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OpenBSD Project in Financial Danger
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Tue Mar 21, 2006 01:12 PM
from the show-me-the-money dept.
from the show-me-the-money dept.
DieNadel writes "In an entry to the OpenBSD Journal, Marco, from the OpenBSD project, warns about the somewhat disturbing financial situation in which they are now. The OpenBSD team is the one that also develops the OpenSSH suite, used nowadays almost everywhere. From the entry: 'What I want to point out what a lot of people don't seem to realize is that OpenSSH development is paid from the same pool of money as OpenBSD. OpenSSH is in use by millions around the world however the revenue stream just simply isn't there. This is where other projects could help. Without naming entities or projects by name there are others out there that are sitting on some cash. It would be wonderful if these entities could share some of the wealth to keep us going.'"
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Theo de Raadt Discusses OpenBSD and Beyond 476 comments
emil writes to tell us that NewsForge (Slashdot Sister Site) is running an interview with OpenBSD project leader Theo de Raadt. In the interview Theo explores the upcoming release of OpenBSD 3.9, continuing financial difficulties, and some of the tension between the OpenBSD team and other businesses that some feel are taking advantage of the free software without giving anything back. In related news the Jem Report has an interesting writeup that expounds on widespread difficulties that could be faced if the OpenBSD project continues its downward spiral because of their parallel development of OpenSSH.
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Technology: Mozilla Foundation Donates $10K to OpenSSH 277 comments
eklitzke writes to tell us the OpenBSD journal is reporting that the Mozilla Foundation is donating $10,000 USD to the OpenSSH project. This comes as good news after the recent reported financial troubles from the OpenBSD and by extension the OpenSSH team. It seems that quite a few people have answered the call for aid made by OpenBSD's de Raadt.
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Seperate the openBSD & openSSH projects? (Score:5, Insightful)
These companies however would not want to give to an operating system project that competes with them.
Maybe the openBSD & openSSH projects should seperate?
Re:Seperate the openBSD & openSSH projects? (Score:5, Insightful)
Same argument, only taxes aren't voluntary. This is.
(Don't forget that the money you might give only to the OpenSSH project would go towards ensuring it works on about a dozen hardware platforms. I suppose you'd prefer that such money go only to OpenSSH/i386, because that's all you think you use?)
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flush master (Score:5, Insightful)
If eighty cents of every dollar I spend supporting OpenSSH gets flushed down the OpenBSD toilet, is that a good use of my contribution?
The cluelessness of this post defies belief.
I want to support this OpenFoil airplane wing because it supports me. However, if eighty cents of every dollar I spend supporting OpenFoil is vented through the OpenBlow high-test wind tunnel, is that a good use of my contributions?
NX protection, Pro-police, and priv-sep are all products of the two efforts coordinated together. Almost every dime OpenBSD spends is spent in the pursuit of enhancing security, and it's to imagine that those results are not immediately folded back into OpenSSH. Unlike FreeBSD, OpenBSD spends shockingly little on the OS itself. They aren't busy inventing disk geometry managers or porting to 150 different platforms.
90% of human stupidity originates in the capacity of the human mind to engage in intellectual shell games. Here is this dollar: let's split it up in to the 80 cents wasted on OpenBSD and the 20 cents invested in OpenSSH.
Or, my brother is dying of Leukemia. I want to donate blood because blood keeps him alive. Is that a good investment if 80% of the blood I donate is flushed down the toilet to replace blood lost during bone marrow transplants?
Almost too dumb to live, really.
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BSD is dying... (Score:5, Funny)
Do what you can. (Score:5, Interesting)
"I believe it was at a conference in Australia (also in the 1996-1998 time frame) that I ran into a rather despondent Theo de Raadt, who told me that for lack of $300. his ISP was going to turn off the project's servers. I took out my checkbook and immediately wrote him a personal check for $300., to keep the OpenBSD servers alive. My comment to Theo was that "your project is too valuable to let die over a measly $300.""
If you're really poor, just donate 5$.
Re:Do what you can. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Nice of Maddog -- but this is one for Google (Score:5, Insightful)
what openbsd needs, and what the article is highlighting, are the big companies who use openssh to kick in a few bucks
cisco uses it in their kit. soes does hp. ibm is another. do you think that between the three, they can't come up with say, $75k/year?
~a year ago, a friend of mine consulted at a company that was reworking their entire network. they ended up spending well over $30k on kit. they chose cisco *because* they had ssh (openssh btw) on their kit at the time. the other vendors they had did not
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Re:Do what you can. (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I just sent a donation to OpenBSD via paypal. Even if I don't think of Theo as the greatest guy in the OSS world, the project is very important to keep alive, and not just for the OpenSSH portion. The OpenBSD group has made a public plea for support and I'm dissapointed to see something along the lines of "needing money, huh, hehehehe then just suffer bitches..." from many posts here.
I'm sure that talented people with a little spare time will read those kinds of posts and be glad to spend a year or two writing something cool and useful for you. With these attitudes, they may get what they are really begging for; a computer running microsoft software because developers got tired of people not stopping at mere indifference towards the projects, but happily extending into ridicule. What a grateful bunch we must seem to be.
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Re:Do what you can. (Score:5, Informative)
No, if they want to hear what you have to say, they will pay for it. You probably just aren't that good at negotiating.
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order an OpenBSD CD (Score:5, Informative)
The CDs that OpenBSD project sells is their main source of revenue and support.
How you can help (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately, they know that the best value they can give to the tools they provide is to make them free. But as long as the tools are free, there will always be those parts of society that do not contribute to the costs of their creation. And, unfortunately, that's not a minority of people. When was the last time YOU gave money to OpenBSD?
This quagmire of people being unable to develop that that should be free will not disappear by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.
You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman [house.gov] or senator [senate.gov]. Tell them that critical free software is important to you. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done by the OpenBSD and GNU teams to support you with the software you need in your life but that if cheapskates keep refusing to contribute to the projects, ensuring people like Theo are not forced to hold down proper jobs, you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how a lack of money for Free Software harms all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies on funding Free Software.
You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Remember, it was thanks to ordinary people like YOU that we are now seeing such innovations as SMP in OpenBSD. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.
Re:How you can help (Score:5, Insightful)
Just say no to TCP/IP, BSD UNIX, WWW, the Internet, FTP, and many algorithms used for smp systems and servers.
If it were not for uncle sam you would be paying $50 a month for AOL or CompUserve on a dialup modem with no interent nor innovation.
The government is not that evil in doing things like setting standards and funding research that private industry can't do because of their need to generate profits.
I have no problem with academia sponsoring OpenBSD because it will help everyone including business and personal use. OpenSSH is the result of free software and so is the web and apache.
Its not that evil folks and the government is not always bad. Sometimes its needed because the industry can't help itself.
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Old Joke (Score:5, Funny)
"At Microsoft, we always wash our hands when we've been to the toilet!" said Bill, smugly.
"I'm sure all the Linux developers wash and dry their hands when they've been to the toilet!" said Linus, determined to outdo Bill.
"Fuck off, the pair of you," said Theo, "OpenBSD people don't piss on their fingers!"
Hmm.... (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot Editors:Please add this link to the story (Score:5, Informative)
They could spend SOME time making it easy... (Score:5, Interesting)
And guess what, the project makes me feel like a sucker... because usually whoever is shipping CDs is out of town, and they don't go out for 2-3 weeks, meanwhile, people have been downloading for free and I'm waitting for my CDs...
You want businesses to pay more that use it? How about selling a business "OpenBSD license" that provides us X copies for some price on a per-server (or per-CPU license) under the BSD. Is it a joke, sure, because given 1 personal copy, I have a license to use it however I want. But if you sell me 5 $299 licenses, I can write it off as $1500 in software purchases. Alternatively, I could donate $1500, but then I can't write it off... This is rough on me as a small business owner, for no reason. A receipt for the purchase would help...
However, asking for non-tax deductable donations is a non-starter. If I was an IT grunt in the field, knowing that I could buy a CD for the $20 or $30 and use it without effort (or download), but if I want to contribute, I could generate an online invoice and bring it to A/P.
In that case, the geeks LOVE that they start the project immediately, and maybe the "invoice" gets paid, and maybe it doesn't. There is no loser in this scenario, but it would require the OpenBSD project to understand the people that they want money from and find a way to make it easy on us to give it to them.
Alex
Parent
the flip side to all this (Score:5, Insightful)
What happens in six months when OpenSSH is no longer actively supported by the team that created it and a new exploit is discovered/released? What responsible IT manager is going to let his employer get into the potential problem in the first place?
I say, rather than begging for donations, the OpenBSD team needs to get their act together and find a way to keep the lights on, or they're going to see fewer and fewer people trusting the use of their software in large corporate environments. If that means the leader of the team needs to keep his mouth shut about his anti-war views when he's depending on a grant from the US Defense Department to keep his operation going, then that's what he needs to do. Being an adult means doing things you don't neccessarily want to do, like eating your peas and broccoli.
Their biggest problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
When the U.S. DoD was funding them, the disbursements were handled thru a University or some such.
They need to grow up as an organization. Find a sympathetic accountant to donate his time/effort to establish a tax-free (and tax deductable) non-profit in Canada and an arm in the U.S. Hell, maybe one in the EU and one down under as well.
This will make them infinitely more appealing to corporations who have deep pockets and MAJOR qualms about writing big checks out to individuals.
-Charles
Re:How to get the money (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.openbsd.org/orders.html [openbsd.org]
Parent
The moderators suck. (Score:5, Informative)
Once again, with feeling:
http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html [openbsd.org]
I already donated today. Cheque, credit card (my preferred method), and Paypal are all easily listed. I guess having the donations link on the main page (just below project goals) was not obvious enough.
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Re:Sad (Score:5, Insightful)
You?
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Re:Sad (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Their community (Score:5, Funny)
And yet, here you are on Slashdot. How does that work?
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Open Source Funding... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are some great and very useful OSS projects, but I don't make a living that way. My money comes off closed source/proprietary software - on the hugely popular closed platform. It's already hard enough making a living this way, I can't imagine how "easier" it would be if I gave the app away with the source code and let people fork it. I have enough money now to retire at 30, put my kids thru university, etc. Had I gone the open source way, I don't think this would be true.
It's just like websites and newspapers lately. Besides some advertizing (that we block in any way we can like using AdBlock), there just isn't much of a revenue stream. Nobody's really figured it out yet... Yet there are so many bright folks who've been scratching their heads for a while. This could be the 2nd "dotcom" crash - money has to come from somewhere to fund all this.
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Re:Sorry, wrong answer (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you talking about? Let's look at that quote in full:
It seems to me that he's talking about businesses such as RedHat, who include OpenSSH in their products, not random open-source projects.
And if you were keener on reading the article than flaming, you would see that they had a working revenue stream in the form of selling CDs, but that people were moving away from it in preference to obtaining it for free.
The demand isn't any less, they aren't losing any users, they are just having to deal with people less willing to spend money when they can get something for free. It seems very reasonable to hint - without naming names - that the businesses who base their products on OpenBSD's work should contribute a bit. It's in their own best interests even.
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