Romanian Bitcoin Entrepreneur Steps In To Pay OpenBSD Shortfall 209
New submitter MrBingoBoingo writes "Recently it was announced here on Slashdot that OpenBSD was facing an impending shortfall that jeopardized its continued existence. A sponsorship to save OpenBSD has been announced, and it wasn't one of the usual culprits that saved OpenBSD, but a Romanian Bitcoin billionaire."
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He's a real billionaire in the same way the Monopoly Guy is wealthy with a phat stack of Monopoly Money.
Hmmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting.... [bitcoin-assets.com]
I hope it works out for OpenBSD, but the proof is in the pudding.... or the check clearing.
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http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/contributors.html [openbsdfoundation.org] MPEx is now listed.
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I'll see your pudding dipped twinkies, and raise you Mandarin oranges in chocolate pudding FTW!
Hey - NSFW (Score:1)
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Re: Hey - NSFW (Score:2, Insightful)
Twitter is NEVER the right link
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In Canada that actually should be rather easy.
1. What's NSFW about the Twitter page? A guy with an open shirt?
2. It's after 9pm PST on the MLK weekend. Where do you work?
3. What are you doing surfing Slashdot at work for anyway?
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It's Monday evening east of the international date line. Slashdot has an international readership...
Where I'm from, NSFW stands for New South F'ing Wales, Australia. Yet this article is about Romania, not Sydney. :)
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Mircea Popescu is a criminal... nothing more (Score:2, Interesting)
He steals from people.
OpenBSD should refuse his donation, the funds are the proceeds of crime.
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Re:Mircea Popescu is a criminal... nothing more (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Mircea Popescu is a criminal... nothing more (Score:5, Insightful)
Assume everything you say is true, it seems to me there are two outcomes possible:
(1) Donation accepted:
criminal has less money
OpenBSD safe for another year (or whatever)
(2) Donation refused:
criminal has more money to perpetuate further crimes
OpenBSD remains in danger of shutting down
In what universe is (2) a better outcome?
Now if Popescu is attempting to buy considerations that might change things, but being a criminal doesn't automatically mean you can't be an honest philanthropist, just look at Bill Gates. (Okay, so maybe not the worlds best possible example of honest philanthropy, but still)
Re:Mircea Popescu is very nice person (Score:1, Insightful)
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But then wouldn't it be " 'ear, 'ear", or should that be " 'ere, 'ere"?
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Your sentiment is quite correct. I should have made it more explicit that I know nothing of Popescu except that he has made this generous donation to a worthy project, and my assumption was purely for the sake of argument.
That said I should also say I know absolutely nothing about his "niceness" either, the quality appears to have no particular correlation with either generosity or alleged criminal behavior.
Re:Mircea Popescu is a criminal... nothing more (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps Obama could chip in some of the bitcoin seized from Silk Road to keep OpenBSD afloat. :)
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Theo long ago burned his bridges with the US government, back when they were giving OpenBSD money. That's a big reason why they are perpetually under funded.
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Who said anything about lower? Do you disagree with either of the following statements?
* Bill Gates, as CEO of Microsoft, is guilty of repeatedly engaging in criminal monopolistic behavior.
* Bill Gates, as a philanthropist, has a reputation for engaging in a lot of "philanthropy" that seems to have more to do with expanding the power of his philanthropic empire than actually helping people. (Note that I am NOT denying that he also does a lot of good)
That makes Bill Gate an excellent well-known example of
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Was he not he at the helm of a company repeatedly convicted for engaging in criminal monopolistic practices under his guidance? That he was a criminal is difficult to deny, regardless of the personal immunity afforded him by the corporate veil.
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Links? Go an read bitcointalk. This guy is a real scum.
From https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64962.0 [bitcointalk.org]:
As to your last point: there do seem to be a significant number of scammers floating about, so I can easily understand the "assume everyone's a scammer" attitude, I imagine it works well in a majority of cases. However Mircea Popescu is both well known and well respected in the bitcoin community and beyond, so this'd be one case of the minority.
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do you have any real proof to your assertions other than you unfounded opinions. it is trivial to slander anyone posting as AC. Do you have links to arrests, investigations, complaints to law enforcement or any such?
HERE I AM TO SAVE THE DAY !! (Score:1)
A bitcoin story with .. ah, who cares with what - IT IS BITCOIN AND IT HAS SAVED THE DAY !!
Serious Questions about OpenBSD infrastructure (Score:5, Insightful)
That sort of an electrical bill is a crap explanation in my opinion to support the development and deployment of OpenBSD developers and users.
Poor management is more likely the explanation.
I mean, for example to not watch the cash flow, and all of a sudden require a huge cash intake is something I don't understand.
This sort of problem should have been apparent YEARS AGO, anyone managing the infrastructure could have seen coming and there should have been PLENTY of time to correct the issue.
Am I missing something here people if so please do explain.
-Hack
Re:Serious Questions about OpenBSD infrastructure (Score:4, Informative)
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The point is that OpenBSD (along with the myriad softwares packaged with it and available through ports) is useful enough on its own. Not everyone's idea of useless is "doesn't play World of Warcraft."
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Because some OpenBSD neckbeard or another thinks it's cool to keep compatibility with '80s hardware and probably has such a computer or three at home.
IMO it's nice in a "hey, your code has great platform independence" way, but I don't see much point in it either.
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Yeah, platform independence was nice in the early 90s when there were something like 5 RISC platforms competing for dominance, and both Unix and NT were vying for control of all platforms - x86 and RISC. Today, all the RISC platforms are fringe platforms as far as general computing goes (ARM tablets or phones or PPC consoles or MIPS routers not included here), and so it makes sense to develop the most optimal solutions for those, and then freeze it at that.
So yeah, it would make more sense if they would
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if you would look at actual market share stats, plenty of other architecture than x86 or x86-64 still have significant chunks.
openbsd exposes bugs when compiling on various architectures, one of the big reasons they do so. Linux continually has alignment security holes (look at the CVE) because it focuses on x86 and x86-64
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There's plenty of ARM and MIPS machines out there, yes, but today generally in the embedded space (although this may change), and the remaining architectures are statistical noise. IA64 is dead, SuperH is dead, Power is irrelevant for OpenBSD's use cases, Sparc is nearly irrelevant period outside of Oracle servers.
The picture changes when you consider older machines like Sparcstations, PPC Macs, etc., that aren't supported by their mfrs anymore, yes, but there's a world of difference, performance and utili
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The last Vax were produced in 2005, not the 1980s.
UltarSparc, PPC, various MIPS, even Itanium still account for billions in system sales per year.
You only know what your PC has, I take it.
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no software? there are a couple thousand binary packages and even more in the ports tree for OpenBSD on Vax to run.
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One wonders if simply compiling and running on a SimH [trailing-edge.com] virtual machine might be a better use of electricity, especially considering that even an Atom-powered server is going to be much faster than a real VAX.
Re:Serious Questions about OpenBSD infrastructure (Score:5, Insightful)
It's purely poor management. From what I understand, the build servers are absolutely archaic beasts that had they been replaced long ago would not have led to such astronomically high bills. It also doesn't help that they seem to be located in Theo de Raadt's basement.
keeping developers honest (Score:2, Informative)
From what I understand, the build servers are absolutely archaic beasts that had they been replaced long ago would not have led to such astronomically high bills. /p>
There are a variety of of build serves. There are ones for SPARC (and SPARC64), MacPPC, SGI/MIPS, VAX, etc.:
http://openbsd.org/plat.html
One of the reasons why this is done is help expose bugs. Some issues are only exposed on non-mainstream architectures, and if everyone only uses certain CPUs, then they won't be found (as easily). Back in the early 1990s, not many people used DEC Alpha, but by supporting it (both in the BSD and Linux world), it kept kernel developers "honest" when it came to supporting thin
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not poor management at all, the varying architectures with their alignment issues expose bugs, many of them. Did you know projects like Linux have huge alignment bugs that cause major security holes that crop up again and again because they mainly build and test only on x86-32 and x86-64? If you follow the CVE you'd know this.
The power requirements are not astronomical at all, those of us in the business of caring for racked servers in HVAC controlled areas know this.
here's a post from The
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I made no comment about the varying architectures, I made a comment about the build servers themselves.
2.5 racks of ancient equipment is too much equipment. Modernizing those servers would cut the physical and electrical load down by at least 80%. Moving it to a more effective location would go even further. There are some places in the states that rent out a full 42u rack with a 20 amp supply and an unmetered gigabit link for around $700 a month. Colocation in Canada is more expensive across the board but
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Ok well than that is fine.
I am not arguing about how the implementation of the development should proceed. If they truly need specific older models of hardware to do on point engineering of the OS kernel that demonstrates superior debug outcomes, fine.
BUT PLAN THE BUDGET TO DO SO.
Don't hold everyone on all architectures hostage because a 1989 Vax system chews up 90% of the electrical bill.
If people want that sort of support it has to be paid for SOMEHOW.
-Hack
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There are good points above, but the points raised by people making the suggestions are also valid.
It's true that there are diverse developers developing this on now dead machines. But that's one of the things contributing to the excessive power consumption in Theo's basement. If his devs have it in theirs, it's one thing, but for what he has, he should consider the options:
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wrong. one machine per architecture? you speak out of ignorance of how the OpenBSD build and test process is done.
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Then drop support for them, unless people who actually use them in real world foot the bill.
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You can't correct a lack of donations without some sort of crisis. Typically, that crisis is advertising a lack of funding.
Years ago they identified the same problem and worked to fix it. Obviously it was not permanent.
So no, in your sense, management is not the problem.
But management refuses to use donated rack space and insists on testing on real hardware for obscure platforms.
Some say that's poor management, some say it is needed.
Still others say if it were needed it would be funded, yet more others say
Very cool of him (Score:2)
Proof? (Score:2)
any proof that this isn't just someone typing into IRC?
where is the announcement from Theo?
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It's still better than someone who gave nothing but cheap hot air.
Re:Perhaps... (Score:5, Funny)
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Great! You can use that electricity to generate Bitcoins, then you can sell those to get actual money!
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Cheap hot air is actually great if you have a gas turbine and a generator and can sell the resulting electricity.
So can we fit one to the capitol building? Lots of cheap hot air is going to waste there at the moment.
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Cheap hot air is actually great if you have a gas turbine and a generator and can sell the resulting electricity.
So can we fit one to the capitol building? Lots of cheap hot air is going to waste there at the moment.
Hell, just strap a mask onto Al Gore and collect his hot air. Maybe that + Congress would solve all of our energy needs!
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I sold 25 Bitcoin for $23,000 with CaVirtex. It took me a couple of weeks to get my account verified, but I did get the money out.
Re:Perhaps... (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this modded +2?
Coinbase.com makes it trivially easy. For people who are willing to put in some legwork, there's localbitcoins.com
I haven't tried bitpay.com but I understand that it works just as well as coinbase. Stop spreading FUD and educate yourself.
Re:Perhaps... (Score:5, Informative)
The point is, there are no BUYERS. It will not happen. No one is going to pay $20k of REAL money for bitcoins.
I don't know WTF are you talking about but converting bitcoins to 20k USD is non-issue on most existing exchanges like coinbase, bitstamp, mtgox or btc-e. Just go and see their daily trade volume.
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OpenBSD already accepts Bitcoin donations:
http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/donations.html [openbsdfoundation.org]
Just sent 50 CAD worth, easy peasy. They get converted on the fly to the local currency by BitPay.
Are you from 2010?
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No one is going to pay $20k of REAL money for bitcoins
Right, but many people will pay $20k of the "money" issued by the Federal Reserve.
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Admittedly I'm not dealing with sums anywhere near this magnitude, but so far I was able to withdraw every single cent of my proceeds from VirWoX (for a total of something approaching $1.5k over the last couple months). I'm using it because it was the easiest to set up, as they withdraw directly to your PayPal account, so all you need is to have one.
Re:Perhaps... (Score:5, Informative)
This assumes that 20,000$ worth of bitcoins can be converted to real money.
This assumption is correct.
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I don't know about instantly getting it into the bank account, but I can instantly have it in my PayPal account. From there to the bank then takes the usual 2 days, but I can spend it immediately in places which accept PayPal, which is quite a lot of them.
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The word you're looking for is "xenophobic". Also, you should learn to spell "chauvinistic" in case it actually is the word you need at some point.
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Really? How do you know his nationality? The Roma minority is 3.3 % in Romania. He would have better changes of being hungarian..
an interesting blank box...the summary says "romanian bitcoin billionaire". so is he romainian by nationality, that is, he was born in the state of Romania, or is he romanian by heritage (i.e. gypsy) meaning that regardless of where he was born, his parents are of romanian heritage.
Re: lol @ Romanian "btc billionaire" (Score:5, Informative)
Romanian != Roma.
Romania is a country whose inhabitants are called, in English, Romanians. The name of the country (and therefore the people) comes from Rome. The Roman Empire. THAT Rome. Romanian--like French, Spanish, and Italian--is a romance language descended directly from Latin. Some even argue that it's the Romance language that today most closely resembles Latin!
Roma, on the other hand, is a name for a minority population of people that most probably emigrated from South Asia over a thousand years ago. AKA gypsies. The word Roma comes from some Roma dialect and has no connection to Romania or Roman other than as homonyms. Good example of a false congate--they sound alike, but there is no connection.
Admittedly, the conflation is a common mistake to make, especially since there is a very large (comparatively speaking) Roma population in Romania.
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Romanian--like French, Spanish, and Italian--is a romance language descended directly from Latin. Some even argue that it's the Romance language that today most closely resembles Latin!
I'd say it's the language that most closely resembles Italian. You can really confuse them, at least with your eyes closed. Of course, if you open your eyes again, you will easily spot the Italian: It's the one constantly using his/her hands to make gestures. Italian is probably the only language that doesn't leave out deaf people. You can essentially *see* everything that's being said. And of course, even if your hearing is somewhat impaired, you can also still hear it. At the other end of town.
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> Romanian (i.e. gypsy)
These are different things. Perhaps you are confusing 'Rroma' with 'Romanian'?
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> Romanian (i.e. gypsy)
These are different things. Perhaps you are confusing 'Rroma' with 'Romanian'?
did you read my post? obv not. btdubs the plural of roma is Romanian. it's different than the country! pay attention!
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I did read your post, and as a guy who speaks Romanian and has been to Romania and lives in a neighbor country - I am pretty confident in the fact that I understand this matter.
The plural of 'Rroma' (also spelled as 'Roma') is 'Romani', not 'Romanian'.
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Romanian isn't a language. It's called Cyrillic. No stars!
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At this point I'm not sure if you're fooling around or are just misinformed, I will assume the latter.
Romanian is a language, and Cyrillic is a form of writing. You can write Romanian using a Cyrillic alphabet if you really want to, but that's not how Romanians themselves do it.
If you read the first paragraph of Wikipedias's articles on {Rroma, Romanian, Cyrillic} - you'll figure it out.
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There, 'nuff said.
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You are a data point of one. I can ssh into about half a dozen production OpenBSD boxes right now.
You've also likely used OpenSSH which comes from the OpenBSD project (unless you're a Windows only admin).
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wow! (Score:2)
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Then you'd be wrong.
Ever seen a Juniper switch, router, firewall?
How about a Citrix NetScaler?
Or maybe a NetApp filer?
BSD is inside a hell of a lot of kit, unless you work inside your mothers basement then chances are, you've seen BSD production systems.
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