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.

Comments

Theo's comments in Globe and Mail

[LinuxParanoid]

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

Closed-source lobbying

[drosselmeier]

Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but likely the problem was due to lobbying efforts of companies that are anti Open Source. Anyone remember NSA Linux (now SELinux)? It was released and soon thereafter the goverment started backpeddling in the glare of strong corporate lobbying efforts, and decided that they wouldn't release things under the GPL without serious consideration in the future. One company in particular, based in Redmond WA, lobbyied heavily to stop this sort of action, because it inhibited them from selling their 'hardened' software.

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.

This also affects OpenSSL

[Schubert]

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.

theo's mail

[Mentorix]

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

Re:Place to make donations

[datastew]

Here is the actual paypal link: Paypal link.

Re:Go FreeBSD

[Ryvar]

I use FreeBSD on both my server and gateway, but am going to switch my server back to OpenBSD with the release of 3.3, simply because of the features OpenBSD offers. However, I would never move my workstation over from FreeBSD, as the ports make it much a very nice match for those looking for a workstation.

My suggestion, as an OpenBSD afficianado, is to keep your server and workstation running FreeBSD and to shift your gateway/firewall to OpenBSD.

Gateways, firewalls, NATs - these are the things Open excels at. The firewall it offers is quite honestly second to none as of this point in time. As of 3.4, Open will have quite a lead in this realm. FreeBSD kicks the unholy shnikey out of Open on the performance and user front, however, and there's no denial nor excuse otherwise from the team nor the hardcore following of Open.

Just a suggestion, though. Alternatively, you might consider doing what I what I do . . . Open on the gateway and 'insecure/screw-around' server, Free on the heavy traffic webserver for performance, and Gentoo Linux on the workstation. This is just my personal approach, however.

Of course, the fact that you're using BSD on multiple machines suggests you're wise enough to make your own decisions, heh.

--Ryv

Jonathan Smith was a professor of mine

[NSParadox]

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. :)

Support OpenBSD

[xtal]

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.