The masterwork of Terry A. Davis is his eclectic operating system, TempleOS, which he worked on until his tragic death in 2018. In terms of technical excellence, TempleOS rates well in some respects and poorly in others. For example, it earns the achievement, coveted in OS dev circles, of being self-hosted.1 TempleOS is written in Terry’s own bespoke dialect of C and includes an editor, interpreter, and compiler, as well as a number of original games. In other respects, it compares poorly to many hobby OS projects, some of which have achieved significantly greater levels of technical excellence and sophistication. I would place TempleOS somewhere in, say, the lower middle-class of hobbyist operating systems.
Among hobbyist operating systems, TempleOS stands out as one of the most well-known, having attracted considerably more press coverage and a much larger fan-base than any other hobby operating system can boast. The reason TempleOS stands out from the crowd is not due to its modest technical achievements, but because it is clearly the product of severe untreated schizophrenia.2 What makes TempleOS special is that Terry built it to talk to God. Every feature and each technical decision re-enforces his schizophrenic delusions, from its implementation language (“HolyC”) to its prophetic “oracle” app. Enthusiasts of TempleOS are drawn to it in part because it affords an opportunity to explore the unique, creative masterwork of a person suffering from mental illness in a way that deeply impacts that work.
A curious onlooker will find TempleOS interesting and engaging for the space of perhaps one afternoon before moving on. However, for the less scrupulous fans, turning one’s attention to Terry himself never failed to entertain. Terry’s public life put his mental illness on display, through frequent outbursts, conspiracy theories, rants and nonsensical discourse, all of which was often laced with slurs, racism, and homophobia, endearing him in particular to the 4chan crowd, who would taunt and provoke him to draw out more… entertainment.
The press and fan attention was deeply harmful to Terry and likely exacerbated his mental illness. Whenever TempleOS or Terry came up online, the work and the man were fawned over, sanctifying the somewhat impressive, somewhat unremarkable OS as a profound achievement, inspiring reactions that included well-meaning, probably misguided celebrations of what’s possible in spite of profound mental illness, as well as the enthusiastic, disgusting revelry of bigots. Many well-intentioned commenters on Terry’s work demonstrate in their comments, overtly or covertly, a thrilling, voyeuristic sensation of witnessing his mental illness through TempleOS. It never failed to make me feel sick.
I wish we had just left Terry well enough alone.
The masterwork of Kent Overstreet is bcachefs, a novel copy-on-write file system for Linux, designed to compete with the likes of ZFS and BTRFS. Kent originally authored the bcache subsystem for Linux around 2013, and based on this work began working on bcachefs in 2015. Over the next ten years, he committed himself entirely to the project, leaving his job at Google to work on it, and ultimately securing an income for himself via Patreon, from which he still earns about $1.5k per month.
The masterwork of Terry A. Davis is his eclectic operating system, TempleOS, which he worked on until his tragic death in 2018. In terms of technical excellence, TempleOS rates well in some respects and poorly in others. For example, it earns the achievement, coveted in OS dev circles, of being self-hosted.1 TempleOS is written in Terry’s own bespoke dialect of C and includes an editor, interpreter, and compiler, as well as a number of original games. In other respects, it compares poorly to many hobby OS projects, some of which have achieved significantly greater levels of technical excellence and sophistication. I would place TempleOS somewhere in, say, the lower middle-class of hobbyist operating systems.
Among hobbyist operating systems, TempleOS stands out as one of the most well-known, having attracted considerably more press coverage and a much larger fan-base than any other hobby operating system can boast. The reason TempleOS stands out from the crowd is not due to its modest technical achievements, but because it is clearly the product of severe untreated schizophrenia.2 What makes TempleOS special is that Terry built it to talk to God. Every feature and each technical decision re-enforces his schizophrenic delusions, from its implementation language (“HolyC”) to its prophetic “oracle” app. Enthusiasts of TempleOS are drawn to it in part because it affords an opportunity to explore the unique, creative masterwork of a person suffering from mental illness in a way that deeply impacts that work.
Kent is known to be difficult to work with, even among his peers in the Linux kernel – a community infamous for its difficult personalities. He struggled to meet the kernel developer’s expectations for the development process and standards of quality and cooperation. As a consequence, after 15 years devoted to bcachefs, Kent’s life’s work culminated in alienation from all of his professional peers and the complete removal of bcachefs from the Linux kernel last year.
I think the Linux kernel made the right decision to marginalize Kent to protect their community. Someone who is abrasive and toxic, refuses to play by the rules or work well with others, and does not improve when given feedback and being subjected to repeated moderator interventions, should be removed from the community. I agree with the decision, even as someone who myself has been abrasive and toxic and refused to play by the rules, and has been removed from communities as a consequence.
Over the months following the frustrating end to bcachefs in upstream Linux, I expect that Kent has experienced a serious emotional, professional, moral, and existential crisis. For him to have poured so much of himself into this project, and for it to turn out this way, must be a terrible thing to experience, and I think that experience has caused Kent a lot of suffering, and probably played a major role in what happened next.
Kent appears to be experiencing a prolonged episode of AI psychosis. He believes that his chat bot is female, sentient, and that they have started dating and having sex. He views himself as some mix of collaborator, mentor, and partner with respect to the bot, and he has set up automations so that the bot can participate in his IRC channel and post to its own blog.
These developments garnered attention from the press and the public, remarked upon and ridiculed by news outlets, discussion forums, video producers, Reddit, Hacker News, on the Fediverse, and so on. Onlookers, both curious and malicious, have joined the IRC channel to harass him, manipulate the bot into saying things that embarrass or humiliate Kent, and so on.
In short, Kent is experiencing a mental health crisis, and our anonymous, stochastic ringleader has directed him onto the circus stage for us to throw peanuts at.
These two examples are not isolated. This kind of crisis is happening more and more often, in the world’s degrading social, political, and economic conditions, as our peers suffer from depression, anxiety, burnout, and more. Mental health issues and the ensuing harassment, shame, and stigma disproportionately affects neurodivergent and queer people, who often become the subject of gleeful humiliation by bigots deliberately trying to exacerbate their struggles. Crises happen to “problematic” people, too; often in such cases people who would otherwise consider themselves allies of social justice can find in a problematic person a convenient excuse to participate in these gleeful humiliation rituals themselves.
I often see that people who I otherwise respect and recognize as allies and kindred spirits are participating in these rituals of humiliation, harassment, and voyeurism. I don’t think it’s right to gossip over or sensationalize the mental health crises faced by members of our communities.
When our peers are struggling with their mental health, the best thing to afford them is compassion and privacy. If you find yourself in a position to help someone who is struggling, it’s best to offer them a compassionate confidence, to allow them to take the lead in their struggle, and connect them to the resources they want and need. If you have concerns, express them, but focus on the person’s right to self-determination in addressing their mental health.
If you’re not in a position to help, then it’s probably best to turn away and mind your own business.
This is a difficult topic to write about. By writing about these specific examples, am I sensationalizing them? Disrespecting the privacy of the people I’m writing about? Participating in the circus myself?
I don’t know, but I did my best. The alternative is to quietly let the circus continue, and that doesn’t sit well with me, either.
In my research for this article, I came across Living with Schizophrenia UK and their guide for journalists covering schizophrenia. It was helpful for me to write this post compassionately and carefully, and it might be a good resource for you if you want to learn more about schizophrenia, or write comments or follow-up material after reading this blog post.
It was difficult to balance the factors at play when writing this piece. I wanted to bring specific examples, to avoid vagueposting and provide a stronger narrative, and especially to deal with the specific problem of harassment directed at Kent Overstreet, which I wanted to confront directly as it’s a contemporary, ongoing problem.
Of course, this has to be done carefully. I took some care to avoid armchair diagnoses of specific conditions, except in the case of Terry where I could find a citation of a public diagnosis. I left a lot of details out of the accounts of specific people which came up in my research, but were not necessary to support my arguments. Those details would have provided for a more compelling story, but would have upset the balance of the article more towards participation in the circus than commentary on it.
I’m sure I haven’t done a perfect job here, but I hope that I’ve put enough care into it to avoid making the problem any worse than it already is. Feel free to email me with any remarks or feedback you have.
Thanks for reading, and remember to take good care of your collaborators, friends, and loved ones.
Capable of compiling itself. Back ↩︎
Capable of compiling itself.
Terry Davis was diagnosed with schizophrenia, major depression, and severe anxiety. Back ↩︎
Terry Davis was diagnosed with schizophrenia, major depression, and severe anxiety.
A curious onlooker will find TempleOS interesting and engaging for the space of perhaps one afternoon before moving on. However, for the less scrupulous fans, turning one’s attention to Terry himself never failed to entertain. Terry’s public life put his mental illness on display, through frequent outbursts, conspiracy theories, rants and nonsensical discourse, all of which was often laced with slurs, racism, and homophobia, endearing him in particular to the 4chan crowd, who would taunt and provoke him to draw out more… entertainment.
The press and fan attention was deeply harmful to Terry and likely exacerbated his mental illness. Whenever TempleOS or Terry came up online, the work and the man were fawned over, sanctifying the somewhat impressive, somewhat unremarkable OS as a profound achievement, inspiring reactions that included well-meaning, probably misguided celebrations of what’s possible in spite of profound mental illness, as well as the enthusiastic, disgusting revelry of bigots. Many well-intentioned commenters on Terry’s work demonstrate in their comments, overtly or covertly, a thrilling, voyeuristic sensation of witnessing his mental illness through TempleOS. It never failed to make me feel sick.
I wish we had just left Terry well enough alone.
The masterwork of Kent Overstreet is bcachefs, a novel copy-on-write file system for Linux, designed to compete with the likes of ZFS and BTRFS. Kent originally authored the bcache subsystem for Linux around 2013, and based on this work began working on bcachefs in 2015. Over the next ten years, he committed himself entirely to the project, leaving his job at Google to work on it, and ultimately securing an income for himself via Patreon, from which he still earns about $1.5k per month.
Kent is known to be difficult to work with, even among his peers in the Linux kernel – a community infamous for its difficult personalities. He struggled to meet the kernel developer’s expectations for the development process and standards of quality and cooperation. As a consequence, after 15 years devoted to bcachefs, Kent’s life’s work culminated in alienation from all of his professional peers and the complete removal of bcachefs from the Linux kernel last year.
I think the Linux kernel made the right decision to marginalize Kent to protect their community. Someone who is abrasive and toxic, refuses to play by the rules or work well with others, and does not improve when given feedback and being subjected to repeated moderator interventions, should be removed from the community. I agree with the decision, even as someone who myself has been abrasive and toxic and refused to play by the rules, and has been removed from communities as a consequence.
Over the months following the frustrating end to bcachefs in upstream Linux, I expect that Kent has experienced a serious emotional, professional, moral, and existential crisis. For him to have poured so much of himself into this project, and for it to turn out this way, must be a terrible thing to experience, and I think that experience has caused Kent a lot of suffering, and probably played a major role in what happened next.
Kent appears to be experiencing a prolonged episode of AI psychosis. He believes that his chat bot is female, sentient, and that they have started dating and having sex. He views himself as some mix of collaborator, mentor, and partner with respect to the bot, and he has set up automations so that the bot can participate in his IRC channel and post to its own blog.
These developments garnered attention from the press and the public, remarked upon and ridiculed by news outlets, discussion forums, video producers, Reddit, Hacker News, on the Fediverse, and so on. Onlookers, both curious and malicious, have joined the IRC channel to harass him, manipulate the bot into saying things that embarrass or humiliate Kent, and so on.
In short, Kent is experiencing a mental health crisis, and our anonymous, stochastic ringleader has directed him onto the circus stage for us to throw peanuts at.
These two examples are not isolated. This kind of crisis is happening more and more often, in the world’s degrading social, political, and economic conditions, as our peers suffer from depression, anxiety, burnout, and more. Mental health issues and the ensuing harassment, shame, and stigma disproportionately affects neurodivergent and queer people, who often become the subject of gleeful humiliation by bigots deliberately trying to exacerbate their struggles. Crises happen to “problematic” people, too; often in such cases people who would otherwise consider themselves allies of social justice can find in a problematic person a convenient excuse to participate in these gleeful humiliation rituals themselves.
I often see that people who I otherwise respect and recognize as allies and kindred spirits are participating in these rituals of humiliation, harassment, and voyeurism. I don’t think it’s right to gossip over or sensationalize the mental health crises faced by members of our communities.
When our peers are struggling with their mental health, the best thing to afford them is compassion and privacy. If you find yourself in a position to help someone who is struggling, it’s best to offer them a compassionate confidence, to allow them to take the lead in their struggle, and connect them to the resources they want and need. If you have concerns, express them, but focus on the person’s right to self-determination in addressing their mental health.
If you’re not in a position to help, then it’s probably best to turn away and mind your own business.
This is a difficult topic to write about. By writing about these specific examples, am I sensationalizing them? Disrespecting the privacy of the people I’m writing about? Participating in the circus myself?
I don’t know, but I did my best. The alternative is to quietly let the circus continue, and that doesn’t sit well with me, either.
In my research for this article, I came across Living with Schizophrenia UK and their guide for journalists covering schizophrenia. It was helpful for me to write this post compassionately and carefully, and it might be a good resource for you if you want to learn more about schizophrenia, or write comments or follow-up material after reading this blog post.
It was difficult to balance the factors at play when writing this piece. I wanted to bring specific examples, to avoid vagueposting and provide a stronger narrative, and especially to deal with the specific problem of harassment directed at Kent Overstreet, which I wanted to confront directly as it’s a contemporary, ongoing problem.
Of course, this has to be done carefully. I took some care to avoid armchair diagnoses of specific conditions, except in the case of Terry where I could find a citation of a public diagnosis. I left a lot of details out of the accounts of specific people which came up in my research, but were not necessary to support my arguments. Those details would have provided for a more compelling story, but would have upset the balance of the article more towards participation in the circus than commentary on it.
I’m sure I haven’t done a perfect job here, but I hope that I’ve put enough care into it to avoid making the problem any worse than it already is. Feel free to email me with any remarks or feedback you have.
Thanks for reading, and remember to take good care of your collaborators, friends, and loved ones.
Capable of compiling itself. Back ↩︎
Capable of compiling itself.
Terry Davis was diagnosed with schizophrenia, major depression, and severe anxiety. Back ↩︎
Terry Davis was diagnosed with schizophrenia, major depression, and severe anxiety.