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.
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:
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.)
You do have a point, and upvoted for refusing to cast fault one way or the other. Though in the late 90's I read the archives about the split after the fact, I wasn't involved when it happened.
I think not always getting agreeing, not having perfectly aligned goals with others, and not always communicating well is just part of being human. But going our separate ways and doing our own thing can open up opportunities for changes (good and/or bad).
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 :)
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.
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!).
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Theo thinks that NETSEC was developing backdoors (I have no idea if this is true/reasonable). If so, it's not unreasonable that Jason would have some idea that this was occuring, and if he was aware, one could argue that he should have done something.
Mind you, this whole thing is built on the idea that NETSEC was, in fact, developing backdoors.
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.
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.
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.
What's the history there?