and largely unsung hero (if that's the word for it) of the Internet software and operational ecosystem was written up to very dramatic effect in an article that LWN linked to a couple years back:

https://lwn.net/Articles/910418/

It's a link to a New Yorker article, so that should go a long way towards filling the need for sweeping bios, albeit not with quite the same flavor as an LWN piece.

Professor Wells, alas, passed at the beginning of this year:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_L._Mills

I have a simple comment

frankie — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 13:21:17 +0000

Respect.
That's all that I have to say about all this.

Great achievements

wtarreau — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 03:10:39 +0000

Exim is one of the parts of my home infrastructure I have to think the least about. It's flexible, rock-solid, uses very few dependencies, has a very little footprint. It just works. And regarding PCRE, we've been supporting and recommending PCRE and PCRE2 in haproxy for I don't remember how many years/decades, and I really love how Mr Hazel seems extremely careful about long term maintenance and extremely good forward compatibility.

Thank you Mr Hazel, your software are really a pleasure to work with.

People of Open Source

wtarreau — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 02:59:55 +0000

Agreed as well!

People of Open Source

a9db0 — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 23:39:18 +0000

And another second. Great article, and a wonderful addition.

The whole memoir is linked in the article

iabervon — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 17:52:03 +0000

It's worth noting that the link by the first mention of his memoir is to the complete memoir, not just a little more information about it like I assumed while first reading the article.

People of Open Source

willarddennis — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 12:43:14 +0000

Yes, wonderful article, and a great way to help maintainers like Mr Hazel pass on the leadership role for important projects! More of this please.

People of Open Source

andreashappe — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 11:16:23 +0000

seconded (:

Thank you!

Sesse — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 11:13:57 +0000

All of my mail passes through Exim. Though the code is, well, interesting at places, as a system administrator it's generally great stuff.

I see more and more email coming in with invalid envelope senders, though, and callouts tend to trigger alerts in spam filters. So I'm not sure if this is as universal as the quote would have it to—certainly, if e.g. Gmail did such checks, nobody would send from junk addresses.

People of Open Source

maniax — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 05:12:35 +0000

And their books, especially technical memories as this one.

People of Open Source

phess — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 00:52:06 +0000

+1
More of this, please!

People of Open Source

voltagex — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 23:00:15 +0000

Seconded, more of this please

People of Open Source

acarno — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 21:33:31 +0000

This is a wonderful addition to LWN's coverage. I would love to see more articles about prominent and not-so-prominent open-source developers like Mr. Hazel - I find these deeply meaningful and inspiring. Much appreciated!