OpenBSD Journal

Theo de Raadt presented with the 2004 Free Software Award

Contributed by mk/reverse on from the hall-of-fame dept.

FOSDEM - Brussels, Belgium - Saturday February 26, 2005. At the award ceremony for the 2004 Advancement of Free Software.

FSF President and founder, Richard Stallman, presents this years award to Theo de Raadt.

For recognition as founder and project leader of the OpenBSD and OpenSSH projects. Theo de Raadt's work has also led to significant contributions to GNU/Linux and other BSD distributions. Of particular note is Theo's work on OpenSSH. Theo's leadership of OpenBSD, his selfless commitment to Free Software and his advancement of network security, were sighted by this years award committee.

Congratulations Theo!

Read the full announcement. Second update: Wim finally sobered up and uploaded new videos of the ceremony with RMS and Theo.

(Comments are closed)


Comments
  1. By Michael Knudsen (217.157.199.114) on

    Thanks to everyone who submitted this, and Bob for complaining that we were slower than slashdot. :)

    We knew about this in advance and held it back because we were hoping to provide links to pictures and video of the event, but we will update the story later once Wim sobers up.

    Once again, congratulations to Theo and the rest of the team!

    Comments
    1. By Bob Beck (68.148.128.240) beck@openbsd.org on

      >When Wim sobers up..

      I was right about the editors being drunk in a gutter at FOSDEM I see.

      Comments
      1. By Marc Espie (62.212.102.210) espie@openbsd.org on

        I don't care what gutter Wim is lying in, make sure he's lying on his back, please !

      2. By mirabile (212.185.103.56) on http://mirbsd.de/

        Try the good belgian beer once, and you will, too, believe me.
        Especially if you're hanging around Wim.

    2. By Wim (194.78.167.231) wim@kd85.com on http://eurobsd.org/

      Sobered up, what are you implying? ;-)

      It's two days after the event and I'm already standing up (Wel, I have to clean up after the armagedon that passed through the house here)

      Wim.

  2. By Anthony (68.145.111.152) on

    I think this is mostly over the firmware licenses. I think the FSF people are annoyed that something so pervasive as SSH has the (90+ percent?) dominant implementation BSD licensed.

    Comments
    1. By Noryungi (82.123.104.11) on

      Please read the FSF announcement before posting: OpenSSH is specifically mentioned as one of the significant contribution of the OpenBSD, and especially Theo de Raadt, to "free" software.

      I don't think the FSF is annoyed at the "market share" of OpenSSH: on the contrary, they are happy to have a free implementation of SSH. Just thought I'd mention that.

      Comments
      1. By Michael Knudsen (217.157.199.114) on

        > I don't think the FSF is annoyed at the "market share" of
        > OpenSSH: on the contrary, they are happy to have a free
        > implementation of SSH. Just thought I'd mention that.

        They've got their own implementation.

        Comments
        1. By Noryungi (82.123.247.250) on

          True, the FSF has its own GPL implementation... which is used by how many people? 1%? 5%? In any case, a much smaller user base than either (commercial) SSH and OpenSSH.

          Don't misunderstand me: I am all for free software, and more power to the FSF for creating lsh. It's just that, in that particular case, OpenSSH is clearly the superior implementation, both in terms of functionalities and user base (I don't like the term "market share" when it comes to free software).

          Comments
          1. By Michael Knudsen (217.157.199.114) on

            Everyone likes their software to be used. I doubt very much they are satisfied with a 1% market share.

    2. By Anonymous Coward (218.214.226.34) on

      See here. OpenSSH is very nearly 90% of the "market", and probably more as many of the "other" implementations are OpenSSH with changed banners.

      Comments
      1. By Anonymous Coward (66.131.206.88) on

        Anyone know if the Cisco SSH is just, OpenSSH, renamed?

        Comments
        1. By Brad (204.101.180.70) brad at comstyle dot com on

          Cisco has a mix of in-house and OpenSSH depending on the OS on whatever hardware you're using (router/switch/VPN, etc.). AFAIK anything that claims v2 support is definitely OpenSSH.

          Comments
          1. By Anonymous Coward (66.131.206.88) on

            Cool! Thanks!

          2. By Matt Ostiguy (24.218.143.153) on

            PIX OS 7.0 is going to have v2 support. I wonder if Cisco is going to go all OpenSSH

      2. By Anonymous Coward (212.185.103.56) on

        It's openssh.com and _not_ openssh.org which does not belong
        to the Project.

        Comments
        1. By djm@ (203.217.30.86) on

          Have you actually checked whois? openssh.com is owned by the project, openssh.org isn't. It has been like that for around five years...

          Comments
          1. By Anonymous Coward (213.196.226.105) on

            That's what I said.

    3. By Marc Gayles (168.12.253.66) mgayles@pobox-ready.com on

  3. By Dunceor (192.36.1.253) on

    Came along way since 2000 http://www.monkey.org/openbsd/archive/tech/0002/msg00172.html :)

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward (66.131.206.88) on

      "Away, Satan." ROFL, that's Theo for you, not scared to tell someone to buzz off... ;-)

  4. By caseyir (129.118.131.150) caseyir@gmail.com on

    I think it is quite ironic. RMS, a man whom I do not respect very much, awards Theo, a man I respect quite a bit, with the FSA. For those of us who follow the lead of Theo, we realize just how un-free GPL'd items are. You need an attorney to interpret the entire license. Any changes you make to a GPL'd program are not yours, even if you post the source code under the BSD license. However, with the 3 clause BSD license embraced by OpenBSD and all of the other Open* projects that are undertaken by the OpenBSD team, it does not require such interpretation. And it plainly states at http://www.openbsd.org/policy.html that you are entitled to use the entire system as long as credit is given to OpenBSD. Gosh, I love OpenBSD.

    Comments
    1. By Aasmund Midttun Godal (80.202.218.120) on

      I think this is not really true. I mean, I prefer BSD licensed things, however GPL allows you to do anything but change the license, which is pretty free although not as free.

      Comments
      1. By Peter Hessler (208.201.244.164) on

        Not true. Try connectiong propritary code to GPL'd code. That isn't possible.

        Comments
        1. By Alex (132.206.178.130) acv@acv.ca on http://acv.ca

          GPL doesn't allow you to *distribute* software which is a mix of proprietary and gpl code. For internal use, it's fair game. For distribution, if you can wrap the GPL code in an interface such as it's a stand-alone process (say, with a named pipe connection or an mmap'd file) then you only have to distribute the GPL'd part...

      2. By Anonymous Coward (203.20.79.132) on

        GPL allows you to do anything but change the license

        The GPL is so huge it has a table of contents! It's a great wad of legalese and you think you can sum it up with "do anything but change the license"?

        Have you read it? It is VERY restrictive and puts the bias of freedom towards the community and away from the code.

        BSD code is free code.

        Comments
        1. By Aasmund Midttun Godal (80.202.218.120) on

          - The GPL is so huge it has a table of contents! It's a great wad of legalese¨

          I agree. However all the text is pretty straight forward even for laymen.

          - and you think you can sum it up with "do anything but change the license"?

          Yes. If you like i can add "of the modified distributed result", but really what I said sums up the license pretty fairly IMHO. The whole point of GPL is to make sure that the software itself and anything based upon it stays open source and free as in beer forever.

          - Have you read it?

          Yes, ofcourse.

          - It is VERY restrictive and puts the bias of freedom towards the community and away from the code.

          Don't really understand what you mean.

          - BSD code is free code.

          I agree if you say more free ;)

          Comments
          1. By Anonymous Coward (198.152.150.67) on

            - It is VERY restrictive and puts the bias of freedom towards the community and away from the code.

            Don't really understand what you mean.

            I'm pretty sure that it means he's more concerned about the freedom of code than he is about the freedom of the community.

            Which sums up the attitude of the BSD Licence zealots better than just about anything else I have ever read.

            Comments
            1. By Anonymous Coward (59.167.252.29) on

              > - It is VERY restrictive and puts the bias of freedom towards the community and away from the code.
              >
              > Don't really understand what you mean.
              >
              > I'm pretty sure that it means he's more concerned about the freedom of code than he is about the freedom of the community.
              >
              > Which sums up the attitude of the BSD Licence zealots better than just about anything else I have ever read.

              "the community" there, is the GNU community, the free code the BSD provides is free for all, for any purpose. That is true freedom.

              GPL "freedom" comes with strings attached. True freedom does not have strings attached.

  5. By Matt (67.70.197.65) on

    Congratulations to Theo and the whole OpenBSD team! Theo is the figurehead, but it is the group effort that makes Theo shine. Good work all, and thank you.

    I sincerely hope this is a step towards reconciliation between the BSD and the GPL license people. Why would one flavour of freedom attack another? It's like the Protestants and the Catholics killing each other in Ireland while the Church of Satan stands on the sidelines and laughs... I'll leave it to your imagination who the CoS is in this example.

    Anyway, congratulations again.

    Comments
    1. By Nate (65.95.241.237) on

      Why, the Apache people of course.

      Comments
      1. By Matt (67.70.197.65) on

        Uh... Well, okay, there's more than one force of evil. Their name is Legion, after all, for they are many. I was thinking of the OTHER evil!

        Comments
        1. By Noryungi (82.123.247.250) on

          I know! I know! It's the PostGreSQL team! Do I win something? *ducks*

          (Besides the Church of Satan is nothing but a bunch of poseurs. Try Scientology for a truly evil cult)

          Also, I don't think there is a 'fight' between the GPL/Linux crowd and the *BSD crowd. OpenBSD has a very specific stance on the GPL, which has led it to reject many GPL-licensed software for the core OpenBSD system, but that does not mean they 'hate' the GPL. AFAIK, many programs available in the OpenBSD packages are licensed under the GPL.

          Comments
          1. By Anonymous Coward (80.219.121.189) on

            - Try Scientology for a truly evil cult

            Ihanks for the tip! Been looking all over the net for ages...

            will try ASAP and post my results!

  6. By Anonymous Coward (66.131.206.88) on

    That's cool, first time I see/hear Theo on video/audio. Anyone know of any others of him, doing presentations, talks, etc?

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward (194.47.142.159) on

      ...or from any other OpenBSD related talk/presentation for that matter.

    2. By Anonymous Coward (68.149.0.169) on

      Theo participated in the 3.4 release song: "The Legend of Puffy Hood".

      http://openbsd.org/lyrics.html

    3. By Anthony (68.145.112.234) on

      No. Hell, I met him before I ever saw a picture. The people that came early to the presentation were just sitting there chatting about AMD64, and it only occured to me that he might be Theo when he kept knowing everything.

  7. By grey (207.215.223.2) on http://www.coralcdn.org

    Just as a mention, you can append .nyud.net:8090 to the hostname of those new video files, and thus use the distributed caching proxy CORAL network, and reduce bandwidth load on eurobsd.org. I'm doing it myself now to download these (so they should all be precached for other people who might give it a try ;)

    It's sort of like a transparent bittorrent, and very cool. You can read more about it (it's just in a beta stage at the moment) here: http://www.coralcdn.org

    Oh, and to keep this somewhat topical to OpenBSD, one of the CORAL developers was also an OpenBSD developer at one point, namely David Mazières (and I'm sure he's also responsible for OpenBSD being used as a partial basis within xok back in the day as he worked on that as well).

    Oh, the Coralized links are:

    http://eurobsd.org.nyud.net:8090/20050225-fosdem/20050226-FOSDEM.avi (20.9M)
    http://eurobsd.org.nyud.net:8090/20050225-fosdem/20050228-dicking-around-with-MirBSD-dv.mov(895M!!)
    http://eurobsd.org.nyud.net:8090/20050225-fosdem/20050228-dicking-around-with-MirBSD.avi(35.1M)
    http://eurobsd.org.nyud.net:8090/20050225-fosdem/20050228-dicking-around-with-MirBSD.mov(19.6M)

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