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OpenBSD Lands $2 Million In DARPA Money
An anonymous reader writes "Canada's National Post is reporting today that DARPA is (indirectly) funding $2-million (US) to Theo de Raadt of OpenBSD. The article is available here." Update: 04/07 21:01 GMT by T : As several readers have pointed out, this blurb should credit instead The Globe and Mail rather than the National Post.
...well, wealthy... I guess...
I don't understand why getting money from DARPA makes them uncomfortable. He mentions it comes with no strings attached.
Shouldn't we be happy about grants like this that will promote and advance Open Source software in general?
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
those goddamn "BSD is dying" posts, already?
Something of value is being created and improved.
Someone wants that to continue so they fund it.
Why is this news?
So, Perhaps the various Unices will get recognition and support, and possibly even certification as actually, factually secure and securable for doing real work. Perhaps one day regular people will be able to have a COTS secure computing envirionment that will work out of the box. I can't wait. I like being able to control all aspects of my OS, but most people don't want to tweak and ding.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
I completly understand how an OSS project can require funds for further development, what I worry is how these funds are donated, is it all contributed in cash?
Problem with that is some people can easily take advantage of a situation like that, I think funding should instead come in required equipement and/or other expenses, but not cash, because there are many contributors (coders) to projects like this, and no one should be taking coin from it.
Can someone shed some light? maybe I am off base...
Posting useless rant since 2003.
Non-techie news site gets "hacker" right? Very surprising.
well.. yeah, they can...
holy fucking shit.... this is turly beautiful.
there are two types of people in this world (well.. actually more, but ill narrow it down here), those who talk about needing - have their needs filled- then still dont produce... and then there are those who need - and once those needs are met.. they DO produce...
i hope theo and the rest of obsd are of the latter...
-frank
DARPA has been funding the OpenBSD project for awhile now. The grants have been a staple of the OpenBSD team's funding for quite awhile now. Come on, you didn't think they existed solely on the revenues generated from their t-shirts, CD's and posters did you? Congrats to the OpenBSD team on this latest grant. This is fortuitous especially with version 3.3 right around the corner.
You may as well compare it to what my aunt Katie (the one with the wooden leg and no teeth, who smokes cigars all day long) as to what the GPL says. They both have as much to do with OpenBSD as the other.
... can buy a lot of poutine!
and maybe theo will finally get the sparc docs he needs.
Either the military is tired of trying to keep up with Windows security patches or else they want to keep their options open...
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
OpenBSD has been commercial. They sell CDs and shirts and stuff to make money. People have to eat. Almost all big open source projects are commercial. You have to be commercial to have full time developers.
It's a very positive thing to see government funding OSS software. This is something that gives positive returns to everyone.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
Do they give all the money up front or do they pay later? If the latter, what's stopping DARPA from refusing to pay at the end? They could make up all kinds of reasons, like "they didn't do what we expected them to do", or even "Theo chucked a tantrum and refused to do what we asked". I know that the conditions say they can't order the OpenBSD hackers around, but they'll probably try to anyway.
OLPC Australia
"U.S. military helps fund Calgary hacker
By DAVID AKIN
From Monday's Globe and Mail"
I think you've attributed it to the wrong paper, that's quite clearly from the Globe and Mail (as if the url, globetechnology.com wasn't a give away), the other national Canadian paper.
Oh, man...
First, I like OpenBSD. I'm in a "network free-state" so I can run NAT to allow me to let my kids play on their machine while I compute on mine and we can all get to the internet... OpenBSD lets me do this.
But, MAN, how can he take $2,000,000 from the US Gov't and still criticize them at the same time?
No backbone? No ethics?
Give us a break; if he felt that strongly about the war, he could've said, "Thanks, but I'll wait till you guys leave Iraq before I'll accept your money."
Come ON already!
"Sometimes the truth is stupid." - Lawrence, creator of Prime Intellect
"Low code quality keeps haunting our entire industry. That, and sloppy programmers who don't understand the frameworks they work within. They're like plumbers high on glue," Mr. de Raadt said.
Just think of all those "toilets" that were built by glue sniffing plumbers.... It's no surprise that no one knows where the sh*t ends up!
In other news, A large 'plumbing' company announces that you should make sure the lid of your toilet is down to prevent sewer back up until the latest fuzzy seat 'patches' are out.
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -Tom Waits
More DARPA $$ means more OpenBSD hacker working, so this is a good thing. Even though I understand Theo's problems, I think this is a good thing.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
BTW, anyone else notice the article was actually from The Globe and Mail?
Carousel is a lie!
From the article:
Erm, shouldn't that be "only one remote hole in the default install"?
1. Posses huge, pain-in-the-ass ego.
Alas, this happens.
Highly talented and intelligent people get exasperated with us mortals and let us know in no uncertain terms that we are stupid. I knew someone in school like this once. He would put pointed questions out that would show people's stupidity in broad daylight. But he was so intelligent, and I had enough intelligence still left, to know when he was right.
True intelligence is being able to recognize someone more intelligent than you are and to be able to support their work even if they have a grating personality.
Don't ever make the mistake of putting them in a role of managing people, though.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
"Free" as in F-R-E-E-D-O-M.
When asked about his brand-new 24K gold biking helmet, Theo pointed behind the reporters and exclaimed "What's that!". With the reporters distracted, he promptly ran the other direction and hid behind some bushes. The reporters, being only average journalists, published that OpenBSD's leader can turn himself invisible at will and cited that OpenBSD appears to be some sort of Canadian rap group.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
I reckon they thought they were using "hacker" in the sense that we would consider the "wrong" way, and got it right by accident. Besides, "globetechnology.com" sounds like a techie news site to me, even if it is a part of a general news outlet.
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
from the openbsd website:
"Today cryptography is an important means for enhancing the security of an operating system...
'...When we create OpenBSD releases or snapshots we build our release binaries in free countries to assure that the sources and binaries we provide to users are free of tainting. In the past our release binary builds have been done in Canada, Sweden, and Germany...'
Gov spends millions to control crypto exports.
Gov spends millions to support OpenBSD which
bypasses US crypto export laws?!
Mr. de Raadt is no fan of the U.S. military at the moment. He calls the war in Iraq an oil grab. "It just sickens me."
IN other news, Theo de Raadt is held by the Department of Homeland Security in Seattle while attending an OpenBSD conference. Mr De Raadt, in the country to give a speech at the conference is whisked away by unknown persons in a black van. Other conference goers are later told by organizers that a quote by Mr. de Raadt is being held under the US PATRIOT Act for "'aiding and giving comfort to Evil Ones."
The Canadian high counsel in Washington lodges a formal condemnation of the act -- demanding that the Canadian Citizen be released. Washington replies "It is quite obvious that Canadians and The Canadian Regime has been overrun by The Evil Ones. Like Syria and Iran, Canada must learn that their Either With Us or Against Us." In Ottawa, American ambassador Cellucci says "yeah, what he said, Canadians baaaaad"
Republican Senator U.S. Nitwitt says "Why should righteous Americans be giving their defense funds to this communist^H^H^H^H^H^Hterrorist? Its obvious he's a terrorist - at least. This is a threat to our security. The Department of Homeland Security may or may not be justified in siezing him if they did or didnt... uhm, filthy Un American... i hear he rides the bus!"
OpenBSD, which does not develop as many products as Microsoft, says only one vulnerability or hole has been found in its software in the past seven years.
It's good to see that OpenBSD magnificient PR campaign finally pays off.
Sarcasm aside, I believe the government is the only part (apart from Microsoft with its cash reserves) which can invest in secure software development at the moment, so this is a step in the right direction.
Author Steven Brill is experiencing total friction among his close circle of elitist liberal media associates after releasing a book which claims: Homeland Security under President Bush is working!
And why have there been no fresh terror strikes in the United States since the start of the war?
Coincidentally, I have a rock that keeps away tigers. I know it works because I don't see any tigers.
so that is what the preview buttons for...
actually, its more like curly, swirly, or even burly... but it should have been truly.
-frank
it's not really commercialization because, as the other poster said, they have to eat, and you have to be commercial to have full time developers (unless you're the debian project ;P). The other part of it is he would have done all this for free anyway, and all this money is being poured back into the project, rather than into that nice Hi-Fi he saw at Best Buy last week. As long as he's not making any money from it, it's not commercialized.
Code
???
Profit!!!
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
Its supposed to hook scientists and researchers together over a "network" where computers can exchange information. It would be neat if this technology would some day be available to everyone!
Worst. Sig. Ever.
If he is selling 8000 copies of BSD a year, that works out to $320,000 for just the CDs. I know that doesn't include the "cost" of making them, but he does charge for shipping as well. Not to mention all of the other BSD items he sells.
Not a bad living. And it would suggest he doesn't "need" the money.
Hell yeah! Work it! I see this as a very good step for OSS. There needs to be *someone* out there to give money for OSS development. Government funding is a great way to do it (since the purpose of the government is to to stuff for the public good).
Regardless of your personal views of him accepting money or the US govt, this is a good thing. I wish more agencies and public entities would fund projects good for the public.
"We're not doing anything for them. They just fund us to do what we do," said Mr. de Raadt
,as of yet, unseen motive. Theo is so silly sometimes.
Is Theo really that niave to belive that DARPA is simply "giving" him money to do with what he wishes and to think the US military/government doesn't have some
..trouble is, 90% of people think they are of above average intelligence. So when you say "true intelligence is being able to recognize.." its only partially true. Real Wisdom is being able to accept when you are wrong, whatever the debated point may be, The Idea ITSELF is either true or untrue -- regardless of the source, or manner of presentation. Being able to abandon your ego and accept that you may NOT know-all is the real gift. IMHO.. ;)
Money has always been a key to what's now considered OSI compliant software. Always. You don't think Berkeley operated all that time without a budget, do you? Free Software isn't tainted by money, and OS's released under the BSD license are no exception. The only grey area that could exist would be if the presence of investors alters the license. And there's no evidence that DARPA money is causing or will cause a deviation from their current license. None. (Read this for the data.)
And as for the assertion that OpenBSD falls under the GNU General Public License... Oy!
Considering your worries about money, I suspect you don't know what it's like to have any. Try to live without it (either yours or your parents') before you gripe about its effects.
"I think that worries me."
Next time, decide whether it does or not before you post.
Daniel.
Free software, not Iraq, because Bill Gates is evil & Saddam is just misunderstood.
If he were taking money to implement DARPA-requested features, I could see the issue. However, if all he's doing is taking no-strings-attached money to do work he'd be doing anyway, I don't see the moral conundrum. If there are any negative effects of his work (OpenBSD being used by TIA, for example), they'd exist even if he wasn't funded by DARPA; the only solution would be to stop developing OpenBSD entirely, not to keep doing it without DARPA funding. So insofar as DARPA funding doesn't change anything, I'd say take it. Plus, at least it ensures that this portion of DARPA's budget goes to something worthwhile and unobjectionable, rather than letting them keep it to spend on something else.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Wait a second, we did basically nothing after:
93 WTC Bombing
USS Cole attack
Embassy bombings in Tanzania
and yet 9/11 still happened....
Hmmm i guess doing NOTHING doesnt stop terrorism after all. (Not saying the PATRIOT act(s) are the answer mind you)
This don't attack them and they wont attack you is complete bullshit.
Theo is making OpenBSD. It is freely available to anyone who wants it. If the US military/gov wants it, they already have it and can use it for whatever unseen motive anyway.
As of now, they are just helping him do what he was doing anyway.
The motive of the US gov as it currently relates to OpenBSD is they want to help its development.
They can already incorporate it into closed source products, and they can't take it away and lock it up from everyone else.
You CAN, however, tell all the people who have claimed that every Bush policy will result in INCREASED terrorism that they've been obviously wrong so far. Since they're now all explaining that war in Iraq, now THAT'S what's going to drive millions into the arms of al-Qaeda, that message obviously hasn't sunk in yet.
This will surely act as yet another carrot for Dr Torvalds.
Since anyone anywhere can make use of the products that will come out of this two million dollars, the benefit to wider mankind far outbweighs the benefit to DARPA | TIA | $evil_project.
Now, if that same money went into one of the many secret software projects at Lawrence Livermore or teh NSA, then no one benefits except the evil parties.
The use of this money to develop OpenBSD can be nothing but a good thing, due to the security everyone will gain, world wide, which will further protect from the real bad guys.
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
WTF? That makes no sense whatsoever!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"Buy him out, boys!"
-- Bill Gates, the book of Homer, 5F11
truly the fount of all wisdom
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The brilliant thing here is that this move recognises the importance of communities; the OpenBSD community IS all over the world, with Mr de Raadt a Canadian the work can be done in Canada, in the USA, in India, wherever the TALENT is.
As the grant is intended to help "testing the security of commercial software systems against the security of open source software projects", it will point to the truth in this old dispute what makes better secure software AND it will help to point to the relative merits of "security by obscurity".
However to assess this, I expect DARPA not to select Microsoft Windows as the champion of the proprietary world, I would choose OS/400. Given the smaller size of the OpenBSD community, the effect of methodology can be better assessed.
As DARPA throws bread on the water, I hope they will land a big fish!
Thanks, Gerard
I didn't know that. I guess our Comp Sci program has some pretty distinguished alumni - James Gosling, creator of Java and Theo de Raadt.
Random is the New Order.
Believe it or not, there is a lot that you can do with $320,000 USD worth of CD sales *alone* each year. That can make a few people live comfortably, paying the bills and meeting the need for servers. That doesn't take into account the sales of other merchandise.
This is how open source products like OpenBSD and Slackware have been profitable. OpenBSD *is* a product, in a way. Theo seems to make it a full-time effort, as far as I can tell, just as Patrick does with Slackware.
The extra 2 mil is just a bonus. But it goes fast if you're paying for 4 full-time coders to work on the project for a few years.
a >8Gb bootloader. I'm a big OpenBSD fan (own all the teeshirts), but those two items are a big pain in the butt.
Here is the original article, from the Globe and Mail.
Turly's the guy who wrote FinderPop for the Mac. He also contributed boatloads of gcc patches in his day ....
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
The thing people forget is that OpenBSD is a much more tightly organized project than Linux or OSS in general. The OpenBSD developers are used to doing their work in a limited environment of reduced cost. The 'Image' of OpenBSD, i.e. the artwork, etc. has that kind of an aura about it (not meant at all as a put-down, more can often be done with less when the people involved are good at what they do).
The Red Hat organization was already getting crowded with the regular 'expense account' types by the time of their IPO. Obviously $2M wouldn't go far at that place.
I don't know about you, but when you have a wife and kids it helps to be able to afford things such as food and shelter for your family... For that it takes someone to pay me for my work, if Linus wants me to do work on Linux, he can damned well find someone to pay me the 100 bucks an hour that it takes to pay my bills. If not, I'll just work on interesting code for people that will pay that.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
red cananadian commie hippy bastard
I'm glad you believe in political freedom. You're an example to us all of how free Americans are: even small-minded bigots can voice their opinions!
"...He calls the war in Iraq an oil grab. "It just sickens me."..." Theo's too smart to believe that. Probably quoted out of context. On the grant in general, I think that it's great. Cash, equipment or beer it's all the same, keeps the coders coding. As long as the donator and donatee agree on the conditions or lack thereof, of the contributions, go for it. Would you complain if M$ provided a grant to OpenBSD?
If BSD is now Rich AND Dying,
Where is Anna Nichole ???????
=)
My rantings, only longer and with better spelling..
Theo's ego is going to swell to immense proportions now that DARPA is [indirectly] giving OpenBSD money...wonderful. Maybe that's DARPA's goal. Theo pissed off would make a really powerful weapon of mass destruction....
on a more low key note: I'm glad I picked up on openBSD after fooling around with Slack 8.0
The real trouble is that those who are more intelligent are likely to underestimate their intelligence while those who are not as intelligent are more likely to overestimate their intelligence. There was a big study about this a few years ago. I think it revealed a universal truth: The incompetent are unaware of their own ineptitude. Also, the highly competent are aware of the ture complexity of a situation in the area of their expertise and are more likely to approach it with caution. This exaplains a lot of things.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Expecting immediate repercussions is rather short sighted, if you ask me. If you look at the '93 WTC bombing as the first major "strike back" from the Gulf War, you suddenly see that terrorist elements don't do things on a whim, and that the repurcussions of a decission can take a year or two to come about. Add in the fact that they're having to reorganize their command and control system since it's in general disarray at the moment, and it makes perfect sense that there haven't been any retaliatory strikes... yet.
As far as I'm concerned, yes, Bush's foreign policies WILL result in increased terrorism, but you have to take the long view in order to see this. Terrorism doesn't just happen because someone decides instilling fear in the hearts of others would be a fun weekend activity - there is a driving cause, and at the moment that driving cause is a poor image of the US in the middle east in particular, but with the path we're on now, that poor image is also spreading into Europe and the rest of the world. Things such as an unprovoked war only serve to weaken it further. But there are also smaller things we do that hurt our global image. Key example: the house bill from last week locking non-US corporations out of bidding for post-war reconstruction contracts. This is a HUGE mistake. The Islamic community already believes this is a war driven by greed with the goal of setting up a puppet government in Iraq, and here's a bill which which will be interpreted as telling the new, "sovereign" Iraqi state that they can only give their reconstruction money to US business interests. Try to tell me Osama and friends won't use that as recruitment material, no matter how skewed it may seem.
Okay, now this was a cool new spin on the "BSD is Dying" troll. I've haven't seen it ever posted like this.
Of course, BSD is not dying. But at least this troll was amusing.
Sad part though, I don't work or live that far from Compton. Interesting how Los Angeles suburbs are though, you cross the street and you can be in shit-town, cross another street and you're in Beverly Hills.
Afterall, they got vile things like the Internet rolling, and give gobs of money to horribly destructive and Big Brotherish projects like reiserfs v4.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
Does it glow? When I make my villagers dance around a rock it starts glowing. Of course, my tiger just eats them... maybe it's a different kind of rock.
...or maybe not.
However he phrased it, he's on the road to a real point. American tax dollars are being spent outside the country so there is little change of it getting cycled back into the US economy. But if he buys any equipment it'll probably be from an American source (Sun, Intel, etc.) so we could recoup some of it back plus any savings derived from the implementation of the product itself.
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
"Theo, when will you put .iso images up for download?"
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
So some A.C. meatsack sez:
"Why the hell is the US MILITARY giving TAXPAYER MONEY to some damn red cananadian commie hippy bastard when there are honest, God-fearing Americans that could use the jobs!"
Ted Nelson once said: "Any fool can use a computer. Many do."
The proof and wisdom of the above is once again demonstrated by what the meatsack up there said.
So, why is DARPA funding FreeBSD? They want the OS with the best built in security to be even better and widely available, that's why, meatsack.
Beats stuffing taxpayer dollars down the rathole of licensing MS crapola. In the long run, if FreeBSD replaces Windows and other MS crapola in the Federal bureaucracy, that will be a substantial portion of taxpayer money that won't be wasted by lining Bill Gates pockets.
The thought of FreeBSD on every U.S. Govt desktop makes my nipples hard... metaphorically speaking.
Now go away, meatsack. The non-retarded grownups here have better things to do than clean up after your useless little tantrums.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
It's *gnarly*, dude!
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Not at all..
Theo just sent this to misc@openbsd.org:
it may seem like a lot of money, but there are overheads, and some of
the funding was also absorbed by upenn (that is how grants work when
you involve a US university)
however, the grant only runs for about another 6 months.
CD sales are more important now than ever. He mentions that CD sales in the U.S. have been dropping as FTP installs have been rising. Any open-source project will take all the help they can get.
So I kept saying FreeBSD instead of OpenBSD.
Sorry about that.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
That's the best thing a pentagoner could do for military infrastructure.
Remember? In the end Clifford Stoll was working for the CIA and NSA! in a way, that is. And it didn't hurt him. Or them, for that matter.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
But you DON'T want to take out that nutjob that runs North Korea. He said it himself: try to take me out and I'll nuke you.
That's as good a reason as any to leave him alone.
Just my (100% serious) opinion
Hands in my pocket
I guess Microsoft lost its market dominance ?
bombs or other WMDs
Just wondering: do you think regular high explosive bombs to be "Weapons of Mass Destruction"?
Or is this some kind of New-speak on your part?
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
I'm a big OpenBSD fan (own all the teeshirts), but those two items are a big pain in the butt.
You must be wearing them wrong...
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
I don't know what kind of developers he's hiring but for $500,000 a pop -- I'm sending him my damn resume.
I think it's you guys who misunderstand what Theo does... which is threatening to spam the FreeBSD and NetBSD mailing lists through an anonymous remailer when he doesn't get his way. Quit supporting the little crybaby.
Yeah, they did post a follow-up. They still didn't tune half the things they should have, but sendmail on FreeBSD rocked all the other OSs.
I know, I know. Nobody should run sendmail.
Common sense is not so common.
Right, excellent point. It would make sense if he were the only one working on it. You think he mails these CDs one-by-one out of his mansion deep in the bowels of Calgary, or what?
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
Actually I have hired people and been involved with small businesses and I assumed a salary of $75,000 so that's $25,000 for everything else. Most likely these people would not be working in an office, but from their homes. 100% overhead for $75,000 a year position, I'd like to see you even justify 50% overhead per employee, maybe if you make $35,000 but not $75,000. It's no longer 1999, it's 2003. You can take the Aeron chairs out of the budget.
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
Can someone please append to that article's text that the story is covered by the The Globe and Mail and not the National Post (ugh) like so many readers have pointed out already. I mean for crying out loud people, you can read that yourself in the first three lines of the article! Give credit where credit is due.
For those interested in getting some more facts on this. Key points are that this isn't really news.
It's just a story in a "news"paper. The DARPA grant has been going for quite some time now, and
funding will once again be an issue that must be dealt with.
quoting Theo's post to misc@openbsd.org:
so, the article missed a few things
let me clarify a few things that did not make it to the story
the darpa grant started funding us about 18 months ago
sometimes it takes a while for the press to notice
there's a bunch of people, you can probably tell by the stuff they are
working, who are funded from the darpa grant to work full time.
the article does not say what exactly we've been working on it, but if
you are running 3.1, you are using what we had then. same for 3.2.
and when you get 3.3, you will be running some of it. when you get
3.4, there'll be even more.
as well, since it frees up CD sales money, a few other people have
been funded out of that as well.
it may seem like a lot of money, but there are overheads, and some of
the funding was also absorbed by upenn (that is how grants work when
you involve a US university)
however, the grant only runs for about another 6 months.
which is kind of scary, since with the US economy tanking so very
nicely, and at the same time people becoming much more comfortable
with ftp installs, we are seeing massive decreases in cd sales
(massive decrease in sales from the US, but no real decrease from the
rest of the world -- you decide what that means).
at the same time, we are seeing massive increases in ftp installs.
so.. i don't pretend to know what will happen after the darpa grant is
over.
i know we have some more security work, in particular some stuff
extending out of W^X, that we want to do, and that stuff really needs
fulltime people pushing it.
also, i've been informed that the money translates to more like 1.5
cruise missiles.
... I have no idea outside the surface level of what the government wants, but I can assume a logical extrapolation. They have grant and research money by the bucketful, so two mil, while a *lot* is around chump change to the government. Next was they want something, these "computers" seem to be catching on, so "spooky" type places would want them to be "secure". So they look around, see what's on the market, they find openBSD. So great, they like what they see, BUT, government, having all the loot they want, has a lot of multi processor machines, which means their toy won't run on them well yet. Solution is what governments always do, throw some money at it.
And because of licensing, they chose a bsd over a gpl product or over a closed source eula like they have been, because even at the plodding levels governments crawl at, even they can see the thousands of eyeballs looking method works better, more "bang for the buck".
that's my two bytes worth
There might still be tigers. Just because YOU can't see them, doesn't mean they're not there. Just that they haven't gotten to you yet.
The analogy holds for Homeland Security debates, too.
And hell, for all you know, you might actually have a magic rock. But it keeps poisonous cobras away instead. If you don't know all the possibilities, then who are you to say?
Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.
Stop being so hard on him for voicing his concerns. He does this merely to emphasize to the community that OpenBSD is still (and always will be) pig-headed, dogmatic, and not subject to corporate and governmental pressure. And that's the way the project should be.
Also, Mr. de Raadt wants to make sure that those who may receive money realize that they should not rely on these funds, and that DARPA support may be pulled if OpenBSD has goals that conflict with those of DARPA. However, I doubt that this will be the case, since DARPA knows what they are getting into with OpenBSD. If anything, OpenBSD has had the most consistent and specific philosophy of all the open-source OSes. Regardless, OpenBSD development should never be contigent on outside funding, and Mr. de Raadt wants to make sure that this is clear.
Funny, No comment about that this time !
It's worth it even if it costs 10, 20, 100 times the price? It could well be in taxpayers interest (read: all Americans) if they go this road rather than starting something new, or modifying something else. If the US Marine Corps had taken this road, they wouldn't have had their workhorse Harrier Jumpjet, which has so far proven rather difficult and expensive to replace with a homegrown version. I bet the Marines are happy the decision was made all those years ago to buy foreign.
Berkley did a lot of development with DARPA money in the 70's and early 80's. That's how BSD was born. Does that mean Theo should have a moral problem with his own project?
This troll has (apparently) been brought to you by MacJive http://www.hax.com/MacHack/hacks99.html - This looks like someone ran the BSD is Dead post through MacJive and then spruced it up some. That prog is really a riot and anyone running a Mac (esp a pre-OSX box) should waste a day or two playing with it sometime.
That said, the "Slap mah fro!" and "What it is, mama!" (among various other changes) are the giveaways.
That said its still funny as hell, if I had trolled that I wouldnt have been an AC, I would have been proud!
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
Coming soon to an Inbox near you:
Hello, my name is Theo DeRaadt. I am a software deveolper in the frozen wastelands of Canada. Recently, I was awarded a $2 million grant from DARPA, the U.S. military research agency. However, I am unable to access my bank account in the U.S. and transfer my money out of the country. This is where you come in...
Actually the 'did nothing' part on embassy bombings is not true - the US did do an episode of firing cruise missles at suspected terrorist bases in response, including an attempt to kill bin Laden. It doesn't appear to have helped (ok, so one of the installations bomb was a aspirin factory, a classical example of intelligence being only relaiable to a limited extent) or helped to any significant extent.
Really, the proof that the whole Afghanistan affair did serve to curtail terrorist activities is still not apparent, especially with the recent reports of increased re-emergence of Taliban forces in Afghanistan and the failure to capture either Omar or bin Laden.
You are right, thank you AC.
Lasers Controlled Games!
There is no such thing as "no-strings-attached" money. When an individual or organization gives money to OpenBSD they have expectations as to how that money will be used. To the degree that those expectations are met more money will be given. The OpenBSD project should carefully consider their sources of funding and the associated expectations.
For the record, my small donation to the OpenBSD project came with the expectation that they will continue to produce high quality secure software free from the constraints of government. So far they are meeting my expectations and thus I should send Theo another check soon.
I would encourage all open source project leaders to become financially independent. That way they can more objectively look at each possible donation and decide if they want to accept it.
Stuart Eichert
While I disagree with what you say I will defend your right to say it (Voltaire paraphrased).
This comment does not deserve a -1 Troll. If you want to see some real trolls try setting your browsing threshold to (-1 uncut and raw) and you will see comments full of expletives, personal attacks against others' sexual preference, and comments that are wildly offtopic
This AC is not worth the mod points up, or down. Zero is about right.
Sorry for the rant but I've been stewing about unfair mods ever since I started browsing at minus and just hit a boiling point today.