Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2013 13:05:23 -0400 From: dil does <dildoes123@gmail.com> To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: RE: Fandom and the dangers of "Free" Software Message-ID: <CABugGbMyTxOTOQC-QtT=tGgKLUicjjcofzuWZ3Kw6p8CrAMdrg@mail.gmail.com>
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GCC 4.3: sched.c line 572: Error: PC Load Letter. Theo De Raadt stared at his screen. Another glitch, another delay. The next version of OpenBSD, 4.4, was due for release a week ago, and he was still not ready. Just another reason for a jerkoff with a DSL connection and an IRC client to think that Theo De Raadt was anything *but* the best programmer ever. He took another drag from his cigarette, another couple millimeters burned from the end. He looked into the pack (just five left - not near enough to get him through this night) and sighed. Theo De Raadt didn't need some dry plant leaf to get him through this. Theo De Raadt didn't need anything organic to reassure him he was the BEST PROGRAMMER EVER. Not that it mattered, anyways. GCC was being a joke, as always. Nobody took that cunt Stallman seriously, anyways. It wasn't the fucking OpenBSD trunk that was the problem. It was GCC. What was GCC, anyways? Just another quisinart. Well, this wasn't going to compile itself. The amber light of his terminal shown on his face, a few more photons dancing on his intent eyes, the irises opening slowly. He saw the amber spark that danced on the bottom of his screen, another of the amber sparks that waited, obeying his every command. He fired up Vim. The characters, his inspiration, his *muse*, filling the screen. The terminal stretching to accomodate the source files on which he worked. He aligned his keyboard, running his fingers slowly across the keys, feeling his index fingers sliding across into home row. 527 G return. The air, the little figment GCC was so eager to choke on, was clear as a thousand suns, yet thick with the haze smoke of dozens of cigarettes and the heat of dozens of SPARC servers. The pea soup of nicotine fog was agitated by his rack of fine Sun bozen. Now THAT was a real man's tool, he thought. It has been said that it is a poor craftsman who blames his tools. But yet, is there not more to the relationship of man and tool? Is a great craftsman not inevitably inspired by his tool. Is his tool not inevitably amused? Is it not inevitably a conduit for his inspiration... his passion... to burst out upon the face of the world? A stream of characters littered the bottom of his screen. In this dark night, in this darkest hour for the openbsd project, perhaps these symbols would bring a faint glimmer of hope. Hey Theo, just ran w on your server, noticed you. Must be getting late huh (not that I'm an expert on timezones). This wasn't the source he was looking for, but that wasn't a bad thing. Perhaps this unexpected interruption into his private coding session would provide that spark of excitement he needed to deal with GCC's numerous inadequacies. Perhaps this mysterious stranger would give him the strength he needed to deal with that stack smashing, buffer overflow generating, decidedly position dependent, poorly optimized bloated junk that open source coders like himself, men seeking to thrust their skill into this world, were forced to deal with. If no good deed goes unpunished, then all this penance ensured that Mr. Theo De Raadt had been a very, very good boy indeed. He slapped control z, bringing up that $, so eager to await his every motion. w | grep esr - he brushed gently his smallest, most delicate finger across the return key, contemplating briefly before sending the electrical pulse that would unravel the mystery in naught but a microsecond. His faithful, electric-powered steed unveiled to him the truth of the mystery. Perhaps his partner wasn't so mysterious after all. The results, not unexpected, but not unexciting. Of course. Who else could he expect to be by his side on this dark, lonely companion - esr. He paused for a bit - maybe a couple billion cycles on that little piece of silicon that made this all possible. He didn't want to waste this next reply. An encounter with esr was worth the time spent. He savored the next few moments. He wasted a few keystrokes prototyping his response. For a man like Theo, C code came easy, flowed off his delicate (but yet strong) lips like the aroma of a fine wine. Time with esr, those octets of data stringing themselves across a web of glass, was so exotic compared to the normal, monastic life of the best programmer in the world. Eventually, he released that magic combination of control and h, that little chord of keys that he was so quick to use, to ensure that any vision presented would be naught utter bliss. He shift his hands back to home row. A, E, O - that combination so familiar to a master of Dvorak, the only way a man of his stature could interface with the virtual world of his computer, a virtual world he created. esr, my friend, were you testing me with that anonymous message - concerned, perhaps, I'd slipped? But don't worry, by friend, I'd didn't need to burn a couple execution cycles to know it was you. Who else can I trust, who else can I confide in? No... Who else could I bear to admit into my private meditations upon the trunk of my great project. Only you, esr. Only you, esr, could pull me away from that, the time spent at the altar that separates the men from the weak? So thank you, esr, for your brief communique has been a pleasant diversion from the trials I face. But his happiness was shortlived. A simple fg brought him back, away from his personal desires, and with naught but three keystrokes, he resumed the identity of Theo De Raadt, master of the OpenBSD source tree, tamer of merges, the only damn console cowboy in this world who was going to, hell, who COULD fix this damn problem. But fortunately, this distraction (but should it have been an invasion, a penetration of his personal time? should it not be unwelcome? should not the great Theo De Raadt be above such things?) was shortlived, for in naught but a few minutes, his concentration was broken. Another message arrived, and the sender didn't bother trying to be anonymous this time. Theo, listen, it's Eric. Really? The night before a Hackathon, and here you are, alone, killing yourself to get this code to work. Theo, we need to talk, I need to talk. There's a thousand, hell, maybe a million coders out there, and tomorrow morning, code is going to fly. But this isn't tomorrow, this isn't hackathon. Right now, maybe it's not the code that matters. Maybe what matters now isn't a question of source of source trees, or periodic functions - isn't a question of source lines of code. What matters right now is who we are, the people behind the names. What matters right now, Theo, isn't all the code that we're going to write, it isn't OpenBSD, it isn't what history will write of us. What matters is who we are right now. What matters right now is us. Theo, there's going to be a Hackathon every year as long as you walk this planet, but tonight is only going to happen once, and I can't bear to waste that time with you staring at liquid crystals twisting themselves into eye pleasing shapes. Theo didn't even have to wait for the formality of sending a reply, because a commanding rap on that door, that hotel room door, was enough to break him away. Not that it mattered anyways. He wasn't going to write anymore code tonight. He stepped out from his computer, taking a break for the first time in hours, and ran to the door, sliding the bolt free, pulling it from the hole that kept the door shut, kept him isolated, and as the hinges creaked, Eric stepped forth, penetrating his private domicile. "ERIC!" Theo said, savoring the name as it passed over his lips. "You may be late, but you were write - this night isn't over yet, and that window of opportunity hasn't clamped shit yet." "Theo," Eric said. "You look better in person." "Eric," Theo replied, "You're quite quick to complement, but I think all the pleasure is mine. This world we live in, there's an unending supply of lusers filling my email inbox with crap, but you're the only one that can fill me with something better, with something beautiful." "Theo," Eric replied, "I want to help you with OpenBSD. You're brilliant; reading your code is like making love on a hot summer light" "Eric, I'm sorry. I want you contribute to my trunk, I want you to contribute to me. But OpenBSD isn't just mine. They won't let us be together, Eric. I can't give you commit access to the CVS trunk... But maybe, just maybe, I can give you a consolation prize." "I, Theo De Raadt, do hereby give you, Eric S Raymond, do hereby give you full commit access to my heart... And my body." "Theo, I'm been slinging code for decades now, but I've been waiting my entire life to hear that. Tonight, with that newfound access, I've got a development branch that I've been very eager to push." "Eric, I wish I was that development branch, so you could push me every version." "I don't know Theo, I just wish I was your stable tag, because then I'd always be there for you to commit to me." "Eric, I'll give you better than that. You can be my backup tapes, because I know you'll always be there for me." "Theo, I've had enough of this worldplay. I think it's time I get root access on you." "Eric, you should have told me that five minutes ago." Eric embraced the smaller man, and felt a delightful tingle in his mustache as his lips drew closer. He felt the first of the many merges they'd be doing tonight as his tongue slid into Theo's mouth. For once in his life, Theo was truly speechless, but he didn't need words to respond. He pushed Eric onto the bed, no small feat for a man as small as Theo. He rolled Eric on top of him. "Eric, I think it's time we review some of my older, deeper branches." His OpenBSD pufferfish shirt came off quite quickly, and with this sudden reveal of flesh, Theo felt a sudden bulge. "Eric, your enthusiasm is palpable." "Theo, I only hope you've allocated enough heap space for my pointer." "Eric, you're talking to the best virtual memory programmer in this world. I assure you, my heap won't have problems allocating to fit any pointer." As the two men pulled their remaining clothes off, Theo glanced back with a knowing smile. "Eric, I've already given you root. Now open a port on my firewall." "Gee, Theo, I just hope you during those long, hard auditing sessions of yours, you don't reverse this - us - away." "Eric, I could never bear to audit our love." As Eric slathered his penis with lubricant and began to penetrate Theo, he remarked with a knowing glance "Theo, I think I've found the third remote hole in an OpenBSD install in the last twenty years." As the two lovers writhed orgasmically, Theo said "But this hole is different... You see, Eric, my love, I have no intention of fixing this remote hole." But their ecstasy was short-lived, for about thirty seconds later, a beautific smile erupted across Eric S Raymond's face as a certain other part of his body erupted. Theo, too, noticed a lovely sense of warmth filling him, and remarked "You know, Eric, I was thinking earlier tonight about the relationship between craftsmen and their tools, and I'm thinking, Eric, that for a master for myself, you're the only one that I can bear to work with." Eric stood up, and began to dress himself. He shot back, "Theo, tonight has been... indescribable. Tomorrow morning, you're going to wake up and go down to Hackathon, and it's not just going to be about us, it's going to be about all of them. You're going to keep on releasing OpenBSD, and that's why I find you irresistable. Tonight has been a special pleasure, but I can't keep you for myself. I've enjoyed having you in my grasp tonight, but a brilliant mind such as yourself could never be constrained to just one man. I admire you, because no matter what, you're always ready to give yourself to everyone, to throw yourself upon the wheel, to work long nights alone, because it's what you believe in. Because no matter what, you always do what's right. But I want you to know, Theo, that only on your darkest night, when it seems like everything else has left you being, when it seems that everyone else is just content to be a FreeBSD luser or a thirteen year old boy playing Quake on their mother's Windows PC, I want you to understand that I'm always here for you, and just for you, Theo. What we have is special, for a man such as yourself, because we can't just give it away. Because our love isn't BSD licensed; it's totally proprietary." And as Eric walked out the door, Theo said "I've spent my entire lift fighting for open source, but a relationship with you is something I could bear to keep proprietary. Eric, will you be my binary blob?" "Theo... the day that nVidia releases their specifications with no NDA, the day that Steven Ballmer GPL licenses the Windows Kernel, the day that all humans may understand our legacy as open source heroes, our relationship will still be proprietary. We are one NDA that will never expire." His personal life satisfied, Theo again resumed his usual pose, eight fingers on the keyboard. But this was different. He wasn't going to fix OpenBSD. He was about to show idiots with an email address the true power and greatness that was Theo De Raadt. He typed a command he's only dreamed about for years. He pulled down the latest revision of the GCC source code, and smirked ever so slightly as he opened it in vim, and his smirk erupted into a grin as he pointed it as the one line of source that had caused him such trouble, wiped it away with naught but two keystrokes, deftly replacing it with a line of his own invention. But this was not a patch that would ever be received by an SVN server. This was not a patch that would be emailed to some mailing list. This patch was going straight to the top. He fired up his trusty mail program and fired off a brief message, typing in the Send: field an address he had not sent in years, and with a few taps of tab began composing the body. To: Richard Stallman Hey dick, quick message here. I've been tweaking my own project, not to toot my own horn, and I've done you a bit of a favor, perhaps. I've fixed a little bug in your compiler for you - isn't open source wonderful? Love, Theo De Raadt. PS: Isn't it wonderful what regular code audits can do? http://dildosikw7h3qic4.onion
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