[HedgeMage]

I know what his side of the story is on that specific password. I don't think it's adequate, but... I also don't know that it's helpful to keep arguing this two years later. Casual contributors couldn't build the latest dev version of NTP due to repository access and build system problems, and the lead (effectively only active, at that point) maintainer couldn't or wouldn't fix the situation.

While the password problem made a good rhetorical flourish--it illustrated how the scaffolding supporting NTP development had been allowed to rot--the fact is that the server was in Mr. Stenn's control and he could have rebooted it to rescue media at any time, fixing the problem in a few minutes. Yet, the server was never properly brought up to good maintenance practice. I suspect that the majority of people reading this know how to reset a root password, so the password doesn't really matter that much in the grand scheme. The server was just another thing being neglected.

As I described in my O'Reilly talk, technical problems of this magnitude stem from social problems. The project didn't have a culture of sound engineering practice. I did what I could to work with Mr. Stenn to offer support and resources to bring that practice to his project. I didn't want to lose the years of institutional knowledge he'd acquired working on NTP. That's costly to replace. However, I wasn't going to forgo sound engineering practice to keep him on board: over time, smart people could learn the ins and outs of even the most tangled code base. The costs of bad engineering practice just keep coming, and I cannot force people to do the right thing, only lay out the costs and benefits then see what they choose.

That, and throw a little storytelling prowess at the problem now and again, in the hope of motivating people.