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OpenBSD Looking At Funding Shortfall In 2014
Freshly Exhumed writes "Today the OpenBSD mailing list carried a plea from Theo de Raadt for much needed financial aid for the OpenBSD foundation: 'I am resending this request for funding our electricity bills because it is not yet resolved. We really need even more funding beyond that, because otherwise all of this is simply unsustainable. This request is the smallest we can make.' Bob Beck, of the OpenBSD Foundation, added: 'the fact is right now, OpenBSD will shut down if we do not have the funding to keep the lights on.'"
The electricity bill in question is $20,000 a year for build servers located in Canada.
It is now official. Netcraft has confirmed: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin [amazingkreskin.com] to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Apple only cares about FreeBSD, not about OpenBSD.
If he was magnetic enough, he could produce his own electricity.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The SSH that comes bundles with every Mac is OpenSSH, also made by the OpenBSD people. No idea what else has OpenBSD fingerprints on it within Mac OSX.
Trolling is a art,
I think the phrase you are for is "Holding hostage"
Reminds me of the scene in Blazing Saddles... Nobody moves, or the nigger gets it.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
That he found stuck to the bottom of his foot.
You know, it's really too bad. I was an avid OpenBSD fan until I interacted with Theo and he was extremely belligerent regarding pretty routine matters that required no hostility. Then his followers jumped on me as well, as if it was necessary to back up their fearless leader in what was perceived to be life or death combat.
In the past I had donated regularly to the project, but after that incident I began to give to the FreeBSD community instead. Who by and large seem to be a much more friendly bunch and certainly don't seem to be sweating massive power bills.
Seems to me that Theo's inability to conjure up the slightest bit of charisma in the face of utter defeat is symptomatic of why OpenBSD is dying. They needlessly humiliate and scorn their own followers over minor perceived philosophical or technical differences, thus the only path they can end up on is one with less and less support.
They will probably fail in the long run as a result of this behavior and their inflexibility to re-locate or distribute their build servers. Theo has ranted about how they must be in what amounts to his garage, but I don't buy it. I'm pretty sure they could easily be re-located -- but don't mention that in his presence or he'll surely burn you, too.
The firewall in OS X, pf, is also from OpenBSD.
1. the nature of OpenBSD means build servers are the word of god on the lips and hearts of every developer and user. their physical verifiability and integrity is sacrosanct. finding a remote build location in this the year of our NSA 2014 would prove difficult if not impossible.
2. this is controversial. its not an attempt to stoke a flamewar, but it i feel must be said. the BSD license itself hinders the visibility of the projects its designed to protect. It allows corporations, the very entities that theo wants his electric bill 'on their books' to ignore the project entirely and slurp down releases whenever a security hole shows up on their product. Other than a README most corporations arent required to think twice about the code, let alone where it comes from, under the BSD. IMHO only when openbsd.org starts returning srvfail will these companies know what theyve lost. GPLvN remind companies on a per-release basis where the bread for which their butter goes comes from. code must face the scrutiny of developers, engineers, legal teams, managers and a multitude of other stakeholders.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Trolling is a art,
Theo et. al. might turn up their noses at the idea, but a $40,000 kickstarter to keep OpenBSD going might not be a bad idea.
Rewards might include: kudos for contributions, limited edition (kickstarter only) t-shirts/posters/soundtracks, CD sets (duh), and for big contributors ($2500-$5000) a customized VDD set up for whatever purposes you want, yours to keep or share as you like.
Finding God in a Dog
Apparently there's free as in speech and free as in beer, but there is no free as in electricity.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
ipfw was replaced by pf in 10.7 Lion. Their man pages sometimes lag, I think. For 10.9, see: ipfw.8 pf.conf.5
They actually have a pretty reasonable reason for this.
Theo responds (in his usual patient and understanding manner) later in the linked thread when someone suggests trimming some of these old machines with these reasons, but the basic gist is:
Having such a diversity of platforms makes errors more apparent (some bugs which while they might impact all platforms might only be obvious one one platform for whatever reason) and the interest of some devs might be tied to these weird architectures.
Here's a link to a photo on OpenBSD Journal of the build server racks and all the great (some quite old) machines being used:
http://www.openbsd.org/images/rack2009.jpg
Lots of memories looking at some of those machines... I'd be a bit concerned about the longevity of some of those.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Didn't they do this last year as well? I seems Theo isn't drawing the dollars anymore and has to have a funding drives every few months.
But I agree with others, turning down offers of free hosting for the build servers then refusing and begging for money doesn't engender sympathy.
this shows just how irresponsible we all are. openbsd is arguably the most relevant/important OSS project after the linux kernel.
Theo, is that you?
Of all those security vendors who use OpenBSD in their proprietary security appliance boxes why can't any of them give some money back?
Yes, Linus is guilty of a similar thing. But Theo's attitude problem is an order of magnitude more than that of Linus.
That's not quite right. Netflix utilizes FreeBSD heavily. See: https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect/software
Further ideas for funding levels:
"Theo Happy Day" - for each person who contributes at that level, Theo behaves like a responsible, polite, civil, empathetic human being for an entire day.
"Fire suit" - for this contribution, you are entitled to one (1) interaction with Theo where he does not insult, belittle, demean, or behave in a condescending manner, towards you.
Please help metamoderate.
Problems with donating to OpenBSD
(1) The donations are being requested after the end of the tax year
Most charitable donations occur in October/November/December for tax reasons. This is true of both deductible and non-deductible donations.
(2) Donations are not tax deductible
This isn't a huge problem, if the OpenBSD Foundation were willing to invoice the company for the amount; then it could still be deducted as a business expense, but then the OpenBSD Foundation would have to claim it as income and pay tax on it. This isn't terrifically onerous for them in any case, as they are not a charity, and thus have to pay tax anyway, unless they can just get someone to pay their power bill directly instead (something they've requested).
Another option would be to have a U.S. OpenBSD non-profit that could then support work by OpenBSD under contract, even if that work were something like "provide nightly builds of OpenBSD binaries in exchange for grant funds". They don't seem interested in/able to utilize, this approach.
(3) Invoicing would not exactly require some measure of editorial control, but...
There would be at least an implied expectation of quid-pro-quo, even if none exactly existed, since an audit of the company that was invoiced could require at least a paper justification for the value obtained in exchange for the invoiced amount. It doesn't have to be a great deal for the company, and it could actually be a completely lopsided deal, but there would need to be a token exchange of goods and/or services for the invoiced amount.
(4) If someone is willing to pay their power, they demand they be a Canadian company
I can understand the ramifications for this coming from a non-Canadian company; OpenBSD needs to understand the ramifications of "any port in a storm". There really aren't that many Canadian technology companies in this sector, compared to the U.S.; the highest percentage of OpenBSD-based products are in fact German.
(5) There are not a large number products based directly on OpenBSD
The companies that do have products based on it are generally not hugely profitable, and the small number that there are are listed here: http://www.openbsd.org/products.html which gives you some indication of their market penetration.
(6) The OpenBSD folks don't have the most stellar relationship with the rest of the Open Source community
Without assigning specific blame, this should probably be addressed sooner, rather than later.
--
All in all, it's rather difficult to set up a legal fiction that would let it be advantageous to a business to donate.
It's not that they do not provide valuable software, it's just that most of the value they provide is not in the OpenBSD OS itself, it's in the ancillary projects that are associated with the same people.
US $ 20,000 = € 14800 ( I convert to euroland givens, as I have no idea about the price of a kWh over there ). In euroland, a kWh costs more or less € 0.20. Hence, € 14,800 purchase 74000 kWh. 74000 kWh / ( 365 days *24 hours / day ) = 8.53 kW.
Now - I like the picture. But I refuse to believe that even these power-guzzling old machines draw a steady 8.53 kW on a 24/7 basis. No way. A quick look-up in wikipedia shows me that kWh rates in Canada are even lower than here in Europe. What is Theo hiding ??
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Having such a diversity of platforms makes errors more apparent (some bugs which while they might impact all platforms might only be obvious one one platform for whatever reason) ...
I absolutely agree. As someone who simultaneously developed for Windows/x86 and MacOS/PowerPC I definitely saw bugs manifest more easily on one system or the other. However, past two or three hardware architectures there is probably quite the diminishing return.
... and the interest of some devs might be tied to these weird architectures.
Well people tied to these "weird" architectures can make a donation. Take a look at the supported architecture list, quite a bit of trimming is possible if the respective esoteric communities can't at least pitch in for the electric bill.