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DARPA Grant Cancelled for OpenBSD and U-Penn?
Starrider writes "It seems the DARPA grant for OpenBSD and for University of Pennsylvania has been cancelled (?) immediately and without warning. See the full story in Theo's email and on deadly.org." Theo is left to only speculate why funding was suddenly pulled. One also has to wonder what this means for the University of Pennsylvania, since they were also in for a piece of the pie.
You might be king shit amongst a group of nerds but the idea that your opinion matters to the US Government is laughable.
If it was anyone It could have been MS whispering in ears just like they did for SE Linux. Not because of some lame anti war comment you made in a Canadian newspaper.
Grow\Shut the fuck up Theo.
I hope you die painfully and alone.
Too many acronyms!
My head hurts!
An online Starcraft RPG? Only at
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
...maybe, "DARPA Confirms it"?
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!
Go FreeBSD there are more ports anyways.
But really that sucks but the government really shouldn't be funding Open Source Projects it just complicates the release of code way to much.
Is because they read Slashdot and saw the *BSD is dying.
Wait a minute on this... I'm a linux guy, never even touched BSD in my life. And now *I'm* saying "Huh?"
Man, that sucks IMO. I hope it works out somehow.
C|N>K
...they discovered Canada harbors french talking people.
OpenBSD is his project. If DARPA wants to retract their funding, so be it. Good riddance. Theo's intrepid and unwavering ethical beliefs are the reason I trust him to write this OS.
Theo's anti-war comments in The Globe and Mail can be found here. Theo wasn't told why funding was pulled but he suspects his comments there did it.
I don't think it was Theo's comments to ZDNet on "security through beer drinking" which can be found here.
The "oil grab" comment does strike me as a bit uninformed and polemic, but I'll leave that debate for another time. As an OpenBSD user, I'm sad to see the funding pulled and not happy that someone in the U.S. gov't is being petty. (Or perhaps they're just paranoid?)
--LP
I was suprised to see DARPA (which is more independent of this sort of thing in general) giving money of such magnitude to an open product, but I'm not suprised now to see them renig without explanation.
And thus he is a terrorist... or possibly French. I'm not sure whether he's actually foreign or not, but that doesn't matter. That's why they took the funding away. Say no to terrorism... and the French.
Read the whole thread; not everyone thinks it was because of the peace comments. (Not that it would be surprising to this particular slashdotter.)
Something else that ought to be looked at is the Microsoft angle -- in the past they've put pressure on public institutions to avoid supporting open source projects and instead invest in the "free" market. in this particular climate, of jingoism and nationalism, how hard would it be for them to target OpenBSD as a Canadian, anti-capitalist movement, and then to shove a couple hundred copies of IIS under DARPA's nose?
But, then again, maybe I'm misunderstanding the nature of the grant. It is quite possible that DARPA was funding it specifically because of the non-proprietary nature of the software.
My guess? We'll never know the whole story. (But, I've been wrong before. I used to think Enterprise had promise.)
* Corporate lobby (hey, it's a sale-point)
* TIA would be seriously hampered if everyone is very secure
* fear of technology leak into other countries
* other acts of "head-in-ass"
My life in the land of the rising sun.
It's less likely that the grant got pulled for comments Theo made in a Canadian newspaper than for the fact that the government which has assiduously spent the last 18 months dismantling our country's(*) claim to being the Land of the Free finally realized that their vastly-expanding surveillance capabilities would be hampered by increased computing security. Plug pulled, time for Clipper 2.
(*) For values of "our country" == "the USA".
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
So yeah this might hit closer to home to some of you now. The DARP grant was to the U. of Penn. and a chunk went to OpenBSD with another smaller chunk to OpenSSL.
-- schubert
Serves him right for speaking out against Operation Iraqi Freedom (tm).
How can you expect for funds to be available for funding research when:
There's a high profile hunt for probably non-existent weapons of mass freaking destruction?
And when the people who we are casually tossing into the axis of evil decide to hate us for some mysterious reason?
And particularly when we need every cent to make bombs big enough to take out a small Syrian town??
The US government has spent HOW MANY billions of dollars on the Iraq war? They're going to be cancelling as many contracts and grants, etcetc, as possible to recoup some of those costs.
For all Theo has done for the OpenBSD, and open-source movements, I think his 'speculation' is treating his words in the paper a little more seriously than it deserves.
If true, this would most definitely NOT be the first time DARPA ever cancelled a grant...nor would it be the first time they cancelled a worthwhile grant.
Is there a place to make donations, say a paypal account. I wouldn't mind sending a little money to help support.
that Theo's article may have been the excuse, I suspect that there are a number of others. Kind of like when NSA backed off on doing security for Linux. I would not be surprised to see that more of the USA's funding of OSS will only occur if the license is not GPL. Of course, we can fund expensive tunnelling on MS with a closed license.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There are still individuals, as well as companies, that utilize OpenBSD. It has prooven to be quite stable and secure for many. From firewalls to webservers, vpns to ids, personal workstations to x servers. Comments that "BSD is dead" and "noone uses OpenBSD" are purely not true. It maybe a specialized BSD designed for a small niche of uses, but it does what it does and it does it well.
-Cyberhide
- Signature, Not Today.
*BSD is clearly dying. I'm glad the gubmint isn't throwing my money away.
This sucks.
I happen to be an OpenBSD user, having converted most of my systems over to it because of it's tight code base, progressive deployment of features that are stable, and performance on any hardware.
I "came home" to BSD after taking the trip through some commerical UNIX'es and not liking what the InterNet era did to bloat Linux distributions.
OpenBSD, NetBSD, and FreeBSD regularly share code amongst themselves, giving it huge depth in the experiences of talented coders worldwide.
I was happy when OBSD was US-government funded because I thought it was smart for the US to do, adding up what I know about OBSD's security, the talent of the programmers on the whole OBSD team, how tight they work together, and it showed the government took a smart stance on OS security. I had hopes whatever came out of the project would trickle out to the rest of government.
I don't know if we'll ever know why the program was cancelled, but someone should ask @ an official level. It's not about Linux vs. BSD, it's about our tax dollars as US citizens being used in a way we approved of in a project we cared for, and then being yanked.
We deserve and should demand to know why this decision was made and ensure there's no corporate malfeasance in that decision making process.
Contact your CongressFolk today, US citizens, and help show that Slashdotters are a powerful and informed bunch of people.
Mohammed Said al-Sahhaf! How did you ever find your way onto Slashdot?
John Cena took his funding away to buy the bling bling, yo!
Who's biting the hand that feeds them? Not Theo. Theo has class. Theo lost some bucks. That sucks. But here's the thing: DARPA gets a lot more out of Theo then Theo ever hoped to get from DARPA. This is just another example of idiocy run rampant at the defense department. This is the same department, remember, that ascertained the necessity of protecting the Iraq Oil Ministry whilst the relics of civilation's birth were plundered. What's so important about the Oil Ministry? What have they got there? A bunch of loan guarantees with the French, vs. the cradle of civilazation? DOD fuckwit shitwits. These people are so stupid that they will put their own interests at risk in order to spite someone (a very intelligent someone) who doesn't tow their fucked up party line.
Theo will prevail. The current administration of the US DOD will go down in history as infamous self-important crusading intolerant assholes responsible for great world instability and economic chaos.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
I just think that some of the comments made by Theo were less than helpfull in the matter.
Actually, you do have the right to speak freely in the US, just as I suspect you do in Canada. After all, you & your loved ones are not dead/imprisoned/being tortured for what you said.
However...
You did just shoot your mouth off about your employer in a negative way! Not too wise to do that anywhere public, and pretty much just plain dumb to do it VERY publicly in print.
And, lo and behold, they didn't agree with what you had to say (shock, amazement) and they pulled funding.
I hate that you lost your grant money (especially since I like your project and the work you do), but you have no one to blame but yourself.
So no whining.
Refer to the subject of this message if you have any further questions.
Everybody hates the USA, but they sure want those filthy Yankee dollars. What a bunch of fucking hypocrites.
It seems the DARPA grant for OpenBSD and for University of Pennsylvania has been cancelled (?) immediately and without warning.
Does that mean DARPR may be thinking giving a grant to someone who start the "Open Linux"project ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Theo's message follows:
- - - -
FYI,
It has come to my attention that DARPA has cancelled the POSSE program with UPENN, (sub OpenBSD & a bit for OpenSSL) for undisclosed reasons, effective today, without any warning.
My suspicion is this happened because I made anti-war statements in a Canadian newspaper article in the Globe & Mail, but I am not an American citizen so I cannot claim to have free speech there (even made "quote of the day").
In a phone call a few days ago it was expressed to me that there were people inside DARPA and UPENN who were very uncomfortable with the article, but I was not told specifically what upset them.
We have 60 developers flying in from around the world (they bought their own tickets, non-refundable) for a Hackathon May 8 - 20, where we do a major part of our development; since DARPA is now forcing UPENN to cancel those Hotel accomodations, I would be very grateful if anyone can find a way to help us. I'm going to need to pay for it myself, since these people are going to come.
Thanks.
- - - -
The anti-war statements that were made can be found here
--
Full steam ahead, stoke the boiler with more kittens! -- Bluey, Dragon Tails
since DARPA is now forcing UPENN to cancel those Hotel accomodations, I would be very grateful if anyone can find a way to help us. I'm going to need to pay for it myself, since these people are going to come.
You should have rolled your tongue 7 times before getting involved into politics, but it's too late for arguments on that now.
Anyways, how about putting the people flying over on your will and to then arrange an "accident"?
I'm always astounded how people think they have the right to express their opinions and then act surprised when there are repercussions.
If you want to discuss politics, religion, etc., you have to realize that you are going to piss some people off. If you're ok with that then you won't have a problem dealing with things like this.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
I don't know what it means for OpenBSD but it doesn't mean shit for UPenn. Penn Comp-Sci has an assload of cash.
:-). He is a great prof and probably the biggest OpenBSD fan I've ever met though! :-)
Jonathan Smith has so much funding that it wont matter
-Penn Engineering Student
And the Pope might be Catholic.
Forget for a moment that the funding source was the US gov't. Just imagine that the money came from a grant from some generic source with no political or social implications whatsoever. A portion of the money was spent, and many of the goals were already reached. The project lead continued to spend the money, in some cases for purposes that were at best dubious and at worst clearly opposed to the wishes of the grant source. And then he gave interviews where he badmouthed them. Do you think that any group, anywhere, would continue to give money to the project?
This isn't a Big Mean US Gov't story - after all, they had been funding the project with pretty lenient restrictions until now - this is yet another case of a great programmer and leader who has let his mouth get in the way of his work. Theo isn't yet up to the level of RMS, but he is trying Really Hard. DARPA brought the gear, the ball, provided a nice field to play on, and gave the OpenBSD team a chance to show what they could do. After a great start, they decided to hang out with friends, do their own thing, and drink beer out of their helmets. And then they threw dung at the guys in the suits paying for the party. Brilliant. Why should anyone at all be shocked that DARPA took their ball and went home?
I like OpenBSD, and use it on my firewall box. Partly because of the security, and in part because as an also-ran in the OS popularity contests, none of the script kiddies even bother trying to get in. I'll upgrade to 3.3, and maybe even buy the disks to give some money back to the team. But I still think that personally, Theo is a prick, and this time it bit him.
Coders and testers can give back to the Open Source community through pretty obvious ways. Same with tech writers helping with the docs, and lawyers keeping an eye on the licenses and handling privacy and security issues. Any PR or other personal contact specialist folks out there looking for a way to help out? There really needs to be some project full of helpful folks to handle the interface between the socially-deficient techies and the prickly and sensitive people in the outside world, from investors to possible users. I know I need the help when dealing with clients, and clearly I'm not the only one. How about it?
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
You spelled "loose" wrong.
Anyone who has worked in the defense research biz can tell you that it is not uncommon for funding to be pulled. No big conspiracy is required. Generally, the funding agency has funding diverted from them to pay some other government bill. The price of something else, with a higher priority, went up. The funding agency then has to come up with the money. So they grab money from lower priority projects.
Just goes to show all this talk about freedom and free software is great when you're arguing with ComandrKeen69 on /. but free speech hits you in the pocket book when you port it to meatspace...
Ah well. Who cares if some cracker kill a bunch of US soldiers. We sure showed Theo. Why does he think he has the right to free speach anyway?
cancel? franklt some people don't know what the f**k this is all about. This kind of bs just piss me off.
http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html
:)
Incase someone wants to talk from their wallet instead of their mouths
--relevant quote from down the list:
:-)"
....well, that word you can't use in usenet. I've seen enough with what passes for the law and legalities with this junta, they are the rulers, everyone else is a subject. They've been hacking down websites, now they are starting with the ultra violence on anyone who dares to have an opinion against them. Losing cash is nothing in the long run. Screw em, make your OS, and keep your opinions.
"I am not sorry for having said my anti-war stuff, in fact if anything,
this comes to something I said to Ty a few nights ago at the bar: "If
they take the money away, then it was blood money, and I don't want it".
I actually feel redeemed
--good for you theo. It was blood money. The US government has been hijacked and is run by
And quite frankly, the government doesn't want "the people" to have a secure OS, they want "total informational awareness". Can't do that with secure software to the people, can you?
We're seeing it now, assaults on security researchers and developers, assaults on encryption, etc.
I've never run your OS but I can see what's happening, so you must be on the right track. Just lately they've taken down irwin schiff and his tax research, and also the publishers of cracking the code, the expose of the UCC in the US. so it's just not specifically IT. Politics as usual like you would see in any banana republic, just so happens this is turning into a LARGE banana republic, or should I say a "regime"..
Hell, my condolences to these people. This sucks :(
Still, I'm not sure that I can agree with Theo's speculations. Yet that could be an excuse for DARPA. I think we have seen this kind of thing coming for a while now. What I think is that the whole US funding for sci-tech research that do not directly help the WarEffort(TM) is going to be cut, badly. That is, unless it kills people, no funding (almost).
``L'imagination au povoir.''
1) There is no evidence the reason the funding was pulled because of Theo's comments.
2) I think people are missing the point. It was the Department of Defense, not just the US Government that was funding the research. Now, why the hell would you shoot your mouth in a negative way about somebody that is giving you funding--AND then complain about it.
If you care about something strongly enough that you are willing to stand up for it and take the consequences... good for you. But why does he act surprised and start whining when the consequences actually arrive!
In a surprising turn of events, BSD was found lying dead on the side of the road in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I'm sure that we all have enjoyed using BSD-derived code at some point. BSD will be missed. Truly an American icon.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
yeah, and take NetBSD with you.
A deal is a deal. You cannot withdraw the fund simply because you don't like the opinion of fundee. There are two possible reasons why DARPA staff is doing so:
1) They don't like Theo's expression themselves
2) They live in the fear that they may be later invetigated by high rankers for funding an anti-war programmer; after all, DARPA is a branch of DOD.
Either way, it's a sad story. DARTA should have known before-hand that a lot of open-source hackers are idealists.
since the DARPA chief has too much money invested in the secret metal gear projects to invest in a simple OS
While I don't think theo is particularly "rad", I can certainly see why some would. He certainly does nothing half-ass..it's whole ass or nothing!
is DARPA going to stop using OpenBSD?
not bloody likely.
It works both ways, baby.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
First of all, the USA do not "welcome foreigners". I spent _six_ months waiting for a visa when I was invited as a researcher for the Air Force. As a serviceman of an air force of a European Union and NATO country, I find this appaling.
Second, your remark about the "USA and its Western Ethics" are just BillCrap. The USA do not have ethics at all, just the ideas and goals of the government of the day. Like the Bush administration, where certain people at the top are more interested in providing contracts for rebuilding Iraq to their friends in the corprate world, and who are now accusing another country in the Middle East of possesing WMDs yet leaving those in Israel untouched. You talk about US ethics again and I'll just have to laugh at you more.
What does this have to do with a grand for OpenBSD?
Nothing at all. Zero. Zilch. Go buy a cookie.
Fact: DARPA was interested in OpenBSD because if what it can do, or because of how it disallows others to do things that _hurt_ the USA. So how does it help the USA to withdraw funding of a project that benefits them?
Do you think it matters whether a "good" US patriot (I wanted to say: Nationalist (God Don't Bless America)), or Red Chin or a recalcitrant Canadian writes that code? _NO_!!! Either way the USA benefits from that work.
So fuck DARPA, and fuck the USA nationalists.
I'm a student at the University of Pennsylvania, and Jonathan Smith teaches CSE350 every semester (our software engineering course). Last year we wrote a kernel-level firewall for OpenBSD. It was a great course, and he's pretty much the only professor here with any idea what software engineering means.
:)
It's a shame that this grant was cancelled. He could do a lot for the gov's computers.
Now I know why we used OpenBSD in the course and not Linux.
Unless mankind redesigns itself
I was under a mistaken impression on the development.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Registrant: X.com Corporation (X880-DOM) 1840 Embarcadero Road Palo Alto, CA 94303 US Domain Name: X.COM Administrative Contact, Technical Contact: PayPal, Inc. Hostmaster (PI2724-ORG) hostmaster@PAYPAL.COM PayPal, Inc. Palo Alto, CA 94303 Palo Alto, CA 94303 US 650.251.1100 Fax- 650.251.1101 Record expires on 20-Oct-2009. Record created on 20-Oct-1999. Database last updated on 17-Apr-2003 21:30:06 EDT. Domain servers in listed order: NS1.NIX.PAYPAL.COM 65.206.228.70 NS2.NIX.PAYPAL.COM 65.206.228.71 NS1.SC5.PAYPAL.COM 216.136.155.4 NS2.SC5.PAYPAL.COM 216.136.155.5
What makes me angry is that, as an American citizen, DARPA's money is MY money, and they are using it as a bludgeon to silence anyone against the current war in Iraq.
I for one am going to donate money to the project via PayPal. I urge you to do the same.
If you want to help but can't afford to donate, at least send him an email telling him that you support him. It's a lonely road and he could probably use the support.
I advise those DARPA people to pull off their patriotic clothes and gadgets. They should wash their mouth, their ears, their feet, their hands and take a days leave. When they come back, and are not being hindered by patriotic absurdity, they should think again.
Nothing is so narrow minded for your brain, as only doing , thinking and wearing patriotic stuff.
Robert
"I spent _six_ months waiting for a visa when I was invited as a researcher for the Air Force" (snip) "So fuck DARPA, and fuck the USA nationalists" Looks like the INS made the right choice. The day my Government gives asshats like you my cash is the day I vote for the other party.
You're doing it wrong--http://youredoingitwrong.mee.nu
*sigh* Now I need to find another contract. :(
Govt Official: Are you a member of the party?
Researcher: No.
Govt Official: Do you agree with the noble war of defence our noble leader has embarked on?
Researcher: No.
Govt Official: Funding denied. How dare you oppose the Ba'ath Party and the war of defence against Iran?
Same the world over.
If it was an oil grab, an 'informed person' would have to articulate:
why the US would spend $100+ billion to control Iraqi oil revenues that are a twentieth of that annually... surely one could get a higher return elsewhere?
what evidence there is that the U.S. will actually *take* (grab) the oil, rather than leave it for the Iraqis to own and control
explain why the US would rather take oil than just buy it on the open market
under related but alternate theories, acknowledge (or explain why not) why one should be suspicious that US is doing this for oil company contracts, but why that same logic would not apply to French and Russian rationales for opposing the war
explain why the US would act in such an insecure or greedy way when only 10-15% of its current energy usage comes from persian gulf oil (~50% energy usage is oil, 25% of US oil comes from persian gulf)
An 'informed' and fair person would also be willing to acknowledge he was wrong if, 5 years (or whatever) out, the Iraqi's had a functioning democracy and controlled their own oil. Right?
I don't claim to be 'informed'. I don't *know* why the war happened, but the stated reason is pretty decent: old theories of 'containment' don't work when a nuclear-capable state can just slip a nuke to a terrorist and get away with killing millions of people, destroying economies, etc. with a decent chance of not-getting-caught and counter-nuked. With 9/11, it became crystal clear that existing terrorists have the will and the doctrine to do participate in such actions. Nation-states clearly have the will and doctrine to develop nukes. Whether they have the will to pass such material on to terrorists is unclear, but in Iraq's case, the history of invading neighbors, using weapons of mass destruction on Iranian enemies and local Kurds, and a reasonably successful history of deceiving the UN, suggested that the will to proliferate might also be there. That possibility must be stopped.
--LP
I'm ashamed of your gross stupidity
Hilarious!
You're exactly right. In fact, just today I was lamenting the fact that Saddam Hussein is gone. Sure he was an evil murderous dictator, but he kept those people in line. Freedom only extends so far and when it comes to cutting pork projects like this U-Penn grant compared to freeing an enslaved nation, I say more pork for everyone! Of course, I also wish I could still own my very own negro to work around the house, but that whole civil war thing kinda ruined that deal. You know, the one you farking liberal democrats supported so you could keep your niggers working on your cotton fields?
If you like OpenBSD, chip in a few bucks. If it went down the way it did, then that's a shame. I'm a Canadian, FWIW, and it's really too bad this went down like it did. I also run a OpenBSD 3.2 firewall that I love. I can't say that it suprises me though, and it certainly is dissapointing.
If you're an American and don't like this, then write your elected representative of choice. I'll be writing mine, but only because I'd rather see them throw money at these guys than a $1.077 Billion dollar gun registry boondacle. OpenBSD sells boxed sets, and I certainly imagine they'll take cash, too.
I didn't see in the article anywhere you could send a donation to. OpenBSD.org has their own donations page and a orders page for their propaganda and cds and section for donations as well.
If nothing else, OpenBSD will profit greatly from the exposure and free publicity this will generate in the Globe and Mail tomorrow.
..don't panic
Shock and outrage! Theo opens his mouth to bite the hand that feeds him, and so gets no bone? Who would have thought it would happen to such a sweet and affable fellow?
Bah.
Theo's legendary lack of tact and people-skills has sunk him... again. He can fork NetBSD and come out on top, he can fork OpenSSH and win the trademark dispute, he can fork IPfilter after alienating Darren Reed... I don't think he can fork the US Government. (Tho it would be a lot more stable and secure if he did... )
~Soop
Also, if Bush is attempting to solve "root causes" of the terrorist problem, extending democracy in the middle east would seem to be one reasonable approach to take (pursued in conjunction with other actions of course.) It's not the main reason to invade Iraq, but it is a strategic benefit for overthrowing Hussein.
By the way, "regime change" was not some sudden Bush-driven shift in US policy... that shift came in about 1997-1998 under Clinton/Albright, and was a shock to many at the time (also not particularly well explained then either.) Clinton said he'd be the "first in line" so to speak to invade Iraq, even in late 2002. He later hedged his comments to get some dings in on Bush, but his pro-war stance should give thoughtful Democrats pause. If "regime change" was an "oil-grab" policy, an 'informed person' would be acknowledging Clinton's malicious motivations as well.
If I were he I would be more upset that getting that US money makes his ethnocentric "developed outside the US" claims complete rubbish.
Why does anyone feel they are entitled to free money?
DARPA was giving free money to UPenn, of which OpenBSD got some. DARPA decided it no longer wants to give free money to UPenn. Big deal. DARPA and the U.S. Gov't is well within their legal and moral rights to stop giving away free money.
Still, it sure sounds like Theo screwed this up. You'd think he could keep his mouth shut until he cashed the cheque...
Theo- Regardless of the reason behind the dropped funding, I'm proud that you stood up for what you believe in. If it makes me less of an American for believing in free speech, then so be it.
All this Canuck should have learned was to shut his mouth, keep it that way and to not bite the hand that feeds you. It's his loss out of 2 million... sucks to be him.
Theo has a problem because DARPA went back on its promise. He'd have been a lot better off if DARPA hadn't approached him about the grant in the first place. Are you saying that breaking promises this way is a valid form of "repercussions" from the government?
Hey, I've been in on DARPA funded grants before, and I'll tell you, there are a TON of reasons that funding could have been pulled...
....cut!
1) The contact at DARPA changed. This happens all the freaking time. The guy who used to be your bonus baby might have been asked to move aside (or moved up, as the case may be), and the new guy just didn't "get" the project.
2) They expected milestones, or at least reports of the sort that backed up what was being done on the project. If someone was slacking in getting these reports written,
3) Questions weren't being answered in a way they wanted to see. I've seen this too. It's pretty damn embarrasing to watch the funding agency ask legit questions, and then get the runaround on answers. THEY HATE THIS.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
Also, usually the main contact with the DARPA folks are NOT the guys implementing the project. It's the guy who's responsible for the grant. They don't give two rats cheeks about who's on the project, as long as the work gets done.
I seriously doubt they had any idea who Theo was, no matter how "famous" he is within his community. Putting too much stock in anyone's profile besides the guy who wrote the original grant is just grandstanding (grant-standing? heh).
It could have happened for any of the above reasons, or more. When I first hear about this a few hours ago, I looked for it on Slash.... Glad to see the submitter had a level head in posted what he/she did, since until the guy who wrote the grant speaks out, there are no facts here, just guesses.
The only connection between the anti-war statements and the cancellation is in Theo's mind. There is more evidence of a UFO landing at Roswell.
Did Theo see any black helicopters flying over U of Penn that confirmed any of this speculation?
The man in charge of DARPA infosec is Dr. Douglas Maughan DARPA/ITO. Write an email to dmaughan@darpa.mil and ask him politely why he decided to drop funding for this project. The timing of the announcement suggests that it is related to the pro-peace comments made by one of the project's members.
And I am talking from experience. My significant other just found out today that her funding was pulled. She doesn't know why either. (And she didn't make any anti-war statements.)
So Theo shot his big mouth off (he's done it in the past, probably why he's not working on the NetBSD project anymore...) and this time it screwed him big-time. Maybe they'll give the money to an American run project (NetBSD or FreeBSD) to secure those platforms up. This isn't about the money; this was a drop in the bucket. As Theo pointed out, this is barely the cost of a bomb.
I'm ashamed of all americans, thank the monkey gods I'm Canadian
Remember, this is the same guy who's "unwavering" beliefs included taunting clueless users... which got him kicked off the last li'l *BSD project he was on.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
The guy comes over to help the US air force with research, gets nothing but shit on by the government, and you have the gall to accuse HIM of being an "asshat"?
Fuck you. YOU and others like you are the problem with the USA.
But, um, not uneasy enough to return the $2 million BEFORE they took it away? What kind of backbone is that?
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
Do you really expect mommy and daddy to feed and clothe you forever?
Nevertheless, the "oil grab" mentality is at least a bit better-reasoned than you've portrayed:
First, you have to realize that it's not the US Government that directly benefits. It's the energy industry that reaps the benefits. Cheap oil benefits refineries and power plants.
President Bush is heavily financed and heavily influenced by the energy industry. The links are well known, well documented, and date back to his first run for governor of Texas. I'm not saying that Big Oil snaps and the Prez. comes running. But when it comes to complex matters of public policy, a bit of access goes a long way.
Nobody thinks the U.S. is being that brazen. We could never storm in, take full ownership of Iraq's oilfields, and still maintain any more credibility than Saddam did when he "liberated" Kuwait. The UN would go nuts. American voters would go nuts. It simply could not happen.
But imagine playing it out another way. Go in, depose a ruthless dictator whom everybody detests, and set up an interim government. Set up a few service contracts for American companies to improve Iraq's infrastructure. This includes providing some technology critical to developing oil fields. Once the native government takes over, they're likely to continue those contracts out of obligation, need, or just plain inertia.
Sure, I make it sound all smarmy. The kicker is, even under my scenario, Iraq is still better off.
Now, regarding your "return on investment" question: It gets way more complicated when you start looking at the OPM (other people's money) problem. For example, Bush can't help himself to a campaign contribution from the US Treasury. But he can ask Congress to spend Treasury funds in ways that benefit his supporters, which leads to contributions he'll need for 2004. Similarly, if a private company thinks that it will get $1 billion from the fallout of a war, it doesn't care that the US will spend $100 billion. Remember the fool who damaged Berkeley's fiber optic link while trying to steal a copper wire for salvage? Even though the damage done was ten thousand times the value of the copper, for him it would have been money in the bank.
As I said earlier, it would be politically impossible. But the US does benefit from the cheap oil prices caused by an addition of a new supplier to the energy market.
I'm not sure I understand the question.
First, stop thinking of the US as a homogenous blob with clear and unconflicted interests. Don't even think of the government that way. Instead, see that this war does benefit certain interest groups, and that
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Payback is a bitch, eh Theo?
Hah ha ha. Loser.
I wouldn't know where to look to back this up, but it's actually true. I don't suppose C-Span keeps searchable transcripts...
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Also covered at news.com http://news.com.com/2100-1016-997393.html
These paragraphs sum it up pretty well:
"A University of Pennsylvania computer science professor, Jonathan Smith, had originally applied for the grant under the title, "Portable Open-Source Security Enhancements," or POSSE. About $500,000 of the money went to several U.K. researchers to do a vulnerability analysis on OpenSSL, a widely used program for encrypting communications, especially to and from Web sites. A handful of flaws were found, de Raadt said.
Smith refused to comment on the funding, citing the sensitivity of the issue. An email to the POSSE project's DARPA representative wasn't answered.
Earlier this week, de Raadt said he was told that officials from DARPA were concerned about statements appearing in press reports that indicated most of the grant was being funneled to foreign researchers, an apparent no-no for government-funded projects. Moreover, de Raadt believed that the U.S. government took exception to comments he made indicating that the money spent on his project meant that fewer cruise missiles were being built."
Bollocks! Sorry-ass Darpa!
anytime something gets posted to slashdot it finds its way to some senator or president and someone pulls funding for it....
This time it was probably some Republican reader who didn't like it that he was getting cheated by the US grant system.
hyprocrite indian givers
Damn this DARPA! They only fund stupid projects, and the rare cool project that gets through, gets the can! I mean, look at what they did to the Internet! Ohhh, wait ...
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
you do have the right to speek freely ... However... You did just shoot your mouth off about your employer in a negative way...
This is problematic on several fronts. First, this was an acedemic institution project which had its funding withdrawn... if it was done for political reasons, i.e., beacuse of what one of the researchers said, then it is definately, clearly, a violation of free speech. If he was awarded the grant based on the acedemic merits, and the money was canceled due to his political opinions, then this is quiet ugly.
Second, DARPA is not a private enterprise. It is an agent of the government, and an instrument of the people. While a private enterprise may be free to act anyway they want (subject to lots of restrictions _if_ they are publicly owned), the government isn't. It's bound by the constituion.
Thirdly, this is especially important for acedemic researchers, since they are in a trusted position. If publicly funded researchers have to watch what they say or their funding will dissappear... then you have effectively silenced a great majority of them. It is very much a violation of free speech.
Free speech means not only that the government won't throw you in jail, it means that it won't treat you differently from others based on your political viewpoints.
Theo's fat unfiltered trap finally has cost him something big. Maybe he will finally learn to be a little more diplomatic.
What does this have to do with a grand for OpenBSD?
Politics.
Don't piss off the guy with the money.
Its bad business.
All this talk about the money being cancelled because of the war? That's a bit rediculous... it sounds like a kid in soccer explaining a loss by saying "the refs sucked... we shoulda had something called our way".... I dunno, seems like the government could be cuttin corners since there's a huge tax cut on the horizon. I think I saw a post saying "the government doesn't want us to have a secure OS." wow... not much I can say to refute that... its idiotic
I think my principles are reachin' an all time low
We still have Serbia, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and a whole slew of others (France) to go through before the Bush Administration is happy. And don't look to Congress for help, they signed away their voice about a year ago.
Basically it combines their jetpack with a motorcyle.
All you do is picture the jetpack's turbines as the motorcyle wheel.
Rotate the seat 90 degrees.
Then you have a motorcyle/jetpack. Guaranteed these will be made some day.
God spoke to me
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It'
I thought it sttod for Butt Sex Department.
In one or five years, you'll have the opportunity to vote some liberal wank into the white house.
Funny that the peace protestors stayed home when we rolled over Serbia and installed a new government in Haiti.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
That After reading Theo's email I got the distinct impression that he felt he fucked up and the blood money comment was just covering up.
He shot his mouth off and *they* shot back. The shock is that Theo, for once, had to suck it up.
Sigs are dangerous coy things
Is it possible for Theo to modify the license to the openBSD code so that it includes "no part of the US federal government is allowed to use or modify this source code"? I know part of OpenBSD's source comes from other NetBSD's source, but what about those written specificallly by OpenBSD's developers? I know this is being really petty, but still... btw, I go to Penn, and was a TA under JMS before. I had heard that DARPA wasn't very happy about Theo's comments, even before the news came out that they pulled the plug. I've also heard that most of the original grant wasn't going to benefit Theo directly anyway. It was going to go into research into security of OSS against closed source, ...so this is the other side of the story that was not mentioned in the original article.
Here are a couple of dumb ideas for dealing with a president that ends up with a budget deficit:
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
What, specifically are you referring to?
You stand up for him, AND you have a quote of his in your .sig! You sucking his dick too? Fucking?
Inquiring minds want to know!
OMG BIG PENIS ATE MY SOUP
Hey Canada, the good ol' USA could kick your ass and take your country with a troop or
two of Campfire Girls. You all ain't shit.
not 3 months ago they just up and canceled a project a good friend of mine was working on without warning. This was right after he gave a presentation on his latest successful efforts that seemed to impress the sponsors.
Needless to say, he was pissed as all get out.
Apparently this happens a lot... especially in research for information technology.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
Is it just possible that maybe your big fat mouth finally caught up with you and bit you in the ass? You have an excellent OS, but your attitude has always sucked has it not? Serves you right, you have well earned your reputation as a jerk, and now you are paying for it. Finally.
There are a few comments on here that hit the nail squarely on the head.
I particularly liked the one about how he was so reluctant to take the money.
HEY THEO! If you don't want DARPA money so much, then stop applying for it. And yes folks, he was very much involved in the application.
HEY THEO! If it was blood money, it was blood money before they revoked it. Quit being such a hypocritical bastard. Now that the money is gone, I guess you can claim some kind of moral high ground.
HEY THEO! How much are you paying people over there? 2 Mil hires 4 guys? Jesus....hopefully for about 10 years...
This is not a free speech issue. This is a 'Nobody knows why the grant was revoked but Theo is trying to spin the loss as some kind of ethical stand on his part' issue.
And no, whatever the reason turns out to be, Theo will never learn from this or anything else. Why would he, when > 99% of comments on here are just perpetuating the cult of Theo's Ego?
I wish more people on here actually interacted with him, I think you would have a much lower opinion of him.
Why do you think openbsd exists in the first place? Because theo was so worried about security? No, it was because they kicked him out of NetBSD because he is a jerk, and was flaming everyone. He, at one time kept the entire log of emails that flew back and forth when he was being turfed on his website (personal one), which was hilarious, because it makes him look like a huge tool.
Speaking as someone who actually has interacted with him in a 'social' situation, I can say that his legendary social ineptness and ability to tick people off are both true. He can't hold a conversation about anything that doesn't revolve around him, and has the ability to piss off even close friends. Not to mention getting into fistfights while working (at work!) as a sysadmin at the university.
The guy is smart, you can't take that away from him. But any smarter than the average hacker? Probably. The above-average hacker? No. (btw: as others elsewhere have pointed out: what he has done with the netbsd sources is not rocket science. When you do one thing over and over again (look for buffer overruns), you gotta get good at it. Has he done anything that amounts to a breakthrough? no. He has learned from the university environment on how to add your name to other peoples projects though....)
What, specifically are you referring to?1 6bushres.htm
http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/text/10
Just some one who has the countries best interest in mind. Not the interest of my rich friends, or my own anger and revenge.
I'd say something on this, but it would be almost immediately modded to troll status so I'll just save the rest of my breath.
Hahahahaha. God you are so right. Why is it that speakers of the truth ALWAYS get modded down to -1? On a side note, who the fuck gives a shit about some 5000 year old pottery? I say, nuke the whole fucking middle east. Those people will never get along with themselves (or anyone else for that matter), so just do the world a favor and get them the fuck out of here!
Canada, because it opposed the irresponsible activities of the unelected Bush administration, is clearly responsible for Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction" (which, oddly, no one can seem to find) and therefore must not be funded. The same for Theo, even though his work has immeasurably aided US institutions who are seeking to create secure compter systems. Unless they march in lockstep with Fuehrer Bush, they're e-vile and must be destroyed. Sieg Heil!
don't assume to speak on the "majority's" behalf. i would rather *my* tax dollars be spent on a project that gets things done right the first time. OpenBSD has unquestionably proven itself to be the net's most secure OS. (Compare OpenBSD with SELinux wrt vulns & exploits.) Your ignorant nationalism is what's causing the world to hate us.
> I beleive in protecting my own interests.
but your not doing a very good job at it.
to build that half a missile.
Theo DeRaadt statement crimethink. Unproceed grantwise.
Cthulhu loves you.
Maybe you need to get a real job, fanboy. Quit sucking off the
government's tit like a parasite. Work for a living, asshole.
It is a little longwinded but it will really open your eyes.
I see nothing wrong with this policy. Groups who are dangerous to this country should not be allowed on sensitive projects (e. g. those funded by DARPA). This is not a game. The Chinese are a threat to our nation's security. Please read "Spy Suspect Led an Active, Prominent Life".
Supporting anything less than the BSD license is a 1 way ticket to sucking the tit of the government forever. If you have any inclination that following Stallman or the GPL is a better alternative to suckling the government, perhaps you need to think a bit harder about socialism and what it means to follow/support GNU and the FSF.
If Theo was really concerned about DARPA's motives, he should have expressed his opinion by not accepting the money, not by taking it then using the fact that he had taken it as a vehicle for his political opinions.
I am saddened that a silly mistake could have denied the public good the benefit of this funding, but this is the real world - and in the real world - you don't take money from someone then openly question their motives for giving it to you.
If Theo was really concerned about DARPA's motives, he should have expressed his opinion by not accepting the money, not by taking it then using the fact that he had taken it as a vehicle for his political opinions.
I am saddened that a silly mistake could have denied the public good the benefit of this funding, but this is the real world - and in the real world - you don't take money from someone then openly question their motives for giving it to you.
Can You Say Microsoft Lobbying behind Closed doors
"Bitch Sucks Dicks"
No no, they are the Dixie chicks. And they'll perform at your graduation for ham sandwiches.
Lets go back in time and erase the French
Wait that mean Erase the US as it whas the French who made the US a reality
Lets do it now !
last time i checked, others were involved in obsd development besides theo. same goes for linus/linux. why is this important? when theo acts in the capacity of the project lead, he represents the *whole* body of the project's participants. they have indeed granted him an implicit 'license', if you will, to speak on their behalf regarding certain topics, such as technical issues etc. however, i highly doubt they have given him a proxy to broadcast his private views as if they were representative of other developers' views. although not an obsd developer, i always hated it when people attempted to speak for me without my consent, no matter whether i actually agreed with what was being said. the comments may not have had any effect on the grant, but the fact of their existence should be highly offensive to all those who contribute their time and effort to the project. the man who defines megalomania strikes again. paul
1. I strongly disagree with Theo's actions: he shouldn't have taken the money in the first place.
Yes, I know what you're thinking: it is stupid not to take money.
Ever heard about a guy called Fausto?
(the one who sold his soul to Bill G...oops sorry, the Devil).
Don't ever work with or funded by an organization with whom you have major ethical differences. I'm not talking about minor stuff, I'm talking about big differences. In this case there were obviously huge disagreements.
Make a stand for what you believe in.
2. Dude: about your comment, it is obvious that you don't really believe in freedom of speech. Government repression is not the only repression it is just one in an array (java.util.ArrayList, not String[n]) of repression techniques. We have seen a lot of that lately.
The law is not the only parameter. What is happening with the restrain of freedom of speech is plain wrong, it is simply shameful.
Do you really believe in freedom of speech or not?. As a value I mean, not as a law. I'm talking about right and wrong here, not about legal or illegal.
Remember about right and wrong? they came to the world long before law.
Shame on all of you who believe in lynching socially, politically and/or economically those who dissent with the war and then go blah blah blah about the "freedom" that dissenters have because they don't go to jail for their thoughts.
Well, they did give your money to Theo, so...
I expect to see you vote Libertarian next autumn.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
The hijackers killed a disabled elderly American Jewish passenger, Leon Klinghoffer, shooting him and pushing him and his wheelchair over the side of the ship. -Just another guy--A H00q00 ;-)
http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MF
Find the line in the Oslo accords that clears this guy. Please. My eyes are killing me.
== Funny thing about the anti-Iraq war crowd. They end up trying to protect a brutal dictator that has been terrorizing the people of Iraq for 30 years, and none of you seem to care.
Maybe you should have gotten your news from another source other than the Information Minister of Iraq
I think Theo has been right about any technical and licencing issues (i.e. ipf) but cheerist, shut your yaphole when people are giving you badly needed funding with no strings attatched. The war has NOTHING to do with OpenBSD and if the KKK/Hitler/Child Pornographers of America trust fund wants to donate vast sums, take it and run. If someone asks how you feel about getting the money from them repeat after me: "The organisations that have donated money to the project have absoutley no control over it's direction so my personal feelings are irrelevant."
Oh well too late. Loose lips sink ships.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
TDR makes Jehovah Linus look like an emotionally
mature adult.
TDR has got his last set of core patches out of
this AC: until he starts using bitkeeper and
publicly tells the world about how he detests
Perl and loves Tcl/Tk.
"This isn't a Big Mean US Gov't story [...] this is yet another case of a great programmer and leader who has let his mouth get in the way of his work."
How did his comments degrade the code in OpenBSD? The only thing these comments got in the way of was politics, not his work.
Yours and other comments in this thread suggest that if funding was yanked because of his politics, so what of it? Don't be surprized if your political views result in government grants being awarded or denied you, whether you have the best solution or not, right? This attitude is becoming disturbingly common with the present administration & political climate. "Sure, we have vested politicized interests, and we'll use those as a basis for what's the best use of taxpayer's money, so what?" What's next, Environmental Protection Agency grants being awarded or denied on the basis of what your company thinks about the War? NASA contracts going to worse bids because the bidders have agreeable views on opening up the Arctic Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration?
There is a reason "political viewpoint" is not a criteria for who gets tax-funded contracts; it's not only to stop the abuse of power but also to make sure taxpayers are getting the best value for their money.
that Bush is the reincarnation of McCarthy.
I am more and more convinced you would do well by closing all borders and not letting anyone get in or out. The rotten stench would be inhumane, but you would be able to bath in your ignorance and close mindness at will, masturbate to your jingoism, and imagine this, the world be a better place. Not that you care of course.
Sorry
It's kinda sad that DARPA would withdraw their fundings on behalf of an anti-war statement. But I do admire Theo's views. He's probably thinking "Up yours, DARPA" right now.
This is just sooooo typical Theo. His ego gets in the way of common sense and he blows opportunities. This is just the latest example.
There is also a reason why people often lump TDR together with DJB and (sometimes) RMS.
I can only wonder what would happen when you get three persons - each an ego the massivenes of a neutron star - in the same room at the same time.
it's secure, and wietse isn't an arrogant asshole. hes quite pleasant actually.
how exactly does darpa's money silence anyone? it didn't silence theo.
Well theo, I love OpenBSD, but if you get a grant from someone.. you should not attack them. Idealism good Pragmatism Better Tom
Perhaps you should become a CMS
sorryOS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
Secondly, oil companies already could get cheap oil from iraq under the oil for food thing.
Third, if GWB had offered to drop sanctions in exchange for exclusive contracts for american companies I'm sure Saddam would have jumped.
Fourth, installing a democratic iraqi government does little to ensure long term contracts with american companies.
Fifth, if the russians or french had chosen to participate (which we asked them to do), they would probably find the newly-freed iraqi people quite willing to give them oil contracts after a war. However, the only dead russians and french in the country (if there were any) were there providing military support to Saddam's regime. I doubt the french and russians have many big fans in iraq right now.
Finally, the greed motive doesn't work out too well as US support for the war goes. But, it does work as a reason that the french and russians opposed the war (their oil companies were making a killing under saddam and oil-for-food).
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
While understanding what you mean and where you are coming from... you are suggesting Theo change his ways. I have been subscribed to misc@openbsd.org for over a year now and I firmly believe that Theo knows what he is doing even if he lost this money. He stats in a later thread on the misc mailing list that this is actually for the better in the long run (could have happened at a slightly better time like 1-2 months in the future for the purpose of the hotel/hackathon)...
ZERO ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ONE! Just brushing up for my next big invention: Ethernet over Voice (EoV)
I, for one, am glad that this happened. It shows Theo and the other neo-liberals (such as the Slashdot editors) who the boss really is.
A chill wind is blowing through OpenBSD..
Funding is of prime concern to government agencies. If it shows up on the drudge report or bill o'reilly that DARPA is funding a canadian who openly ridicules bush, it could be detrimental to their funding and, for that matter, to their purpose.
Also, I somehow have a hard time believing that if I (american) was receiving canadian research grant money, it would be unaffected if I publicly denounced the canadian government's anti-war views.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
some people _do_ have moral, unlike you...
Theo the Rat strikes again.
... at a request from Australia? :-)
DARPA is a customer. Imagain if you said that you where going to give money to a group or a comapany and they came out publicly and said, "I hate x , I think x is imoral, the should be stopped but I will take their money." Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from responsability. You can say what you want but that does not mean that you may not have to live with what you say. It just means you will not be thrown in jail, beatten, or killed for saying it.
Sorry but this looks like a case of open mouth and insert foot.
Don't feel too bad. Lots of Hollywood actors are in the same situation.
You cannot, reasonably, do everything in your power to piss off the very people that are giving you support(specifcally, money in this case) and make them like it!! Remember that Theo was thrown out of the NetBSD project for being an asshole!?!? This is just par for the course.
But I keep hearing it will help oil companies or Bush's oil buddies. This couldn't be further from the truth since it will actually lower their profits if oil is cheap.
There is not just oil industry in the USA. Look at GM, Cadillac et al. macho toys from the last Detroit Motor Show. They are about to hit the market later this year. Why produce overcapacitated fuel-burning monsters which make battle tanks look underpowered in comparision?
It ain't WMD, 'terrorist links' and 'liberation' BS. It is oil, oil, oil, oil, oil, oil, oil, and more cheap oil that is already in corporate business plans.
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
...being unbiased.
Such phrases as "propaganda tape" and various unsupported allegations does not discredit things at all.
Look at it this way:
If we wanted Iraq's oil and oil contracts we could have gotten them so much easier than waging war. How? Simple, back room deals for lifting the UN sanctions. Of course there was the minor point that the "principled" countries of France and Russia were already trying this route and had billions of dollars in contracts lined up with Iraq if the sanctions were removed. (Not to mention all the money that Iraq owes Russia for military equipment.)
If you want to run around shouting about how money taints the whole picture then you need to look at how money was already tainting the picture.
(Oh yeah, don't forget that illegal pipeline running black market oil out of Iraq into Syria. Didn't you ever wonder where Iraq got the money to rebuild banned weapons systems and buy/build a new rocket [the Al-Samoud II] if they were under tight economic sanctions and only allowed to sell oil for food?)
I suppose those are just awkward little facts that should be ignored to make the conspiracy picture look better.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
From the article:
Because DARPA does not directly fund projects outside the United States, it is Mr. Smith's computer science department that received the grant, although most of the money -- $2.3-million -- flows through to Mr. de Raadt's project.
So, in this case, Mr. de Raadt was, at best, a subcontractor for the project and not the direct recipient or spokesperson for any of the money. In fact, the problem may be whether or not it was allowed to spend DARPA money in this fashion.
I suppose it sounds great to think that it's a whole "the current US government is evil beyond words" conspiracy that is yanking this project. In fact, it could be simply a contract procedures screw-up on the part of Mr. Smith.
At the very least, I guess we should try to find out a little more details about the whole thing before flying off on the whole conspiracy angle.
On second thought, where's the fun in that?
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Government bodies do pull money on projects in order to make ends meet, and its a US government which has dropped many schools, a complete health program and a lot more in equivalent value on Iraq. The OpenBSD funding may just have been converted into a couple of missiles instead.
Theo can still have the last laugh, I dread to think how many holes in common government used software the OpenBSD audit team could find in one hackathon.
The phrase "Saddam gassed his own people" are getting tiresome. Saddam gassed the seperatist kurds in northern Iraq.
I suspect it is repeated over and over again to somehow draw attention away from the fact that NATO member Turkey are responsible for several massacres in the same area. At least they're not killing "their own people", right?
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
I agree 100%.
And Brazil should quit buying Microsoft products.
UK government should stop using AutoCAD.
Australia should give up on Photoshop.
Germany should stick to SuSE.
Protectionism is tricky business, ain't it?
You should never slap the hand that feeds you. Open mouth and spout off ==> means "no funding for you!"
why the US would spend $100+ billion to control Iraqi oil revenues that are a twentieth of that annually... surely one could get a higher return elsewhere?
It would have been easier to just take Canada than Iraq.
Canada has more oil, easier logistically, and the Canadians would have put up an even lesser fight than Saddam's regieme.
Last, but not least, any civilian casualties would be guilt-free.
... it doesn't matter in the long run as long as you enjoy what you do and do what you enjoy.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
it kind of sucks because the funding was really badly needed
it kind of doesn't suck though because who wants DoD's blood-soaked money anyway unless it's going to be funneled into something righteous
Not that OpenBSD isn't righteous but DoD uses it indirectly in the business of killing people so it doesn't count
OpenBSD is amoral, not necessarily righteous or evil
OpenBSDs advances to security are generally propagated into other BSDs and sometimes even other OSes.
:-(
Can we say openSSH (how many installed copies? millions?) and OpenSSL (heeelllloo? Where would E-commerce be without it? still in the land of "fax your order here" me thinks
The US gov need to understand that if they want tighter IT security in the US (so BinLaden doesnt "Start->Shutdown" Wall Street) they need to fund grass-roots development, the kind that the big companies like IBM, Sun and Dell then take up and propagate to the masses.
Three cheers for Theo - Hip! Hip!
To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. - Theodore Roosevelt(1918)
--I know I didn't. I was running a newsletter then and quite clearly wrote against it. I also wrote about the evidence that the KLA whom we supported in their invasion of yugoslavia were muslim extremists who had narco terrorist ties, which has since been proven. they were joint CIA/ al queda "assets".
Background. Albania was going through a civil war, in three years time so many refugees from albania had invaded a province of yugoslavia-kosovo-that they constituted a clear threat to yugoslavia. what happened then was a dirty war obviously, with both sides engaging in some serious *not* nice behavior. there was also some serious high level drug and arms and slave trading gang warfare going on in that region, the players included russian gangs, turkish gangs, serbian gangs, albanian gangs, with various spook agencies involved from various nations. The opium grown in afghanistan got mostly smuggled through the balkans on the way to europaen refinement factories. It is worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year. That doesn't include the arms and slaves. There is also an angle with the mines there, the largest in europe. It's more complex that just one side over another.
As to domestic politics, near as I can see there is little practical difference between the democratic mafia and the republican mafia, and most of the time they actually co-operate with each other to stay "in power" and to keep the mass scams and frauds running.
I stay independent, vote independent, and I still vote even though I know it's entirely corrupt. It's an hour or so to go down and vote, no big deal to me, at least I DO vote, unlike the 50% of the drunk flag waving fools out there right now.. Basically I'm a constitutionalist, and a strong second amendment "born-with" rights proponent. I won't be voting for anyone with a D or R next to their names, and haven't for years, got no use for liars, crooks, thieves or murderers to be "the regime". On small local levels you can make a difference, and there are still a lot of good concerned people in politics there, above that level, nope, the fix is in and it's too corrupt to fix without getting rid of those two parties completely, they've gone too long now into corruption, IMO. Clinton and his regime were corrupt, the Bush crime family is corrupt, and etc. It goes way back, took me many years to get the full ramifications of how deep it gets and is. A lot of it comes from private personal anecdotal revelations, so I really can't talk about it much other than there's NO way I could support either of those two parties.
YM obviously MV My observations and opinions come from working politics heavy since 1964, and paying attention to what actually happens in the short, medium and long runs as opposed to what is said by various politicians and their "party" supporters.
--sure, it's bad, and until you have become a victim of the government it will remain theoretical to you. I was made a victim, twice, took me many years to deal with it, a lot of time and angst. How far do you want to take it, death threats from government workers in an offical capacity? Been there. Know about high level crimes and try to get them remedied? Been there. Seen high level crimes including murder and arson for profit including manslaughter done by and covered up by governmental workers, and then them get away with it? Been there. It's not theory and cute academic exercise to me, and I'm interested in cleaning up my own nation, any other nations deal is not as important to me and has little relevance to what I meant, and I frankly have never had much desire to go live anyplace else, NOR do I want this nation to keep sliding further into the "dark side" like it obviously is now.
Now tell me again why that position is so wrong?
Well let's face it. This was a military grant.
So... can you blame DARPA? I can't. As far as I
am concerened they did the right thing.
And... If he felt this way he should not have accepted the grant. Instead he was a hypocrate according to his own convictions.
How about CNN?
i rq .abbas.arrested/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/15/sprj.
What was going on was _illegal_ and the article stated as much. Routing money around congressional restrictions (such as hiring foreign workers on internal security project) is not what DARPA should have done. If there was a issue with DARPA, I garuntee, it was that some congressman or staff noticed it and came down like a ton of bricks over DARPA's trying to flit the rules.
And theo was stupid enough to actually quote it. Gotta love it.
"We're not doing anything for them. They just fund us to do what we do,"
This seems to be a key phrase in my mind.
So now they can continue to do what they do and they'll have less beer money, since they'll have to pay for everything else themselves once again.
Just wondering, how is this going to affect the development of OpenBSD? The mailinglist messages state there aren't sleeping places for the developers attending the hackathon (yet), but besides these problems, do you think there will be major development problems? OpenBSD started without funds, and now it has to continue the way it began, is this really such a Bad Thing?
In need of reliable and affordable server monitoring?
Okay, I have connection problems to Slashdot, and apparantly, the body of my reply got lost. Let me try to re-post it:
Just wondering, how is this going to affect the development of OpenBSD? The mailinglist messages state there aren't sleeping places for the developers attending the hackathon (yet), but besides these problems, do you think there will be major development problems? OpenBSD started without funds, and now it has to continue the way it began, is this really such a Bad Thing?
In need of reliable and affordable server monitoring?
I've got connection problems to Slashdot.org all morning now. When I submit a reply it /. only receives the subject, not the body. My apologies for the empty messages :-/
Original message:
Just wondering, how is this going to affect the development of OpenBSD? The mailinglist messages state there aren't sleeping places for the developers attending the hackathon (yet), but besides these problems, do you think there will be major development problems? OpenBSD started without funds, and now it has to continue the way it began, is this really such a Bad Thing?
In need of reliable and affordable server monitoring?
--there's two points of view that are both correct. Victims of governmental abuse feel the government is much worse than people think, from personal experience. the converse is true, people who only have a theoretical notion of abuse tend to think it's not all that bad. From my point of view, I can state it's worse than most people think. this is correct. From someone else's pov, someone who has never had a serious run in with abuse, they probably won't feel the same, which from their perspective is *more* accurate than mine. People who do a lot more research are easily able to uncover more examples of abuse, so their perspective changes to a view that the government is more "dark side".
That's just how it is, and to ME, I think a comparison with any other government is irrelevant, because I *live here* not over there someplace, and have a good fundamental grasp of what my born-with rights are supposed to be, as opposed to how government mandates them to be and especially to the false advertising they use in mass psyops programming of the population.
It's extremely difficult to become aware of the depth of brainwashing that anyone "you" might be laboring under, especially for people with higher IQs, just a fact of life that people don't like to admit they have been scammed, or that their belief structure is incorrect, even with data to show that it is. It took me quite a few years , even after getting hip to some fairly big lies, to realise how deep the indoctrination goes, and in how many directions. I feel it's a life long learning experience, and try to not get "stuck" in any particular belief, and especially into thinking one "party" is so much better than another, or that the US is always the "good guys", when they clearly are not. and none of that is in any way related to some other nation, again, I live HERE, not THERE, two completely different subjects.
My gestalt is if I hear some redneck tell me if I don't like it here that I should move over there some place, I can point at someone still under mass brainwashing. I think not being able to see your own nation's faults is like ignoring the oil pressure gauge on your car when it's reading abnormally low, ya, it'll keep moving for awhile, but better to stop, turn key off, see what the problem is before proceeding. I'd feel lame to just think "walll, I drive me a belchfire, they the besterst cars in the world, I can ignore that gauge". That's car jingoism. It'slame. but lately we are being almost ordered to ignore the political oil gauge. I think we've been ignoring the gauge far too long, and that political car is going to self destruct, then it WILL be excactly like one of those other nations we point to and laugh about and say they have a one party dictatorship. If it ain't fixed now while it's easy, it won't be fixcable, that's the two choices we have, and so far after 'voting" and watching politics for almost 4 decades, it's much worse now then it was back then. Not even close, orders of magnitudes worse, and we have the same tired "solutions" being offered by the same tired bozos.
The light side is a constitutional government, where the people run the government. The dark side international big business and a professional bribed politician class,both of whom are chronic serial liars and conmen, and them masquerading as two alleged "different" political parties. The dark side is voting in the crips and bloods every election, in whatever proportion happens,that apparently really never matters, and thinking that you'll get anything but a criminal gang running things. and then every two and four years the same guys just insisting that if just one more time you "vote" for them that things will automagically change for the better.
It's just nuts. I don't believe in the dark sides promises any more. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 6987 times, shame on me and maybe I should go back to working towards the good side and call the dark side for what they are, conmen. It's a junta we have now, and imminently into an
If you have a look at the files in Microsoft's Interix product (part of Windows Services for UNIX) you'll find that a goodly part of the userland code is derived from OpenBSD... and the compiler shipped with it is GCC.
Not only is OpenBSD a resource for Microsoft, but it has a very small market share, and I'm sure Microsoft sees it more as a Nader-like "spoiler vote" in the open source community than a threat.
No, I don't think you need to look towards Redmond for this. There is an enormous amount of pressure on people expressing anti-war sentiments in the US today, particularly in big companies. You see people dance around the topic, teasing out their co-worker's opinions and making sure it's safe to say what they feel.
This is just more of the same.
The Danish constitution also protects free speach, but here it only means that the government cannot stop you from publishing your opinions. There are no constitunional guarentee that they will not put you in jail afterwards. And in fact they will, if your opinions are racist or against groups of specific ethnic, religious or sexual orientations.
For you Americans out there who plan to talk with their Senators & Representative (or staffers thereof), it'll probably be a good idea to tell them the problem is with
and would they please get you an answer as to why money is being kept from this worthy cause. Maybe even mention that it's in aid of cyberspace security. (If you need a pointer, see the House of Representatives and the Senate websites; they'll point you to the people you want to get in touch with.)After the phone calls (or instead of, for The Majority Of The World), send money to the OpenBSD donation site (It's the third ``purchase'' from the top). You can even buy yourself a goodie or two while you're there.
My money's on the way already. I wonder how much of the grant we can replace. Now for those phone calls...
I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one. -- desert rain on http://www.dailykos.com/user/
Larry Cohen over at Cryptonomicon.Net has published this story questioning the commonly accepted belief that Theo de Raadt had his DARPA funding pulled because of Anti-War comments. The story makes the interesting point that SELinux and TrustedBSD are home-grown projects, while OpenBSD (and de Raadt himself) are more international. Mr. Cohen also mentions that FreeBSD is "more mainstream," which I guess means that it has more mainstream users. I guess it's a good point that we haven't hear comment from DARPA or from Jonathan Smith at the University of Pennsylvania. This leads to the question, is all this anti-war / free-speech hubbub just sour grapes?
Yet you don't point out what they were.
I'm saying that the US government's evaluation of what is and is not important is skewed by corporate interests.
What interests are skewing the evaluations? What evaluations are wrong? Be specific. General statements just don't cut it.
Primarily because it is a false dichotomy. Those were not the only two choices. We could have just stopped the sanctions a long time ago.
First, I believe I offerred more than two choices. Second, what would have happened if we simply stopped the sanctions? The sanctions were in place to punish an aggressive nation. You may recall that Iraq invaded Kuwait and caused massive amounts of damage to the country as they were being driven out. So, do we just say: 'don't do that again' and hope for the best? Also, dropping the sanctions wouldn't have removed the "issue" that Bin Laden was playing on. The only way to do that would have been to remove all US military presence in the area. So were we supposed to simply recall all of our troops and wait for Iraq to invade another country?
Now you go an flip-flop about who's running the show and talk about the American "Regime" instead of Corporate America (who's in charge?):
that kind of statement combined with his current penchant for locking up Americans accused of being terrorists, without even a trial is incredibly chilling of criticism
So far there have been a few cases of US citizens being detained as "material witnesses" not as accused terrorists. They are getting tons of publicity (like the Mike Hawash story) so while this is something to be concerned about I doubt we're days away from the secret police making people disappear (like they do in Iraq).
Let's see, I'm being accused of being selective in my reading and you point to the CNN/Time poll. Let's read that a little deeper:
Another poll released in February asked, "Was Saddam Hussein personally involved in the September 11 attacks?" Although it is a claim the Bush administration has never made and for which there is no evidence, 72 percent said it was either very or somewhat likely. (emphasis added)
So, how can the "NeoCon's" be guilty of this when they weren't running around making the charge? If you read further into the article you can see that a lot of the criticism is being directed at the very news people who created the poll and report the news.
And on to the "pre-emptive" baloney:
But, the long term results for the US of that operation are highly suspect. We've now given the imprimatur of legitimacy to an international policy of pre-emptive strikes.
This is such a load of horse hockey it's not even funny. Iraq was in violation of more than a dozen UN Resolutions and their cease-fire agreement. They were given 12 years to try to get their act straight including a final UNANIMOUS resolution stating that Iraq was in "material breach" of all resolutions and saying that they faced "serious consequences" if they remained in breach. Everyone agreed (including Dr. Blix) that Iraq's weapons declaration was incomplete and this was listed as one of the criteria they had to meet to avoid being in breach. The US went out of its way to gather internation support for the actions. The fact that they couldn't get it was more a result of the hypocritical actions of the other nations (which you simply try to ignore except when it comes to the lack of their approval) rather than any "Corporate NeoCon conspiracy" in the US.
So, do yourself a favor. Drop the NeoCons/Corporate Conspiracy bluster. Go to the facts and work from there. The facts are pretty straight forward.
1) 9/11 changed the whole calculus as far as national defense goes. It also showed that the threats to the US no longer came solely from nation states.
2) Some of the actions of the US government in reaction to this (the Patriot Act in particular) have been horrible over reactions. These acts were passed by all the members of the House
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
half a cruise missle.