Theo de Raadt
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Theo de Raadt (born May 19, 1968 in Pretoria, South Africa) is a software engineer presently living in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is the founder and leader of the OpenBSD and OpenSSH projects. Before this, he was a founding member of the NetBSD project.
De Raadt is noted for his uncompromising and confrontational manner, which has contributed to several disputes within the free software community, most notably his dispute with the NetBSD core team which led to the formation of OpenBSD. Because of this he has become notorious for stating his opinions regardless of what anyone else might think, or of any consequences.
De Raadt was awarded the FSF's 2004 Award for the Advancement of Free Software.
Opposition to Iraq war
After de Raadt stated his disapproval of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq in an interview with Toronto's Globe and Mail, a multi-million-dollar US Department of Defense grant to the University of Pennsylvania's POSSE project was cancelled, effectively ending the project. Funding from the grant had been used in the development of OpenSSH and OpenBSD, as well as many other projects and was to be used to pay for the hackathon planned for the May 8, 2003. Despite money from the grant already having been used to secure accommodations for 60 OpenBSD developers for a week, the money was reclaimed by the government at a loss and the hotel told to not allow the developers to pay the reclaimed money to resecure the rooms. This resulted in criticism among some that the US military held an anti-free speech attitude. The grant termination was, however, not as bad a blow to OpenBSD as some portrayed it. OpenBSD supporters rallied to help the project and the hackathon went on almost as planned. The funding was cut mere months before the end of the grant.
Free driver advocacy
De Raadt is also well known for his advocacy of free software drivers. He has long been critical of developers of Linux and other free platforms for their tolerance of non-free drivers and acceptance of non-disclosure agreements.
In particular, de Raadt has worked to convince wireless hardware vendors to allow their product firmware to be freely redistributable. These efforts have been largely successful, particularly in negotiations with Taiwanese companies, leading to many new wireless drivers. Today, Theo encourages wireless users to "buy Taiwanese", due to lack of willingness from US companies like Intel to release firmware free from EULA restrictions.
External links
- Theo de Raadt's web site (http://www.theos.com/)
- Theo de Raadt Responds (http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/12/11/1455210&mode=thread&tid=122), interview at Slashdot.
- Interview: Theo de Raadt (http://kerneltrap.org/node/view/6), at KernelTrap.org.
- Is Linux For Losers? (http://www.forbes.com/intelligentinfrastructure/2005/06/16/linux-bsd-unix-cz_dl_0616theo.html), interview at Forbes.com.
- Theo de Raadt presented with the 2004 Free Software Award (http://www.fsf.org/news/fsaward2004.html)de:Theo de Raadt