Today I wrote a short note to the OpenBSD Hacker’s email list announcing my formal retirement from the project. In every way imaginable, I’ve been dormant for a number of years now. Most of my contributions were small, little pieces here and there. Why did it take so long for me to retire from this venture?
My adventure with OpenBSD started during my University time. Having tried NetBSD, and a number other Unix like systems (386BSD anyone?), I was drawn to OpenBSD as a place where clean code was welcome. The politics of the time were simple. You write good code, you owned something, and you get to contribute. Very early on, the OpenBSD Hacker’s email list become part of the culture, a place where you emailed your diffs, and people would give you feedback. In some ways, it was the first I’d encountered something akin to extreme programming, without someone standing right behind you as you tried to wrangle some piece of code into submission.
Over the years the core group has grown and shrunk in size. Some of the original crew that I’ve been part of for 17+ years is still around. Sadly we’ve also lost some… I never imagined how hard it would be to write the following short note:
Subject: Heading out... Hello all, Some of you may remember me, others may have not even heard of me. I've been inactive for a long time, and I figure it is about time that I make this official. I'm pretty sure that my account at cvs.openbsd.org has been disabled. Please nuke it, don't want it to be any sort of avenue for miscreants to get in, etc. I want to thank everyone that has made my time with the project enjoyable. Even when there were tough times, in the end, I've made a lot of friends, and gained way more than I've ever put in. Going forward, if anyone wants to get in touch, you can reach me via email at weingart@tepid.org or via other means, Twitter, etc. I wish you all luck and success, -Toby. PS: If anyone is in my area, give me a shout, I'm always up for a beer. :)
In some way, a part of my soul will always be with the OpenBSD crew. The
friendships I’ve made here go way beyond simple code. I mean, beer, meat,
epic parties, and the world was seen. On a student budget no less. In my time
with this crew, many have grown up, had kids, gotten married, divorced. Life
is what happened, and a good part of life it was. For the last time, here is
“ok weingart@”.