(I know this is old news, but...)

It seems that Theo de Raadt doesn't like Linux.  While Theo and his friends have been writing an extremely secure version of BSD, Linux has taken over the world, and not too many people want his software any more.  Not surprisingly, he's a little offended.

What free software is all about

Forbes says that Theo is "a pioneer of the open source software movement and a huge proponent of free software." But it seems that both Forbes and Theo don't understand the concept of free software.

The essence of free software is about freedom, not price.  It is an unfortunate quirk of the English language that obscures the difference between these two concepts (other languages seem to have it a little better).  Perhaps we'd be better to call it "liberty software", but it doesn't fall off the toungue quite so well, does it?  :-)  The name doesn't change the meaning, though - the goal of free software is to create and maintain freedom.

This is the primary reason why Linux folks don't like the BSD license (and, i would argue, why Linux has attracted more of a following than any of the BSD-based distributions, including Mac OS X): due to the conditions of the GNU General Public License (GPL), you can't make Linux not free.  That is, no one can take code that i've released under the GPL and decide to make it their own proprietary product, not releasing their code back to the public.  The GPL requires that if the code is released, the source code must be released along with it.

This is why companies like HP, IBM, SGI, and others have felt confident to pick up and run with Linux: they can release code without giving their competitors any commercial advantage, while still benefiting from supporting Linux.

Who supports Linux programmers and how

The Forbes article states, "Linux gets support from big hardware makers like [HP] and IBM, which he says have turned Linux hackers into an unpaid workforce", then quotes De Raadt, "These companies used to have to pay to develop Unix. They had in-house engineers who wrote new features when customers wanted them. Now they just allow the user community to do their own little hacks and features, trying to get to the same functionality level, and they're just putting pennies into it".

I can only assume that this is "journalistic license" (i.e. making up quotes and putting them in people's mouths), since from what i've heard, De Raadt is a very clever software engineer.  That quote can only come from someone who hasn't investigated the facts carefully.  A large number of free software developers, including most of the well-known ones like Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Nat Friedman, Miguel Icaza, Andrew Morton, Paul "Rusty" Russell, and Andrew Tridgell work full-time on free software projects for their employers.

IBM claims to have 3,000 staff working on Linux in their services arm alone.  They invested US$1 billion in Linux in 2001 and gained US$1.5 billion in Linux related revenue in 2002.  That's big business, and you don't put those sort of dollars into something without backing it up with people.  In fact, much of that $1 billion probably was people investments, particularly salaries and expenses.

I work as a school IT manager, and support free software where i'm able (particularly the Shoreline Firewall project), but i don't really have the time to make free software succeed.  The people who are making that happen are people like Mark Shuttleworth, who are actually funding free software development.

The Importance of belief systems

One of my favourite musicians, Steve Taylor, wrote a song called "Jesus is for losers".  It's a song about changing values from what the rest of the world expects or encourages and asking Christ to save us.  To those on the outside, following Jesus seems like a big waste of time - something for losers.  (That's a very rough paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 1.18.)  But to those of us who know him, we consider knowing Jesus worth the derision of those who don't understand (Philippians 3.7-9).

I use Linux (Debian GNU/Linux in particular) because it's not only an operating system that's low in cost, stable, flexible, and more secure than many alternatives, but because of my belief system - that is, that freedom is what i value in computer systems.  If this makes me a loser in Theo De Raadt's eyes, so be it.  I've had worse. :-)

Why people use and support Linux

De Raadt is quoted in Forbes: "Linux people do what they do because they hate Microsoft. We do what we do because we love Unix".  "They have the same rapid development cycle, which leads to crap,".  "Everyone is using it, and they don't realize how bad it is. And the Linux people will just stick with it and add to it rather than stepping back and saying, 'This is garbage and we should fix it.'"

Nobody claims Linux is perfect.  We're always trying to improve various parts of the system, and if you ask me, Linux is getting better all the time.  We don't use Linux because we hate Microsoft (although that usually does follow from the free software belief system), and we don't do it just so we can get code out there quickly (although that is also an important part of most open source methodologies).

Theo De Raadt produces OpenBSD because he loves Unix ; we use Linux because we love freedom.  Theo is working to create a better operating system ; we're working to create a better society.