17 ms·

Dhcpcd Will Need a New Maintainer

1012 points by elvis70 6y ago

kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 6y ago
:(
KennyFromIT 6y ago
Messages like these are so sad to read. The world will never realize how many people are working tirelessly behind the scenes to keep society moving forward. Cheers to all of the silent (and sometimes not so silent) people that continue to give of themselves to make this world a more wonderful place in their own little way. You all are awesome and we literally couldn't go on with our way of life without you.
- politelemon 6y ago
  It's the closest, or at least one of the closest, things to altruism in this field.
- pjc50 6y ago
  I call this "Postel decentralisation": everyone thinks there's some kind of system or institution making everything work, but in fact there's just a guy doing it all on his own.
  - caslon 6y ago
    Interestingly, you seem to be the only person on the World Wide Web to ever have used that phrase (three times over three years?), but it's such a perfect description of such a common phenomenon that I'm pretty sure its propagation could save hours of time in typing for nerds on the Web.
    - soneil 6y ago
      I'd be wary of colliding with Postel's Law, which I depend on much more often than I'd like. But otherwise agree!
      - kelnos 6y ago
        I think that's intentional? Postel's Law is about robustness, as is the "decentralisation" formulation of it.
    - pjc50 6y ago
      Ironic, that. I'm happy to be the one person trying to coin this phrase.
  - AceJohnny2 6y ago
    What does "Postel" refer to?
    - zeckalpha 6y ago
      Jon
    - sterlind 6y ago
      Presumably Jon Postel, who co-authored many RFCs foundational to the internet such as TCP, IP and DNS. As a single person he was very involved in the internet's architecture.
      - LukeShu 6y ago
        Today, the "Internet Assigned Numbers Authority" refers to an organization. But for many years it didn't refer to an organization, it was Jon Postel's title.
        iamtedd 6y ago
        Beautifully worded.
        Anthony-G 6y ago
        Upvoted – but don’t forget Joyce K. Reynolds. There’s a lovely anecdote of how the IANA operated in the early 90s in “The story of getting SSH port 22”: https://www.ssh.com/ssh/port https://www.ssh.com/ssh/port
        LukeShu 6y ago
        No disrespect toward Ms. Reynolds, certainly! But Mr. Postel had been in that role for 11 years before Ms. Reynolds joined him (1972-1983). Though it turns out that my history is a little fuzzy on the name itself; though Mr. Postel had been in the role for many years, the earliest reference to the name "IANA" that I can find is from 1988. Regardless of whether they were using the name "IANA" in 1972-1983, Mr. Postel was the sole authority during those years, and many of those who were around then would later refer to him as having been the IANA during that time.
  - smhost 6y ago
    i mean, even within institutions, it's usually just some person hacking away behind the scene. what else would it be?
    - derefr 6y ago
      A rulebook that says who should be hacking away when, and how/when/from where to get and/or produce more of those people. That long-lived superstructure is what NASA calls a "mission." It's what ensures someone will still be around (with the right expertise, budget, connections, and tools) to fix a satellite when it breaks 50 years later.
  - nealabq 6y ago
    Relevant: http://ccs.mit.edu/papers/CCSWP197/CCSWP197.html http://ccs.mit.edu/papers/CCSWP197/CCSWP197.html Postel picked up the role of number coordinator because it needed to be done.
    - azornathogron 6y ago
      Also see RFC 2468, written in remembrance of Jon Postel. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2468 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2468
  - Fordec 6y ago
    There's always a relevant XKCD https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/
  - moehm 6y ago
    > but in fact there's just a guy doing it all on his own "Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect." -Teller
  - kortilla 6y ago
    In reality it works nothing like this though. People like to think that all of these companies and downstream projects depend on this maintainer, but realistically they would have no problem switching to a fork or doing it internally. Using his work as-is from upstream is just the path of least resistance. If nobody picks up dhcpd maintenance companies will have no problem carrying forks and more than likely the open source community will quickly converge around a future implementation. This isn’t comparable to some sole manufacturer or anything like that. It’s similar instead to someone publishing blueprints for basic things and everyone using them because of time saved because redoing them from scratch is tedious and wouldn’t have much of a point.
    - pjc50 6y ago
      Well, they do depend, in the sense of it's listed in their dependencies. Yes, they could change. But that would be something that had to be chosen, it's not automatic. I'm reminded of openssl: while it wasn't even unmaintained, it was "undermaintained" to the extent of critical security holes, and both the effort to fork it and simplify and the effort to replace with modern from-scratch versions have been a bit fraught. (Perhaps the real rule as to who the "maintainer" of something like this is "who has to panic when a security hole is reported")
    - phh 6y ago
      That's both true and wrong at the same time. Sure all the big companies that relied on dhcpcd will rewrite it. But still the loss of one opensource project has a major impact on the economy. You mention the part of time saved by the company. Sure, but that goes longer than that. For instance, in Android, since Android 6, they stopped using dhcpcd and decided to use their own DHCP client. 5 releases later, Android's DHCP client still don't support storing leases (or any feature that has less than 20% usage really). Sure that's just one packet, but the most user-deployed OS in the world has an additional RTT when connecting to WiFi, because of using internal DHCP client rather than a FLOSS-driven one. Let's do back of the napkin computation: This adds like 0.5s when connecting. I'd say that personnally I'm connecting manually to WiFi (and thus wait for WiFi to connect) maybe once a week. K, worldwide I'd say once a month. There are 3B active Android devices. I'd say mean salary in those 3B is 1USD/h. If my computation is correct ( ((3*1000*1000*1000)*0.5*12)/3600 ), that makes a society cost of Android NOT using dhcpcd of 5M$ per year. Now, let's go to the mirror successful part of dhcpcd, still at Google. Chromebooks are using dhcpcd as their DHCP client. Considering what happened on Android, I'll assume that if Chromebooks weren't using dhcpcd, they wouldn't use leases either. There are maybe 100M Chromebooks worldwide, but they are mostly centered in the US where salary is higher, but Chromebooks are mostly for students, so let's make it 5USD/h. But on a Chromebook you connect "manually" to WiFi every day (every time you open your laptop pretty much). That means that the existence of dhcpcd is a gain for society of 25M$ per year ( ( ((100*1000*1000)*0.5*365)/3600)*5 ). So, yes, if nobody picks up dhcpcd maintenance, companies will have no problem carrying on. It doesn't mean that we, as a society wouldn't have lost a lot. PS: I'm definitely not trying to put a price on Roy Marple's life. But if someone would try, it would be incredibly high.
  - fjeifisjf 6y ago
    “I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. then I realized I was somebody.”
- wslack 6y ago
  Nadia Eghbal's work and writing about this subject was eye opening for me.
  - jimkleiber 6y ago
    I heard her on a podcast[1] talking about her book Work in Public[2] and loved it, is that the work and writing you're referencing? If not, are there other pieces you'd recommend? [1]: https://a16z.com/2020/08/01/working-in-public-communities-open-source-creator-economy-passion-economy/ https://a16z.com/2020/08/01/working-in-public-communities-op... [2]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578675862/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578675862/
    - di4na 6y ago
      Her first big piece on this was https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-reports/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure/ https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-report... which i still find better than the book at making the point.
azornathogron 6y ago
A tragic message. > I have been dealing with cancer for some time and sadly the treatment has not worked. My life expectancy is now fairly short. I'm not sure what to say in response, since I don't know Roy. Though the prognosis is bad, nothing is certain. I hope he and his family gets as much time as possible.
- spijdar 6y ago
  The blog post mentions one person at the clinic he's being treated at has lived for 7 years on this treatment. Although the median is much lower, unfortunately :( Very sad to hear, even though (especially because?) I have never heard of Roy before now but have used dhcpcd for many years. I hope he gets as much time as possible, and enjoys what he has left.
- nextos 6y ago
  Besides, having a tumor during the pandemic is particularly unfortunate as the standard of care has degraded mostly everywhere. Sadly, I know first hand. I hope he gets as much time as possible. Immunotherapies are improving all the time.
  - imglorp 6y ago
    So tragic. Generic cancer treatment in the US, with a few exceptions, was already a horrifying, barbaric affair: unless you have a cancer treatable with newer genetic or immune methods, it's still approached with cut, burn, and poison, like it's been for many decades, with varying results. Add to that a constant battle at every step with insurance for pre-authorization pitting your doctor against a corporation, then fight against oppressive rules for pain management, all possibly while a family struggles to care for the sick person and worry about going to work to pay for it all. I can't imagine adding covid into the horror. Best of luck to anyone facing this.
    - Teever 6y ago
      The developer's cancer blog seems to indicate that they live in the UK and are receiving medical treatment from the NHS.
anticristi 6y ago
Wow! If I were in a similar situation, I don't think I would have the strength to think about the future of my projects. Such a sad message.
dgellow 6y ago
Fuck cancer :( I don’t know Roy but feel so sorry for him and his family.
aeturnum 6y ago
This is a sad reminder of the masses of invisible labor (unpaid and paid) that hold up our world. Social scientists have been studying how labor becomes visible (or invisible) for a while without finding obvious solutions to "the situation." How can we build a world where an infinite procession specialists like Roy can get the care they need and also find and train successors in their important work? Not just because we will all die, but also because we might all want to retire or go on long vacations or, even if we are good at it, change careers.
- numbsafari 6y ago
  Is there anything like an “Open Source Hall of Fame”, for recognizing and remembering significant contributors? It’s not perfect, but perhaps it is a way to at least preserve the memory and the history.
  - aerovistae 6y ago
    I think this is an amazing idea. This needs to exist.
  - stefan_ 6y ago
    Linux has the CREDITS file where you end up once you drop out of maintainership of some subsystem: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/CREDITS https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/CREDITS (e.g. https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/054c4610bd05 https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/054c4610bd05)
    - folkhack 6y ago
      Ha - the last comment on that CREDITS list is pretty funny =) Definitely worth the full scroll.
      - bombcar 6y ago
        Poor Leonard stuck at third to last - has to be a big hit for someone with a name like that.
justincormack 6y ago
Roy has been an incredibly helpful and dedicated maintainer, always helping people use it. Its the best dhcp client I know of too. Very best wishes in a difficult situation.
bgorman 6y ago
This guy is a machine. Roy fixed several bugs in dhcpcd that allowed the megacorp I worked for to ship dhcpcd in millions of devices. I donated.
- moonbug 6y ago
  but did the megacorp?
  - kortilla 6y ago
    Unlikely. If you expect something different you’re missing the point of open source. Roy didn’t have to fix anything if he didn’t want to.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      I mean, it's not a legal obligation, but it might be a nicer world if we considered it an ethical one.
      - sneak 6y ago
        I think perhaps you mean "moral" rather than "ethical". It is entirely ethical to use free software, even to generate massive profits, without paying anyone anything. That's literally the whole point of software freedom: you're free.
        js2 6y ago
        Ethical and moral are synonyms. I don't understand the difference you're trying to draw. Definition of ethical 1 : of or relating to ethics // ethical theories 2 : involving or expressing moral approval or disapproval // ethical judgments 3 : conforming to accepted standards of conduct // ethical behavior Definition of moral (Entry 1 of 2) 1a : of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior : ETHICAL // moral judgments b : expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior // a moral poem c : conforming to a standard of right behavior // took a moral position on the issue though it cost him the nomination
gigatexal 6y ago
If there was ever a time for companies to step up it's now. I feel terrible for his family. Donated what I could.
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
He came over to NetBSD from Gentoo a number of years ago, bringing dhcpd with him. An excellent acquisition for NetBSD. He has been a dedicated and thoughtful BSD developer. This is very sad news.
- kblev 6y ago
  Was this a paid job or volunteer?
  - xianwen 6y ago
    Volunteer.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
  s/dhcpd/dhcpcd :) As someone else commented in this thread, would be surprised if anyone could find a higher quality alternative. This one is free, open-source, written by a volunteer, not by a company nor by any organization that accepts money derived from online ad sales.
dumbneurologist 6y ago
This is such sad news. > I did not accept this. I have young kids to watch grow up and a loving wife to grow old with. Life and time are the two most precious commodoties we will ever have. As sorry as I am that his hopes were futile, time and again the universe shows us how little it cares for these sentiments. Regardless of what resources one might have to protest, we are all slowly ground to dust.
bch 6y ago
Roy and his work are brilliant.
shadeslayer_ 6y ago
This is so sad because if you read his blog post from January 2021, he sounds so very hopeful and happy at the prospect of the immunotherapy working. It sounds like he discovered a new lease of life. Being thrown from that situation to the new prognosis which is infinitely worse, sounds like a hammer blow.
- vmception 6y ago
  Cancer requires clinging to glimmers of hope. Yes, he felt that way at the time and yes, he wrote it down, but these improbabilities are all anyone ever has, its not over till it’s over. I read that post too, going from a tiny undetectable bump under the skin that only his partner noticed, to unbearable pain pressing against his spine making him unable to sleep and think clearly. It seems like 4 months were wasted just getting appointments.
  - genewitch 6y ago
    There's a progression that is "forced" when you get a cancer diagnosis, especially if they have to surgically remove anything. They won't start chemo or anything else for several weeks post-op. It seems like you're trying to get appointments or whatever, but realistically, they're getting you in as soon as their liability (or patient care laws) says they can. Stage III, stage IV, doesn't matter. If they operate first, you're going to spend a lot of time waiting. If you're an american, remember that FMLA only lasts a quarter, so if you can go back to work after the surgery but before the chemo i strongly suggest you do that if there's any concern about insurance or whatever, since you're probably going to want to sleep for the first few weeks worth of chemo dosing. Good luck to 1/2 of the american population, because that's the rate of cancer in the US.
    - howenterprisey 6y ago
      1/2 sounds a bit high? (I'm completely ignorant on the matter, of course.)
      - deleted 6y ago
teddyh 6y ago
https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/
Rebelgecko 6y ago
I've been using a website for 15 years or so that had a similar situation. The creator/maintainer got a short prognosis, but made an effort to ensure that his service would outlive him. Even though I'll never meet Josh from Spamgourmet his work continues to make my life a little bit easier on an almost daily basis. I hope Roy's legacy is able to continue in the same way and that he gets some comfort from that.
- bombcar 6y ago
  Dan Jezek died way too early and his family worked hard to keep BrickLink alive - and now it will continue as it’s under the umbrella of the LEGO Group. https://www.danjezek.com/ https://www.danjezek.com/
- jaynetics 6y ago
  I have used Spamgourmet almost since its inception. Maybe the first great SaaS, and you couldn't help but immediately notice it was built by a lovely person. Despite having only months to live, Josh was working on a plan to shut the site down in an orderly fashion as long as he was still able to notify all users, but then his son stepped in and took over part of the operation.
ronnier 6y ago
I’d like to donate but the PayPal app just spins :-/ I’ll try web
- ronnier 6y ago
  Web worked if any of you are having the same issue
  - magnetic 6y ago
    Do you need a PayPal account or is there a "take my credit card and check out as guest" option somewhere?
    - ronnier 6y ago
      Not sure. I already had an account.
      - 0xbadcafebee 6y ago
        It just keeps spinning for me, so I signed into paypal, but I can't look him up by his username. Does anyone have his email? I've been using his software for decades, and I'd really like to thank him and support his family. I remember how much better of an experience it was to use dhcpcd rather than pump. He made my life better without realizing it.
- exhilaration 6y ago
  If the link doesn't work open the app or website and search for @rsmarples
tpmx 6y ago
Has Roy been doing all of this essential maintenance work for years without pay from some kind of corporate sponsor?
samblr 6y ago
I believe open source work is amongst the greatest works of charities ever. It is just staggering the amount of work that goes building/maintainer open source. And I possibly wonder every week on who are these wonderful people creating/maintaining them. My heart goes to maintainer & family. Everybody in this forum needs to do a bit. Request everybody to donate generously via paypal mentioned in the link.
- samblr 6y ago
  @Dang : Could you please change the title to convey this better. 'Dhcpd will need a new maintainer' - doesn't tell the real story.
  - gerdesj 6y ago
    Sometimes you can say a lot more with fewer words. It's the title he used to make the announcement.
- arthur2e5 6y ago
  wrt FOSS as charity, the IRS has been resisting FOSS orgs applying for 501(c)(3) status for a while. Not the best world to live in. https://opensource.org/node/840 https://opensource.org/node/840 https://www.beavandenberk.com/ip/computer-internet/developing-open-source-software-not-an-exempt-purpose/ https://www.beavandenberk.com/ip/computer-internet/developin...
CamouflagedKiwi 6y ago
A reminder that there's always a person behind software. It's been a few years but for a long time I used OpenRC and dhcpcd, made possible by Roy working away in the background. No matter what happens with his cancer, I'll always be grateful for that.
einpoklum 6y ago
With many (most?) free software projects, implementing it and getting it to a stable working condition is only a fraction of the overall amount of work invested over time in maintaining the thing. Compilers change, system libraries change, operating systems change, build systems change, language standards change and so on - and you, who just wanted to write, say, a DHCP server you or your organization needed at some point in life, tear yourself away from your day job, your family, your current pursuits and interests - which have likely not included fiddling with that old piece of code you wrote all those years ago - and bringing it in line what the current state of things. Sisyphic work, which is usually rewarded mostly with complaints about why the thing is not up to date. "But they only just broke it! Do you expect me to spend my time also anticipating what infernal subtle ways the rug is going to get pulled from under me?" ... but you never tell people that. You dutifully write your fix and re-publish (which can also be a bunch more work, since the platforms for publishing your FOSS project also change). I salute you, Roy Marples! (and I donated.)
userbinator 6y ago
That's sad to hear, but to think about the situation a bit more deeply, is DHCP software really something that needs "maintenance"? The protocol is decades old and stable, and no doubt the implementations in equally-old routers and other equipment continues to function unchanged and interoperate with much newer equipment.
- spijdar 6y ago
  Yes, without a doubt -- network software especially needs at least some maintenance to deal with security vulnerabilities. I'll say that not all software needs constant security supervision, but I think DHCP client/servers should. Among the other duties of maintainers. Bless all those who take up the thankless job...
- bartvk 6y ago
  Of course it needs maintenance. Architectures change, packaging methods change, software is started differently or earlier in the boot process, etc.
- mnd999 6y ago
  It probably doesn’t need many new features. But it needs someone to release bug fixes, and ports to new architectures, deal with CVEs etc.
- bch 6y ago
  Browse his work[0] to see what’s been going on with it. As a NetBSD user, I’m always happy and impressed to see dhcpcd getting the attention it does. [0] https://roy.marples.name/cgit/dhcpcd.git/log/ https://roy.marples.name/cgit/dhcpcd.git/log/
rasengan 6y ago
Dear Roy, It is unfortunate you are dealing with this. I am so sorry and hope for the best. The Handshake founders had an airdrop pre allocated for you in the Handshake Blockchain [1] so there is about $64,000.00 in there that you can claim under marples.name as of writing. [1] https://dns.live/top.html https://dns.live/top.html
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sleavey 6y ago
  What does this mean? Did the founders decide Roy's work was worthy of the coin donation?
  - joshuaissac 6y ago
    I do not entirely understand how it works, but I think they allocated coins to users on GitHub based on certain metrics, and also reserved names in their system for the top 100k sites on Alexa. It seems to be mostly automated/algorithmic. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22504592 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22504592
- ldng 6y ago
  Maybe he has more urging matter than claiming this ? Thought about the paperwork and taxes handling ? Could you do that for him ?
  - cmeacham98 6y ago
    He provides a paypal link for donations in the post, and for most people $64k is a non-insignificant amount (i.e. would be worth the effort of claiming).
    - ldng 6y ago
      Well, it feels like a passive publicity stunt, so far, to me.
Causality1 6y ago
It's very disappointing that a man can go to the doctor with a rapidly growing lump and instead of cutting it out on the spot they make him wait for months of tests to come back, after which it's inoperable. Disgusting.
nealabq 6y ago
This is very sad to hear. Roy talked about the cancer in January: https://roy.marples.name/blog/posts/cancer/ https://roy.marples.name/blog/posts/cancer/
pablosanta 6y ago
Heartbreaking. I've been a long time user of DHCPD but (as I think many of us) never knew or think about all the people and hard work behind it. Thanks for everything.
iJohnDoe 6y ago
Roy, thanks for all your hard work. So many people enjoyed and benefited from everything you have done. Donation sent.
gerdesj 6y ago
Take care Uberlord. Thanks.
de6u99er 6y ago
Fuck cancer! That being said, NHS sqhing they can't do anything for him doesn't mean nothing at all can be done! What happened to personalized medicine? What about the mRNA approach which seems promising? I know, personalized medicine is expensive, but I bet some here on HN could easily finance such an approach and help this man out.
gigatexal 6y ago
So the mailing list is going here: https://roy.marples.name/archives/dhcpcd-discuss/0003458.html https://roy.marples.name/archives/dhcpcd-discuss/0003458.htm... But do we have a new maintainer? Also donate if you can — cancer is expensive.
roboyoshi 6y ago
Damn, Roy - I wish you all the best. I remember writing roy an email about the website not working when I setup his openresolv for my wireguard tunnel. He kindly responded and told me what was broken and why. It's just a very small touch into his life I made, but with it this whole thing hits me so much harder.
globular-toast 6y ago
A note to readers. This is dhcpCd. A client, not a server. Also my client of choice.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
_of 6y ago
Very sad. I hope there will be light despite the prognosis. Why is regular chemotherapy not tried? Immunotherapy is very specific, it might not work.
thecleaner 6y ago
Developers should just stop working for free. This guy is battling cancer while making an effort to do another release. Surely if society needs such kind of software it can pay for it. A functional society shouldn't need heroes to make progress.
spyc 6y ago
Roy, thank you for being an activate part of the free software community, thank you for dhcpcd and being nice to work with, thank you for everything!
seren1 6y ago
Ugh, Paypal is still the worst. My transaction got flagged; maybe they think "DHCP" is some new street drug? I really hope he doesn't have trouble withdrawing the funds. Paypal is known for freezing funds, sometimes for years. From their email: > On March 16, 2021, you sent a payment (xxxxxxxxxx ) for the amount of $xxxxx for "DHCP and DHCPd were significant in my early career. Best wishes." Please provide the following information: > > • An explanation of the reference to "DHCP ." > • The purpose of this payment, including a complete and detailed explanation of what is intended to be paid for.

1012 points by elvis70 6y ago

Messages like these are so sad to read. The world will never realize how many people are working tirelessly behind the scenes to keep society moving forward. Cheers to all of the silent (and sometimes not so silent) people that continue to give of themselves to make this world a more wonderful place in their own little way. You all are awesome and we literally couldn't go on with our way of life without you.

politelemon 6y ago
It's the closest, or at least one of the closest, things to altruism in this field.
pjc50 6y ago
I call this "Postel decentralisation": everyone thinks there's some kind of system or institution making everything work, but in fact there's just a guy doing it all on his own.
- caslon 6y ago
  Interestingly, you seem to be the only person on the World Wide Web to ever have used that phrase (three times over three years?), but it's such a perfect description of such a common phenomenon that I'm pretty sure its propagation could save hours of time in typing for nerds on the Web.
  - soneil 6y ago
    I'd be wary of colliding with Postel's Law, which I depend on much more often than I'd like. But otherwise agree!
    - kelnos 6y ago
      I think that's intentional? Postel's Law is about robustness, as is the "decentralisation" formulation of it.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Ironic, that. I'm happy to be the one person trying to coin this phrase.
- AceJohnny2 6y ago
  What does "Postel" refer to?
  - zeckalpha 6y ago
    Jon
  - sterlind 6y ago
    Presumably Jon Postel, who co-authored many RFCs foundational to the internet such as TCP, IP and DNS. As a single person he was very involved in the internet's architecture.
    - LukeShu 6y ago
      Today, the "Internet Assigned Numbers Authority" refers to an organization. But for many years it didn't refer to an organization, it was Jon Postel's title.
      - iamtedd 6y ago
        Beautifully worded.
      - Anthony-G 6y ago
        Upvoted – but don’t forget Joyce K. Reynolds. There’s a lovely anecdote of how the IANA operated in the early 90s in “The story of getting SSH port 22”: https://www.ssh.com/ssh/port https://www.ssh.com/ssh/port
        LukeShu 6y ago
        No disrespect toward Ms. Reynolds, certainly! But Mr. Postel had been in that role for 11 years before Ms. Reynolds joined him (1972-1983). Though it turns out that my history is a little fuzzy on the name itself; though Mr. Postel had been in the role for many years, the earliest reference to the name "IANA" that I can find is from 1988. Regardless of whether they were using the name "IANA" in 1972-1983, Mr. Postel was the sole authority during those years, and many of those who were around then would later refer to him as having been the IANA during that time.
- smhost 6y ago
  i mean, even within institutions, it's usually just some person hacking away behind the scene. what else would it be?
  - derefr 6y ago
    A rulebook that says who should be hacking away when, and how/when/from where to get and/or produce more of those people. That long-lived superstructure is what NASA calls a "mission." It's what ensures someone will still be around (with the right expertise, budget, connections, and tools) to fix a satellite when it breaks 50 years later.
- nealabq 6y ago
  Relevant: http://ccs.mit.edu/papers/CCSWP197/CCSWP197.html http://ccs.mit.edu/papers/CCSWP197/CCSWP197.html Postel picked up the role of number coordinator because it needed to be done.
  - azornathogron 6y ago
    Also see RFC 2468, written in remembrance of Jon Postel. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2468 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2468
- Fordec 6y ago
  There's always a relevant XKCD https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/
- moehm 6y ago
  > but in fact there's just a guy doing it all on his own "Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect." -Teller
- kortilla 6y ago
  In reality it works nothing like this though. People like to think that all of these companies and downstream projects depend on this maintainer, but realistically they would have no problem switching to a fork or doing it internally. Using his work as-is from upstream is just the path of least resistance. If nobody picks up dhcpd maintenance companies will have no problem carrying forks and more than likely the open source community will quickly converge around a future implementation. This isn’t comparable to some sole manufacturer or anything like that. It’s similar instead to someone publishing blueprints for basic things and everyone using them because of time saved because redoing them from scratch is tedious and wouldn’t have much of a point.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Well, they do depend, in the sense of it's listed in their dependencies. Yes, they could change. But that would be something that had to be chosen, it's not automatic. I'm reminded of openssl: while it wasn't even unmaintained, it was "undermaintained" to the extent of critical security holes, and both the effort to fork it and simplify and the effort to replace with modern from-scratch versions have been a bit fraught. (Perhaps the real rule as to who the "maintainer" of something like this is "who has to panic when a security hole is reported")
  - phh 6y ago
    That's both true and wrong at the same time. Sure all the big companies that relied on dhcpcd will rewrite it. But still the loss of one opensource project has a major impact on the economy. You mention the part of time saved by the company. Sure, but that goes longer than that. For instance, in Android, since Android 6, they stopped using dhcpcd and decided to use their own DHCP client. 5 releases later, Android's DHCP client still don't support storing leases (or any feature that has less than 20% usage really). Sure that's just one packet, but the most user-deployed OS in the world has an additional RTT when connecting to WiFi, because of using internal DHCP client rather than a FLOSS-driven one. Let's do back of the napkin computation: This adds like 0.5s when connecting. I'd say that personnally I'm connecting manually to WiFi (and thus wait for WiFi to connect) maybe once a week. K, worldwide I'd say once a month. There are 3B active Android devices. I'd say mean salary in those 3B is 1USD/h. If my computation is correct ( ((3*1000*1000*1000)*0.5*12)/3600 ), that makes a society cost of Android NOT using dhcpcd of 5M$ per year. Now, let's go to the mirror successful part of dhcpcd, still at Google. Chromebooks are using dhcpcd as their DHCP client. Considering what happened on Android, I'll assume that if Chromebooks weren't using dhcpcd, they wouldn't use leases either. There are maybe 100M Chromebooks worldwide, but they are mostly centered in the US where salary is higher, but Chromebooks are mostly for students, so let's make it 5USD/h. But on a Chromebook you connect "manually" to WiFi every day (every time you open your laptop pretty much). That means that the existence of dhcpcd is a gain for society of 25M$ per year ( ( ((100*1000*1000)*0.5*365)/3600)*5 ). So, yes, if nobody picks up dhcpcd maintenance, companies will have no problem carrying on. It doesn't mean that we, as a society wouldn't have lost a lot. PS: I'm definitely not trying to put a price on Roy Marple's life. But if someone would try, it would be incredibly high.
- fjeifisjf 6y ago
  “I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. then I realized I was somebody.”
wslack 6y ago
Nadia Eghbal's work and writing about this subject was eye opening for me.
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  I heard her on a podcast[1] talking about her book Work in Public[2] and loved it, is that the work and writing you're referencing? If not, are there other pieces you'd recommend? [1]: https://a16z.com/2020/08/01/working-in-public-communities-open-source-creator-economy-passion-economy/ https://a16z.com/2020/08/01/working-in-public-communities-op... [2]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578675862/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578675862/
  - di4na 6y ago
    Her first big piece on this was https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-reports/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure/ https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-report... which i still find better than the book at making the point.

azornathogron 6y ago

A tragic message. > I have been dealing with cancer for some time and sadly the treatment has not worked. My life expectancy is now fairly short. I'm not sure what to say in response, since I don't know Roy. Though the prognosis is bad, nothing is certain. I hope he and his family gets as much time as possible.

spijdar 6y ago
The blog post mentions one person at the clinic he's being treated at has lived for 7 years on this treatment. Although the median is much lower, unfortunately :( Very sad to hear, even though (especially because?) I have never heard of Roy before now but have used dhcpcd for many years. I hope he gets as much time as possible, and enjoys what he has left.
nextos 6y ago
Besides, having a tumor during the pandemic is particularly unfortunate as the standard of care has degraded mostly everywhere. Sadly, I know first hand. I hope he gets as much time as possible. Immunotherapies are improving all the time.
- imglorp 6y ago
  So tragic. Generic cancer treatment in the US, with a few exceptions, was already a horrifying, barbaric affair: unless you have a cancer treatable with newer genetic or immune methods, it's still approached with cut, burn, and poison, like it's been for many decades, with varying results. Add to that a constant battle at every step with insurance for pre-authorization pitting your doctor against a corporation, then fight against oppressive rules for pain management, all possibly while a family struggles to care for the sick person and worry about going to work to pay for it all. I can't imagine adding covid into the horror. Best of luck to anyone facing this.
  - Teever 6y ago
    The developer's cancer blog seems to indicate that they live in the UK and are receiving medical treatment from the NHS.

anticristi 6y ago

Wow! If I were in a similar situation, I don't think I would have the strength to think about the future of my projects. Such a sad message.

dgellow 6y ago

Fuck cancer :( I don’t know Roy but feel so sorry for him and his family.

aeturnum 6y ago

This is a sad reminder of the masses of invisible labor (unpaid and paid) that hold up our world. Social scientists have been studying how labor becomes visible (or invisible) for a while without finding obvious solutions to "the situation." How can we build a world where an infinite procession specialists like Roy can get the care they need and also find and train successors in their important work? Not just because we will all die, but also because we might all want to retire or go on long vacations or, even if we are good at it, change careers.

numbsafari 6y ago
Is there anything like an “Open Source Hall of Fame”, for recognizing and remembering significant contributors? It’s not perfect, but perhaps it is a way to at least preserve the memory and the history.
- aerovistae 6y ago
  I think this is an amazing idea. This needs to exist.
- stefan_ 6y ago
  Linux has the CREDITS file where you end up once you drop out of maintainership of some subsystem: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/CREDITS https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/CREDITS (e.g. https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/054c4610bd05 https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/054c4610bd05)
  - folkhack 6y ago
    Ha - the last comment on that CREDITS list is pretty funny =) Definitely worth the full scroll.
    - bombcar 6y ago
      Poor Leonard stuck at third to last - has to be a big hit for someone with a name like that.

justincormack 6y ago

Roy has been an incredibly helpful and dedicated maintainer, always helping people use it. Its the best dhcp client I know of too. Very best wishes in a difficult situation.

bgorman 6y ago

This guy is a machine. Roy fixed several bugs in dhcpcd that allowed the megacorp I worked for to ship dhcpcd in millions of devices. I donated.

moonbug 6y ago
but did the megacorp?
- kortilla 6y ago
  Unlikely. If you expect something different you’re missing the point of open source. Roy didn’t have to fix anything if he didn’t want to.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    I mean, it's not a legal obligation, but it might be a nicer world if we considered it an ethical one.
    - sneak 6y ago
      I think perhaps you mean "moral" rather than "ethical". It is entirely ethical to use free software, even to generate massive profits, without paying anyone anything. That's literally the whole point of software freedom: you're free.
      - js2 6y ago
        Ethical and moral are synonyms. I don't understand the difference you're trying to draw. Definition of ethical 1 : of or relating to ethics // ethical theories 2 : involving or expressing moral approval or disapproval // ethical judgments 3 : conforming to accepted standards of conduct // ethical behavior Definition of moral (Entry 1 of 2) 1a : of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior : ETHICAL // moral judgments b : expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior // a moral poem c : conforming to a standard of right behavior // took a moral position on the issue though it cost him the nomination

gigatexal 6y ago

If there was ever a time for companies to step up it's now. I feel terrible for his family. Donated what I could.

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

He came over to NetBSD from Gentoo a number of years ago, bringing dhcpd with him. An excellent acquisition for NetBSD. He has been a dedicated and thoughtful BSD developer. This is very sad news.

kblev 6y ago
Was this a paid job or volunteer?
- xianwen 6y ago
  Volunteer.
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
s/dhcpd/dhcpcd :) As someone else commented in this thread, would be surprised if anyone could find a higher quality alternative. This one is free, open-source, written by a volunteer, not by a company nor by any organization that accepts money derived from online ad sales.

dumbneurologist 6y ago

This is such sad news. > I did not accept this. I have young kids to watch grow up and a loving wife to grow old with. Life and time are the two most precious commodoties we will ever have. As sorry as I am that his hopes were futile, time and again the universe shows us how little it cares for these sentiments. Regardless of what resources one might have to protest, we are all slowly ground to dust.

bch 6y ago

Roy and his work are brilliant.

shadeslayer_ 6y ago

This is so sad because if you read his blog post from January 2021, he sounds so very hopeful and happy at the prospect of the immunotherapy working. It sounds like he discovered a new lease of life. Being thrown from that situation to the new prognosis which is infinitely worse, sounds like a hammer blow.

vmception 6y ago
Cancer requires clinging to glimmers of hope. Yes, he felt that way at the time and yes, he wrote it down, but these improbabilities are all anyone ever has, its not over till it’s over. I read that post too, going from a tiny undetectable bump under the skin that only his partner noticed, to unbearable pain pressing against his spine making him unable to sleep and think clearly. It seems like 4 months were wasted just getting appointments.
- genewitch 6y ago
  There's a progression that is "forced" when you get a cancer diagnosis, especially if they have to surgically remove anything. They won't start chemo or anything else for several weeks post-op. It seems like you're trying to get appointments or whatever, but realistically, they're getting you in as soon as their liability (or patient care laws) says they can. Stage III, stage IV, doesn't matter. If they operate first, you're going to spend a lot of time waiting. If you're an american, remember that FMLA only lasts a quarter, so if you can go back to work after the surgery but before the chemo i strongly suggest you do that if there's any concern about insurance or whatever, since you're probably going to want to sleep for the first few weeks worth of chemo dosing. Good luck to 1/2 of the american population, because that's the rate of cancer in the US.
  - howenterprisey 6y ago
    1/2 sounds a bit high? (I'm completely ignorant on the matter, of course.)
    - deleted 6y ago

teddyh 6y ago

https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/

Rebelgecko 6y ago

I've been using a website for 15 years or so that had a similar situation. The creator/maintainer got a short prognosis, but made an effort to ensure that his service would outlive him. Even though I'll never meet Josh from Spamgourmet his work continues to make my life a little bit easier on an almost daily basis. I hope Roy's legacy is able to continue in the same way and that he gets some comfort from that.

bombcar 6y ago
Dan Jezek died way too early and his family worked hard to keep BrickLink alive - and now it will continue as it’s under the umbrella of the LEGO Group. https://www.danjezek.com/ https://www.danjezek.com/
jaynetics 6y ago
I have used Spamgourmet almost since its inception. Maybe the first great SaaS, and you couldn't help but immediately notice it was built by a lovely person. Despite having only months to live, Josh was working on a plan to shut the site down in an orderly fashion as long as he was still able to notify all users, but then his son stepped in and took over part of the operation.

ronnier 6y ago

I’d like to donate but the PayPal app just spins :-/ I’ll try web

ronnier 6y ago
Web worked if any of you are having the same issue
- magnetic 6y ago
  Do you need a PayPal account or is there a "take my credit card and check out as guest" option somewhere?
  - ronnier 6y ago
    Not sure. I already had an account.
    - 0xbadcafebee 6y ago
      It just keeps spinning for me, so I signed into paypal, but I can't look him up by his username. Does anyone have his email? I've been using his software for decades, and I'd really like to thank him and support his family. I remember how much better of an experience it was to use dhcpcd rather than pump. He made my life better without realizing it.
exhilaration 6y ago
If the link doesn't work open the app or website and search for @rsmarples

tpmx 6y ago

Has Roy been doing all of this essential maintenance work for years without pay from some kind of corporate sponsor?

samblr 6y ago

I believe open source work is amongst the greatest works of charities ever. It is just staggering the amount of work that goes building/maintainer open source. And I possibly wonder every week on who are these wonderful people creating/maintaining them. My heart goes to maintainer & family. Everybody in this forum needs to do a bit. Request everybody to donate generously via paypal mentioned in the link.

samblr 6y ago
@Dang : Could you please change the title to convey this better. 'Dhcpd will need a new maintainer' - doesn't tell the real story.
- gerdesj 6y ago
  Sometimes you can say a lot more with fewer words. It's the title he used to make the announcement.
arthur2e5 6y ago
wrt FOSS as charity, the IRS has been resisting FOSS orgs applying for 501(c)(3) status for a while. Not the best world to live in. https://opensource.org/node/840 https://opensource.org/node/840 https://www.beavandenberk.com/ip/computer-internet/developing-open-source-software-not-an-exempt-purpose/ https://www.beavandenberk.com/ip/computer-internet/developin...

CamouflagedKiwi 6y ago

A reminder that there's always a person behind software. It's been a few years but for a long time I used OpenRC and dhcpcd, made possible by Roy working away in the background. No matter what happens with his cancer, I'll always be grateful for that.

einpoklum 6y ago

With many (most?) free software projects, implementing it and getting it to a stable working condition is only a fraction of the overall amount of work invested over time in maintaining the thing. Compilers change, system libraries change, operating systems change, build systems change, language standards change and so on - and you, who just wanted to write, say, a DHCP server you or your organization needed at some point in life, tear yourself away from your day job, your family, your current pursuits and interests - which have likely not included fiddling with that old piece of code you wrote all those years ago - and bringing it in line what the current state of things. Sisyphic work, which is usually rewarded mostly with complaints about why the thing is not up to date. "But they only just broke it! Do you expect me to spend my time also anticipating what infernal subtle ways the rug is going to get pulled from under me?" ... but you never tell people that. You dutifully write your fix and re-publish (which can also be a bunch more work, since the platforms for publishing your FOSS project also change). I salute you, Roy Marples! (and I donated.)

userbinator 6y ago

That's sad to hear, but to think about the situation a bit more deeply, is DHCP software really something that needs "maintenance"? The protocol is decades old and stable, and no doubt the implementations in equally-old routers and other equipment continues to function unchanged and interoperate with much newer equipment.

spijdar 6y ago
Yes, without a doubt -- network software especially needs at least some maintenance to deal with security vulnerabilities. I'll say that not all software needs constant security supervision, but I think DHCP client/servers should. Among the other duties of maintainers. Bless all those who take up the thankless job...
bartvk 6y ago
Of course it needs maintenance. Architectures change, packaging methods change, software is started differently or earlier in the boot process, etc.
mnd999 6y ago
It probably doesn’t need many new features. But it needs someone to release bug fixes, and ports to new architectures, deal with CVEs etc.
bch 6y ago
Browse his work[0] to see what’s been going on with it. As a NetBSD user, I’m always happy and impressed to see dhcpcd getting the attention it does. [0] https://roy.marples.name/cgit/dhcpcd.git/log/ https://roy.marples.name/cgit/dhcpcd.git/log/

rasengan 6y ago

Dear Roy, It is unfortunate you are dealing with this. I am so sorry and hope for the best. The Handshake founders had an airdrop pre allocated for you in the Handshake Blockchain [1] so there is about $64,000.00 in there that you can claim under marples.name as of writing. [1] https://dns.live/top.html https://dns.live/top.html

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sleavey 6y ago
What does this mean? Did the founders decide Roy's work was worthy of the coin donation?
- joshuaissac 6y ago
  I do not entirely understand how it works, but I think they allocated coins to users on GitHub based on certain metrics, and also reserved names in their system for the top 100k sites on Alexa. It seems to be mostly automated/algorithmic. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22504592 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22504592
ldng 6y ago
Maybe he has more urging matter than claiming this ? Thought about the paperwork and taxes handling ? Could you do that for him ?
- cmeacham98 6y ago
  He provides a paypal link for donations in the post, and for most people $64k is a non-insignificant amount (i.e. would be worth the effort of claiming).
  - ldng 6y ago
    Well, it feels like a passive publicity stunt, so far, to me.

Causality1 6y ago

It's very disappointing that a man can go to the doctor with a rapidly growing lump and instead of cutting it out on the spot they make him wait for months of tests to come back, after which it's inoperable. Disgusting.

nealabq 6y ago

This is very sad to hear. Roy talked about the cancer in January: https://roy.marples.name/blog/posts/cancer/ https://roy.marples.name/blog/posts/cancer/

pablosanta 6y ago

Heartbreaking. I've been a long time user of DHCPD but (as I think many of us) never knew or think about all the people and hard work behind it. Thanks for everything.

iJohnDoe 6y ago

Roy, thanks for all your hard work. So many people enjoyed and benefited from everything you have done. Donation sent.

gerdesj 6y ago

Take care Uberlord. Thanks.

de6u99er 6y ago

Fuck cancer! That being said, NHS sqhing they can't do anything for him doesn't mean nothing at all can be done! What happened to personalized medicine? What about the mRNA approach which seems promising? I know, personalized medicine is expensive, but I bet some here on HN could easily finance such an approach and help this man out.

gigatexal 6y ago

So the mailing list is going here: https://roy.marples.name/archives/dhcpcd-discuss/0003458.html https://roy.marples.name/archives/dhcpcd-discuss/0003458.htm... But do we have a new maintainer? Also donate if you can — cancer is expensive.

roboyoshi 6y ago

Damn, Roy - I wish you all the best. I remember writing roy an email about the website not working when I setup his openresolv for my wireguard tunnel. He kindly responded and told me what was broken and why. It's just a very small touch into his life I made, but with it this whole thing hits me so much harder.

globular-toast 6y ago

A note to readers. This is dhcpCd. A client, not a server. Also my client of choice.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

_of 6y ago

Very sad. I hope there will be light despite the prognosis. Why is regular chemotherapy not tried? Immunotherapy is very specific, it might not work.

thecleaner 6y ago

Developers should just stop working for free. This guy is battling cancer while making an effort to do another release. Surely if society needs such kind of software it can pay for it. A functional society shouldn't need heroes to make progress.

spyc 6y ago

Roy, thank you for being an activate part of the free software community, thank you for dhcpcd and being nice to work with, thank you for everything!

seren1 6y ago

Ugh, Paypal is still the worst. My transaction got flagged; maybe they think "DHCP" is some new street drug? I really hope he doesn't have trouble withdrawing the funds. Paypal is known for freezing funds, sometimes for years. From their email: > On March 16, 2021, you sent a payment (xxxxxxxxxx ) for the amount of $xxxxx for "DHCP and DHCPd were significant in my early career. Best wishes." Please provide the following information: > > • An explanation of the reference to "DHCP ." > • The purpose of this payment, including a complete and detailed explanation of what is intended to be paid for.