OpenBSD in financial trouble

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 8:03 pm

http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article& ... 0321034114
"The bad news is that OpenBSD for the past 2 years has turned a loss of approximately $20K USD ($40K total). I don't think I need to explain in many words what that is doing to our beloved OS, and worse, our main systems architect. This is starting to seriously impede the development of OpenBSD and OpenSSH. "

This is actually significant, because if OpenBSD has financial trouble, so does OpenSSH, and that is THE most commonly used implementation of SSH in use today, both by Linux, the *BSDs and some other UNIXes.

I think I'll see if I can shell out a few bucks and buy an OpenBSD 3.9 CD when it's out, from a local distributor to help the guys out, at least a little.
I would encourage everybody else to either do that, or send a donation of a few bucks to the OpenBSD guys, they have created a lot of free implementations of good and secure stuff, such as SSH, NTP, BGP and soon CVS, many of which are widely in use on Linux today.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 10:39 pm

Maybe if Theo spent more time espousing the benefits of his OS to the world instead of down-dressing newbies and flaming other open OSes, they'd be in better shape.

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 10:43 pm

Quote from Digg that sums it up best IMO:

OpenBSD would get more donations if Theo and friends would lighten up. Having been an OpenBSD user for years, I appreciate their work to no end, but at times the project's community and development team is largely comparable to a wild pack of hyenas. Ask the wrong question on an OpenBSD mailing list, and you become the wounded zebra.

This attitude has estranged all but the most hardcore OpenBSD supporters. Many people have likely decided that they'd rather donate to a project that shows appreciation for its users and supporters. - mancat

I'm not discouraging anyone from donating, but that's pretty much how I feel about Theo and OpenBSD.

thetza · Post by **thetza** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 10:51 pm

Sad, netbsd and now openbsd begging for money. Aren't there any corporate users of openbsd/openssh who can fund a few developers?

a simple solution would have been to GPL openssh and sell proprietary licenses, following Trolltech and Mysql. just goes to show in the real world, strategy is just as important as philosophy when it comes to licensing.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:08 pm

thetza wrote:just goes to show in the real world, strategy is just as important as philosophy when it comes to licensing.

Yes. I have to admit that I think it's strange how Linux really took off in many ways it seems the BSDs never really did. In many ways, I'd imagine the BSD license would be more attractive to many people. Was/is it just the mindshare or buzz that linux has?

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:55 pm

Snarkout wrote:Yes. I have to admit that I think it's strange how Linux really took off in many ways it seems the BSDs never really did. In many ways, I'd imagine the BSD license would be more attractive to many people. Was/is it just the mindshare or buzz that linux has?

Well, people saw how UNIX fragmented and how much that sucked, so that's why Linux has an inherit advantage over the BSDs for a widely used OS since it won't fork or fragment.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 10:17 am

thetza wrote:Sad, netbsd and now openbsd begging for money. Aren't there any corporate users of openbsd/openssh who can fund a few developers?

Seems to me Apple would be a likely candidate.

I can't see OpenSSH going away. If OpenBSD dies, OpenSSH will be forked or picked up by someone else. Either that or another implementation will come along.