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More on OpenBSD Funding Saga
Mortimer.CA writes "The OpenBSD Journal has an article with more info on cutting of the OpenBSD funding. It seems that the funding was partially cut due to worries about "capable nation-states". Also Mark West asked the hotel to cancel all reservations for the upcoming "hackathon" -- even though many of the arriving developers have non-refundable tickets, and would have no place to stay. Jonathan Smith also probably had something to do with the decision. If you would like to voice your opinion to these individuals, please be clear, extremely professional and courteous. Flaming and being childish will only hurt OSS. Also, please think about donating or ordering something to help the project along." DARPA, which initially denied that it was cancelling the grant, has now admitted it. Although de Raadt seems to be upset with how his UPenn contacts are handling the cancellation, it's DARPA that is ultimately at fault, not the UPenn people.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Maybe I'm just not up to date on the Bill of Rights, but I don't see anything that says the government is requied to foot the bill for all research projects. It's not like DARPA is saying "Work on OpenBSD again, and we'll ship you off to Guantanamo Bay and hold you as an enemy combatant". Nor are they saying "Hold your Hackathon, and we'll make sure you get visisted by the FBI". All they're saying is they're not going to foot the bill. Sure, the reasons they give may be stupid, and counter-productive, but there's nothing in the Constitution that says the government has to be smart.
Don't get me wrong - I think the way it's being handled is terrible. It sucks for them to cancel hotel rooms for people with non-refundable tickets (unless the university was paying for or subsidizing those rooms - then they have every right to do that). It sucks that it was done at the last minute. It sucks that DARPA was not initially forthcoming with information about this. It sucks that it's cancelled for stupid reasons. However none of this was ever guaranteed by the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Even the "anti-war" statement issue isn't really a first ammendment problem. The government did not prevent Theo from making those statements. They did not throw him in jail for making those statements. They didn't censure him. If indeed his statements are the cause of the funding loss, it may be underhanded, but it's not unconstitutional. The government cannot prevent you from expressing your displeasure with its activities, however they are under no obligation to pay you while you're doing it.
Now, maybe I'm missing a critical piece of information. Maybe the government really did say to Theo "If you work on OpenBSD, with or without our money, you go to jail". If so, then you bet your ass that's a Constitutional issue. But I don't think that's the case. It's unfortunate that people cry "First Ammendment" every time the government does something that they don't like. That only serves to discredit the folks who actually have suffered due to First Ammendment violations.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
I'm sorry, since when is receiving a research contract a "state benefit"? People around here seem to be confusing DARPA with a charity!
If I had to say, I'd have to guess that this whole kerfuffle is over issues of export compliance. Like it or not, DARPA is part of the DoD is is obliged to deal with all of those (yes, very stupid) ITAR rules. My company has quite a number of DARPA contracts and we have to file these silly "export complaince" forms for every foreign national (non-citizen/green-card holder) that works on a contract. As a US citizen, I had to sign some form saying I understood what could and could not be exported.
Now, directly funneling money to a bunch of unknowns working on crypto technology in Canada is going to look pretty darn funny to a lot of people in DoD and congress. I'm not arguing that it's right or wrong, but DARPA is NOT going to capriciously break the rules that they have to operate under, that's just how it is.
All this whining about what they "should" and "should not do" is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. DARPA/DoD is not some church with high moral principles: they are a bureaucracy just like the IRS, the NSF, your state government, or your local school or college and you can't expect them to behave any differently.
people will hate anything easily enough, that's not a difficult weed to cultivate.
I read that T.Deraadt email thread when I first looked at OpenBSD, and my initial impression was that Theo had a real baaaaadddd attitude. I do know for a fact that a lot of the NetBSD folks were upset to see him leave and fork off his own version of the OS, and to lose him as a developer. But in reading his email he obviously has a problem with taking any criticism, and had no problem with jumping down someone's throat with a flamethrower and foul language. Denial, its not just a river in Egypt...
Not that I wouldn't use OpenBSD, or any other operating system that met my technical needs, whatever the personality of the people involved. I've dealt with enough bad attitudes from commercial OS vendors in my years in the industry to be able to deal with it if I have to. It just seems that *BSD has an extra heaping helping of bad attitudes that make commercial vendors look like pikers.
If you *really* read that email thread, you would see the attitude loud and clear. "We don't think that it helps anything for you to tell someone he's a f**khead when he's posting a message trying to help with the OS development." "F**K YOU, *I* want control of the source and if you don't like it I'll fork my own off!"
That's my impression of it... He sounded like an immature little upset kid to me. The development of any of the O.S. OS's is a group effort, and having one person think they have all the answers and have to be the one in control is dead wrong. So, now he *has* control of his own fork of BSD, and lost the ability to maintain many of the various platform ports because he has no developers. Thus, the OpenBSD page says that for a VAX port, for instance, "support can be easily ported over from NetBSD". Why these problems are so prevalent under FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD remains something of a mystery. These systems seem to be self selective in their attraction to weirdos and big egos.
The split had nothing to do with the quality of his coding work, and everything to do with his nasty attitude towards people... and NOT just the people of NetBSD Core, but other people who were just civilians trying to help out, or looking for help. No wonder BSD has lost.
DARPA is funding plenty of open source development - like PMD. Props to DARPA for the help!
Yours,
tom
The Army reading list
Maybe they shouldn't have spent money that wasn't in their hands yet...
It's ok to complain about the cancellation of funding, and it's even ok to be mad at DARPA, but it's not ok to blame them for your expenses.
If you spent money before they paid you, you were foolish.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Perhaps I'm missing something here but the last reasonable explanation I read on this was that DARPA pulled the funding because the money was being funnelled to a non-US organization. The rules of the grant were that it was to fund research in the US. The university was being used to launder the grant money so that it could be sent to a non-US location.
Sounds to me that:
1. Theo de Raadt shot his mouth off on at least 2 things:
a. His opinion of the war; and
b. Who was supplying the funding.
2. DARPA pulled the money because it was being misappropriated by UPENN per 1.b above.
You may not like the results but DARPA does appear to be in the right.
BTW - I do live in Canada and I am buying a BSD CD.
Why did DARPA fund OpenBSD in the first place? Chances are pretty good it wasn't because they liked Theo. Probably wasn't because they agreed with his views. People just don't dump millions of dollars around because of warm feelings. Clearly it saw a degree of merit in OpenBSD's development, and saw a need for an OS as secure as OpenBSD.
Now how does Theo's dislike of bombs decrease the need for a secure OS? Screw this "biting the hand that feeds you" stuff. Yes, that's the case here, but talk about childish! Theo's work is in the best interest of DARPA, otherwise they never would have funded it to begin with. Regardless of his personal views, his work remains relevant and should be treated as such.
Just think about this. Would Microsoft dump support for Intel because Intel's CEO likes broccoli and Gates can't stand it? No? Then what's the difference here? Oh yes, granted, Theo's comments hit a little closer to home than the broccoli argument, but chances are pretty decent that MS and Intel could slander the living crap out of each other and never see a dime's difference in cash flow. Why? Because they need each other, just like DARPA has need of OpenBSD.
IMHO, this cutting of funding is "deeply stupid."
That's "cover your ass" ... UPenn is the party "at fault" in the eyes of DARPA (I'm speculating of course) because they are the ones who farmed out the work to a rowdy anti-war Canadian. So what happens at UPenn when the canuck mouths off to the press? All too predictable. Think about it.
... that's a lot!
...)
- UPenn wants to keep getting government money
- UPenn just lost $2.1 mil
- UPenn decides to totally overreact so that they can go back to the government later and say they had no idea, they would never condone such a thing, etc., etc. etc.
In other words, UPenn pulls a CYA. They don't want anything to do with Theo anymore. They pull extreme prejudice in cutting him off just to prove to the Feds how much they were shocked, shocked, to find that Theo de Raat was so outspoken (please
So, yeah, sure, blame the DARPA, but blame UPenn for being deliberately ungraceful in order to curry DARPA favour.
simon
home page
Well let us see... A professor from UPENN told Theo not to speak his mind, and the "routine" audit that found the money to be wasted, started two days after his comments were publised. That's not definitve proof, but it's pretty good evidence in the real world. In addition, the fact they they were taking a scortched-earth approach, wasting 80%, rather than allowing Theo to pay 20% (or maybe 50% for that matter), shows some extreme dissatisfaction with Theo.
BTW, a "routine" that has never happened before, is, by definition, not routine.
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