BSDers are known for being aggresive against other groups, like Linux users. Just check out Theo de Raadt:

http://www.crn.com/software/164901198

Of course, it seems that Macy forgot that physical aggression usually lands you in jail. Oops.

Comments along the lines of "This group has a reputation for ..." aren't terribly helpful.

Compare with the statement: "Linux developers are known for allegedly murdering their wives."

It's clearly sensationalist reporting -- is El Reg running out of material?

Come on, guys, propagating the Modern Coliseum meme makes you just as bad as the Home Office...

@Daniel B.: with your keen senses and razor-sharp wits you have really sussed the true nature of all those BSDers. I can certainly see where your logic is leading to. You are no doubt expecting that his tenants were Linux users that Macy had lured there in order to torment.

Macy is *very* lucky indeed that he had not encountered that other, somewhat less common kind of Linux user, The Violent Wife-Murdering Filesystem Developer. One can only just imagine what a terrible scene the police would have encountered ...

Perhaps it would be amusing to note that FreeBSD has a feature called "jails", where individual users can be put into a little "box" with no access to the wider operating system. I wonder if Kip Macy had anything to do with the implementation of FreeBSD jails?

As for free software people (or BSD people?!) being criminals, the number of criminals as a proportion of the total population of FS developers probably isn't any bigger than the proportion in the total population. With thousands of FS developers in the community, unless we think that FS people are more saintly than others, or something, we should expect to get one or two of the population breaking the law. The other problem is that almost anyone can become a developer, there is no vetting process, so I'd expect there to be more criminals making free software than working for Microsoft or IBM.