>At the same time, Theo's personality routinely drives away a lot of very capable developers and users, which limited the overall popularity OpenBSD could ever reach.
It would be nice if we could all work in an environment where we could be abrasive as we want and still get paid. But this is life and not many people have that opportunity.
If Theo want's to put up a fight about blobs and proprietary hardware, he should do that. Talking down to people who genuinely agree about his goals and are trying to help is really self destructive.
A couple relevant quotes from the justly famous talk "You and Your Research", by Richard Hamming:
"If you chose to assert your ego in any number of ways, ``I am going to do it my way,'' you pay a small steady price throughout the whole of your professional career. And this, over a whole lifetime, adds up to an enormous amount of needless trouble."
"I am not saying you shouldn't make gestures of reform. I am saying that my study of able people is that they don't get themselves committed to that kind of warfare. They play it a little bit and drop it and get on with their work. "
> where we could be abrasive as we want and still get paid
If your code is wrong, I'll say it's wrong. I won't say you are an idiot, I won't make comments on your background and I won't judge you when I should be judging your arguments. I'll point what's wrong and why I think it's so and I'll welcome you if you prove me wrong and adjust my views accordingly.
Excessive abrasiveness is not a good trait for a community leader.
It would be nice if we could all work in an environment where we could be abrasive as we want and still get paid. But this is life and not many people have that opportunity.
If Theo want's to put up a fight about blobs and proprietary hardware, he should do that. Talking down to people who genuinely agree about his goals and are trying to help is really self destructive.