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

I stand behind Theo

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I stand behind Theo

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're a bit confused. Unless you are making sweeping accusations and a "guilt by association" claim, in which case you are an absurd purpose and possibly just a silly little person.

First, money is a common denominator in many aspects of society. It is, more or less, simply there as a value marker. We could dwelve deeper into this, but the reality is, it is a fundamental and agreed upon method of exchange, here work/code.

When the project took to the DARPA grant, it was money to improve the OS. No questions as to politics or motivation. Money for code and effort. Hopefully, by now, anyone with two neurons realizes that technology can cut both ways and it depends on the use of that technology that provides evidence of right or wrong (i.e. crypto, a knife).

When Theo took the money, it was to improve OBSD. There was shared purpose between Theo and DARPA that matched and hence the transaction was to take/took place.

When DARPA removed that money, it was (allegedly) for political reasons, not (seemingly) because of loss of common ground on what was to be worked on (e.g. loss of security, features, timetable, etc.). Unless they stupidly believe Theo's antiwar sentiments would cause a decrease in quality code (absurd).

To be consistent, they should pull Bill Gates into a hearing and ask him in detail his war views, and if not agreeable, pull the plug on all MS sales. Same with Linux--if Linus is antiwar in any way, Linux should be chucked.

Really now.

There is nothing hypocritical about Theo's statements. He stated his views on his own time, in another country, and did so DESPITE the grant. That's not hypocritical; that's clear cut freedom of expression and conviction. I hope you haven't forgotten that, because if you are a fellow American, you need to check your own logic at the door. He didn't tone down or water down his statements because he had a grant; that would have been more in line of being "bought".

Or do you believe grants are exclusively decided on the basis of political motivations (undoubtedly a factor though), not the technical ability or the job done?

Essentially stating that he will state his views on matters that have little to no bearing on what was agreed to is principled, and sticking to them even now (e.g. take back the blood money since that has become clear _after_ the fact) continues to be principled, not hypocritical.

If the color of his language after having the grant rejected bothers you, you really should consider that the money was removed after unfavorable comments, which is the real color here, in that it colored the money has pro-war or only for those that support the war...which is not something that I think was probably part of the grant application (if for the war, check here?).

I am further bothered by your snipe since it sticks of guilt by association. As a Republican, I see this too often. Dems label, Reps label, blah blah blah. Get over it. Unless you would agree that, say, everyone who supports Linux also supports China and it's antihumanitarian ways (guilt by association). Unless you would think that DARPA made it abundantly clear that their grant has direct political pro-war motivations (hardly, unless you want to be called a hypocrite yourself, you use the Internet, which grew directly out of such funding).

Rather, it is more likely you just transposed your feelings of the US government on anything with some whacked political motivation and want to twist this as a bad thing by bouncing it off of Theo's (laden) reputation.

For me, it is abundantly clear that the money for code/effort in grant form went beyond the grant. The money was given only for those that support the war, since it was removed _after_ Theo put foward his antiwar sentiments. Last I heard, that wasn't part of the grant application process.

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.

Re:Closed-source lobbying

[mkettler]

Although it's somewhat off-topic, despite the lobbying SELinux is still going. They just made an updated release April 7th, a mere 10 days ago.

http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/news.html

Thus, I don't think DARPA has any issue with the open/closed sourced-ness of it.

It does however seem reasonable for a branch of the US DOD to not be wanting to fund someone that is critical of the US military. Wether his statements are true or not is another matter, but it would seem odd to for the DOD provide funding to a non-us citizen that criticizes the DOD. I'd expect them to have been taking a lot of political flack about that.

Re:Go FreeBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

the idea, as i understood it, was that the grant would help to facilitate development, but the government would not be able to direct the flow of that development. the openbsd people would continue to do the same thing they had been doing, but would be able to bring on more full time programmers.

additionally, openbsd's drive isn't to make an OS with tons of ports (as they, arguably, do much to hurt security of the local machine), but rather a mature, stable, and secure operating system. 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.

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

relevant quote

[zogger]

--relevant quote from down the list:

"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 ....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.

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"..

Re:couple things

[mosch]

Has anybody looked at the Theo De Raadt is a huge fucking asshole angle? In the past he's managed to build walls between himself and the rest of the world, and perhaps he just did it again.

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. :)

Re:Huh?

[AKnightCowboy]

Well, best as I can figure it, Saddam is dead, Iraq is free, Afghanistan is free, Al Qaeda is destroyed, and international terrorism has been eradicated. DARPA has no more need for secure operating systems now that cyber-terrorism threats are no more.

Meanwhile, in some other part of the country, some contractor for DARPA is placing an order for $5 million worth of Microsoft Office because the damn thing keeps saying it's not activated. Our government really needs to get its head out of its politicians' asses.

Re:I don't know what to say...

[Almost-Retired]

Neither do I. And while I'm a bit abivalent about this war from the standpoint of the weapons used, such as the depleted uranium cannon shells, thats not germain to this particular subject.

What is germain is that DARPA issued a grant to fund a major effort at improving this particular OS, one that already has a decent reputation for being secure, airplane tickets were bought and paid for out of the expectation of receiving the grant in a timely manner, plus accomodations arranged for. All of this costs money.

To then have the grant canceled just because the head honcho made his views known on the war is being petty beyond belief!

I have no idea who is responsible for this, but if this person can be identified, we, the tax-payers of the US would most assuredly like to interview him for the public record, and so that appropriate changes in the funding of DARPA can be arranged in congress.

Its not out of the realm of possibilities to arrange to have this persons salary removed from the DARPA budget by congress.

Its been done at least once before when a Richard Davis at the BATF, who was espousing a national gun registration scheme, had his salary removed from the BATF budget by a nearly unanimous vote of both houses of congress, now about 25 or so years back up the log.

Who else feels as I do on this, and could afford to offer a bit of help, it sure sounds like Theo needs it right now!

That, and let us see if we can find out who made that decision. IMO this person needs to see how _real politics_ is played.

--
Cheers, Gene

Re:I don't know what to say...

[ScooterB]

While I do empathize with your anger and would love to see the guy responsible face the wrath of the public, I must say this is not an isolated event. The DoD has put my employer quite in a similar situation a number of times. They would compete a contract, award it, and then decide not to fund it, essentially canceling it before it began. I have a feeling that it may be just another one of those events that have occured rather than something more sinister.