1)
Hi Theo, thank you for your availability. Can you tell us something
about you? How are you? What's your
work? What do
you do in your life
and your sparetime? What are your hobbies?
I work on OpenBSD
fulltime, as the project leader. I set some directions, increase
communication between the developers, and try to be involved in nearly
every aspect of the base system. I have some hobbies, mostly to do
with getting away from the computers entirely.
2)
Everybody know that you're the OpenBSD and OpenSSH GURU and creator,
one of most famous and used secure operating system nowaday. Why you
created them? What did you need many years ago from os world when you
created OpenBSD? What inspired you to write from scratch OpenBSD and
OpenSSH?
I started working on
OpenBSD, and many earlier projects, because I have always felt that
vendor systems were not designed for quality. The primary goal of a
vendor is to make money. In some industry markets, high quality
can be tied to making more money, but I am sure by now all of us know
the computer industry is not like that.
I guess it was later
on that I came to realize that most security issues are simply a result
of low quality. In OpenBSD and OpenSSH, and everything else, we
therefore work very much on quality.
(informazione
pubblicitaria)
3)
Why a person could move to OpenBSD? What are the advantages? What could
he do with OpenBSD? And what he couldn't ?
Having not used any
operating systems outside OpenBSD for nearly 10 years, that is
basically impossible for me to answer.
4)
Can you tell us something about the kernel architecture of OpenBSD?
Our source code is
entirely free and available to people so that they can perform their
own study of it.
5) You told me that you will release in few days the
OpenBSD 3.7
version, can you tell us what are the main advantages in?
The list of new
developments is impressive, but in my view not nearly as impressive as
the small little details that continue to be fixed during each
development cycle.
Development of
OpenBSD is not a milestone-driven series of revolutions. It is a series
of small evolutionary steps headed which continue to become cleaner,
tiny step by tiny step.
6)
What do you think made OpenBSD this successful?
The passion of the
developers, and the wide experience they bring into their development
efforts. By amazing coincidence, our users typically have the
same needs as we do.
7)
Are there some problems to porting OpenBSD on others architecture?
Each architecture we
port to is easier than the previous one. The machine independent
code that we share between different architectures almost never needs
adjustment for a new architecture. The problem now is new device
drivers, often without documentation.
8)
What are your favourite programming languages? Why do you use them?
OpenBSD is written
mostly in C.
9)
How many hours do you code in your daily life ?
During the hackathons
we work almost without sleep for a week. The rest of the year,
things are a bit more relaxed.
10)
What's your role in the OpenBSD Developing Team? Are you still working
on some projects or you just coordinate your guys?
I do many
things. But my most important role is to ensure that the various
developers always communicate with the right people.
11)
What's your personal point of view about Security?
Almost all security
problems are simply a result of poor quality.
12)
Do you think that OpenBSD could really help to improve security?
Definately.
This has been proven time and time again.
13)
Could OpenBSD become a home-user and desktop operating system?
If it cannot, then
Linux cannot either.
14)
Are you scared from the latest SSH-1 security problems for your OpenSSH
? In which way could worry the security of your package?
Since I understand
the actual problems that exist in the SSH-1 protocol, at a technical
level, and do not simply pander to ridiculous fears, no, I am entirely
unafraid of the CRC issues. I would be far more worried about any
other unknown issue than something which is known, but boring, and very
difficult to exploit.
15)
In which way we could improve the concept of network security?
Many people overbuild
their solutions because they do not understand the actual problems.
16)
Is sometime your work related to NetBSD and FreeBSD? Have you ever
worked with the last two OS or improved something there ?
Sometimes they take
changes from us. Sometimes we take changes from them. That is
about the limit of it.
17)
Do you like GNU/Linux ? Yes/No, why? Do you use it sometimes?
I have never used it.
18)
Our interview seems to be completed. Congratulations for your work and
thank you for your time!
5) You told me that you will release in few days the
OpenBSD 3.7
version, can you tell us what are the main advantages in?
