In these times when news on Linux dominates the rest of the free OSes, we seldom remember these other OSes which are just as open, robust and as secure - if not more than Linux. One such OS is OpenBSD which is created and maintained by Theo de Raadt and his small team of dedicated developers. The latest version of OpenBSD is version 3.9. What is unique about OpenBSD is the stress given to security and the integration of cryptography. It may also be noted that OpenBSD supports the binary emulation of most programs from Solaris, FreeBSD, Linux, BSD/OS, SunOS and HP-UX - which means that there is a better than good chance that ones favorite Linux program will run in OpenBSD.The OpeBSD developers are also the maintainers of one of the widely used pieces of software called OpenSSH. OpenSSH encrypts all traffic (including passwords) to effectively eliminate eavesdropping, connection hijacking, and other attacks. Additionally, OpenSSH provides secure tunneling capabilities and several authentication methods, and supports all SSH protocol versions. Any body having anything to do with SSH'ing to a remote Linux/Unix server can be fairly sure that they are using OpenSSH for the same which tells a lot about the popularity and usefulness of this software.
Jermey Andrews at kerneltrap.org quizzes Theo de Raadt about the major changes that the project has faced during its evolution, the problems faced in getting the vendors of hardware devices to open up the documentation of their products, problems faced by the OpenBSD team with regard to getting funds, his reaction to the lack of support to OpenSSH software from corporate entities who make heavy use of the software and his aversion towards binary blobs among many other things.
The questions are well thought out and the answers are equally interesting which makes going through this interview an informative experience.
