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Mozilla Foundation Donates $10K to OpenSSH 277

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the breath-of-fresh-air dept.
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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Mozilla Foundation Donates $10K to OpenSSH More

Mozilla Foundation Donates $10K to OpenSSH

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  • Contribution made to OpenSSH or OpenBSD? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) * on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:13PM (#15061106)
    Is this going directly to OpenSSH efforts, or to OpenBSD in general? There's nothing in there that specifically states which.

    There has been much talk in the recent past about the difference between wanting to support OpenBSD (and by default, OpenSSH), and just OpenSSH itself. Is it even possible to support 'just' OpenSSH?

    Either way, a classy move by the Mozilla Foundation.

    Now if you guys can just make Thunderbird stop sucking, I'd be much happier.

    • Re:Contribution made to OpenSSH or OpenBSD? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:22PM (#15061176)
      For something like this, no, you cannot effectively donate JUST to OpenSSH. Even if you could specify this *specific* amount of money is to be used for that project, if they wanted to they could just allocate that much less of their own money.

    • Re:Contribution made to OpenSSH or OpenBSD? (Score:5, Informative)

      by dizzy tunez ( 89390 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:22PM (#15061177) Homepage
      Its going to both. OpenBSD and OpenSSH share the money. (Which is fine by me, since its the same dudes who makes the code to both projects)

    • Re:Contribution made to OpenSSH or OpenBSD? (Score:5, Funny)

      by dsginter ( 104154 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:28PM (#15061214)
      Is this going directly to OpenSSH efforts, or to OpenBSD in general?

      This is going directly to Theo's "free as in beer [samsclub.com]" fund.

    • Re:Contribution made to OpenSSH or OpenBSD? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Syberghost ( 10557 ) <syberghost@@@syberghost...com> on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:32PM (#15061237)
      The Slashdot post is misleading; they donated to the OpenBSD project in general, not one specific subproject within it. Doing that would open up a can of auditing worms that wouldn't be in anybody's best interest.
    • Is this going directly to OpenSSH efforts, or to OpenBSD in general?

      Since they're the same team, any donation is pretty much fungible (ie, $10,000 "for OpenSSH" still means Theo has $10,000 now freed up for OpenBSD, if that's how he sees the need to allocated it).

    • Re:Contribution made to OpenSSH or OpenBSD? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by C_Kode ( 102755 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:41PM (#15061309) Journal
      I brought this up in a "Ask Slashdot" a few days ago. (still pending) I'm a huge OpenSSH fan, but I do not use OpenBSD. I mainly use Linux for several reasons that I don't need to explain here. While I like OpenBSD I don't have a need to support OpenBSD. On the other hand I do use and would donate money to OpenSSH. The problem is, like so many of the children's charities among others. You donate $x amount of dollars and in the end not even a 4th of it goes to what you donated too. I wish OpenBSD lots of luck, but my interest lies only with OpenSSH and thats where I want my money to go.

      A quote from the donations page:

      Simply send a donation cheque in CDN/US/EUR funds made out to Theo de Raadt, since cheques made out to "OpenBSD" cannot be cashed.

      There isn't a entity setup for OpenBSD or any other of their projects it seems. It's questionable what actually happens with the money donated.

      • Re:Contribution made to OpenSSH or OpenBSD? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by aaronl ( 43811 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:51PM (#15061365) Homepage
        OpenSSH development is tied with OpenBSD because the project is *part* of OpenBSD. People just took the time to code it to be portable, and some effort is made to make sure that it works on other Unix platforms. It is more useful that way.

        What you want is much like saying that you want to donate to Thunderbird, but not have the money go to the Firefox crew, as you only use Thunderbird. The same foundation is working on both, so the money goes to the group as a whole.

        And yes, de Raadt really should set up a non-profit for OpenBSD, under the OpenBSD name.
      • I'm a huge OpenSSH fan, but I do not use OpenBSD.

        Yes, you do, if you use any of the software [openbsd.org] that they ship as part of the base install. They've put thousands of hours into auditing all those and submitting their changes upstream.

        Basically, you're donating to a team who audits and secures a lot of software, some of which they write in-house. It's not meaningful to ask them to work on only your pet project since none of it stands in isolation. For example, suppose that their new memory allocator shows an error in OpenSSH. Was the fix part of their ongoing authorship of OpenSSH, or would you credit it to the memory allocator project?

        • It's not meaningful to ask them to work on only your pet project since none of it stands in isolation

          I'd say it just became a whole helluva lot more meaningful if he's willing to pay for one and not the other. Money talks, open source or not.

        • Re:Contribution made to OpenSSH or OpenBSD? (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          How much does OpenBSD donate to the third party software devs that they use?

          The system includes the following major components from outside suppliers:

          * X.Org 6.9.0 (+ patches, and i386 contains XFree86 3.3.6 servers (+ patches) for legacy chipsets not supported by X.Org)
          * Gcc 2.95.3 (+ patches) and 3.3.5 (+ patches)
          * Perl 5.8.6 (+ patches)
          * Apache 1.3.29, mod_ssl 2.8.16, DSO support (+ patches

      • Re:Contribution made to OpenSSH or OpenBSD? (Score:4, Informative)

        by freshman_a ( 136603 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @05:02PM (#15061426) Homepage Journal

        While I like OpenBSD I don't have a need to support OpenBSD. On the other hand I do use and would donate money to OpenSSH.

        Uh, I hate to tell you, but it's all the same people. If you read the OpenSSH project is prettypage it states "OpenSSH is developed by the OpenBSD Project." So yes, you do have a need to support the OpenBSD project if you want them to continue to develop OpenSSH.

        There isn't a entity setup for OpenBSD or any other of their projects it seems. It's questionable what actually happens with the money donated.

        I'm sure they squander all the money on booze and hookers. Pardon the sarcasm, but it's pretty much the same as if you sent Linux a check to help support the Linux project. And if you check out the donations page, there's quite a list of names there. I'm sure if something fishy was happening to the money, someone would have noticed by now. Besides, the OpenBSD project is basically Theo's baby. Why would he jepordize it by not being honest?
        • I'm sure they squander all the money on booze and hookers.

          So OpenBSD's doing some marketing now? It's about time!
        • Pardon the sarcasm, but it's pretty much the same as if you sent Linux a check to help support the Linux project.

          This is where you're wrong. The Linux kernel, and virtually every other large open source project is funded through officialy recognized organizations of one sort or another. Nobody is making checks out to Linux Torvalds personal checking account.

          The issue of whether or not Theo is going to squander the money is irrelevant. Many organizations, in particular large corporations with deep po

    • Now if you guys can just make Thunderbird stop sucking, I'd be much happier.

      Anyone know of a plugin to allow TB read local maildirs so I don't have to run an imapd to read mail that's delivered locally?

  • Serious question. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AltGrendel ( 175092 ) <(su.0tixe) (ta) (todhsals-ga)> on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:15PM (#15061116) Homepage
    Is this something that can be deducted from Income Tax as a charitable donation?

    • NO (Score:5, Informative)

      by DAldredge ( 2353 ) <SlashdotEmail@GMail.Com> on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:16PM (#15061131) Journal
      "While donations are not US tax deductible as charitable contribution" is what their website says. I guess they don't want to become a true non-profit org for some reason.
    • There are "Non profits" and "Not For Profits." I know these terms are used interchangeably, but I believe there is a difference.
      I don't know enough about the difference between them to deliniate, but my understanding is that to be a "non profit", you have to register with the IRS and meet a bunch of standards.
      • Based on the wording itself, I guess "Non profits" means an organization does things that don't generate profits. For instance coordinating food relief operation, and it acts like a middleman collecting and distributing donated items.

        As for "Not For Profits", it sort of implies an organization is not set up to make a profit, but it does not necessarily mean that it is not making profit. For example, a group of people get together to develop an Open Source application, their main objective is to provide a fr
        • Non profit is a charity. Religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, and scientific organizations would qualify. Anything that qualifies as a 501(c)3 organization.

          A Not for Profit is a company setup to not generate profits. They qualify as tax exempt but not as a charity for tax deductions. Anything other than a 501(c)3 organization. USPS would be a not for profit org.

          Additionally, as OpenBSD is Canadian, see the following from the IRS [irs.gov]:
          Canadian charit
    • Theo has always stated that it was more difficult to setup a non profit in Canada. There was also recent statements that for international donations it is even more difucult to do. If they were in the U.S. they could more easily accept non profit or 'Not for profit' donations from US residents but then they may run into future crypto export restrictions when they try to export advanced crypto from the US. So they stay in Canada and can do what every then need to do to keep OpenBSD, OpenSSH, OpenNTPD, Ope
      • So they stay in Canada and can do what every then need to do to keep OpenBSD, OpenSSH, OpenNTPD, OpenBGP & OpenCVS as secure as they can without worrying about politician whims on crypto export matters

        Because Canada doesn't have politicians? In any event, not having any business organization surrounding OpenBSD is bad in my, and probably countless others, opinion. Can I ask (and be answered in the affirmative) to see Theo's personal financial records? Doubtful.

      • Setting up a non-profit company in Canada is trivial. Getting it set up so that you can give charitable tax receipts is another thing completely.

        Theo really should set up the OpenBSD foundation instead of having cheques go to himself. Even if it isn't set up to give out tax receipts to donors, it would give people a bit more assurance that the money is going towards OpenBSD.

    • Re:Serious question. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by iamdrscience ( 541136 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:59PM (#15061409) Homepage
      Is this something that can be deducted from Income Tax as a charitable donation?
      No because they are not a registered non-profit organization, you cannot deduct contributions to them from your taxes. Honestly, I can't think for the life of me why they haven't become a non-profit yet. I mean, it's somewhat of a hassle yes, but I'm sure the benefits would be worth it. Both NetBSD and FreeBSD have set up non-profit foundations (DragonFly BSD has not).

      Seriously, not having non-profit status is certainly part of why they're having trouble getting funding. It means that any contribution made to them is taxed (so they're not able to use all the money that is given to them) and I'm sure it makes companies less likely to donate to them as well because they're not able to deduct their contribution from their taxes either. I mean, I'm not saying this is the silver bullet that would solve their funding problems, but it's certainly part of it and I think it's a bigger part than they realize.

      • Re:Serious question. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Scott Wunsch ( 417 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @05:15PM (#15061519) Homepage
        Honestly, I can't think for the life of me why they haven't become a non-profit yet.

        They may well be. However, they're also Canadian. That means:

        1. Just incorporating as a non-profit isn't enough. They'd also have to register as a charity, and in Canada, that means a lot of paperwork, and a lot of restrictions.
        2. I'm not sure how international donations work for tax purposes, but I bet it still wouldn't be easy for Americans to write off their donations, even if OpenBSD were set up as a Canadian charitable organization.
        • I believe the way to make it easy for American companies to donate to a Canadian charity is to setup a non-profit organization in the US. I'm not an accountant or tax attourney though so I'm not sure exactly how that would be set up (i.e. I don't know whether a US non-profit would be able to give funds to Canadian OpenBSD developers directly or whether there would have to be a Canadian charity in between).

          Anyways, like I said, there is some hassle in setting up a non-profit organization, but it's still pro
      • It means that any contribution made to them is taxed

        Actually, its not taxed. Gifts can be given uin the US up to $10,000 without being taxed. It says on the openbsd website as well that donations are not taxed, but CD and other purches are.
      • I'm sure it makes companies less likely to donate to them as well because they're not able to deduct their contribution from their taxes either.

        One of the hazards of offering perks for charity is that you get people who act charitably solely for the perks, and not because it's, well, a charitable thing to do. Take away the perks, and suddenly their charity dries up.

        It makes me think B5 might have been on to something with the Vorlons' whole "if you do the right thing for the wrong reasons, the work becomes

      • Re:Serious question. (Score:3, Informative)

        by dghcasp ( 459766 )

        > Honestly, I can't think for the life of me why they haven't become a non-profit yet.

        Well, there are two obvious answers; your choice may depend on your feelings about Theo...

        1. OpenBSD is based in Canda. That's what lets them get around the US ITAR restrictions on strong encryption. But, on the other hand, if they set up a non-profit, they would only be able to give deductions off Canadian taxes, which doesn't help companies in the U.S. Incorporating as a non-profit in the US and transferring all
    • If more opensource projects would give you a link on their sposnored by page more companies would sponsor them I think. Hell, just posting directions on how to donate helps. The OpenBSD link looks pretty good though - not only do I get to support a project I like but I get a little boost to my own website's link popularity by donating. I'd rather give them the money for the link than some shitty SEO company and their spam site stooges.

      Any other projects need a sponsor?

  • Nothing personal (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "It seems that quite a few people have answered the call for aid made by OpenBSD's de Raadt."

    Nice to know that some people don't let their personal feelings get in the way of doing what's right.

  • Congratulations to the Mozilla Foundation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stox ( 131684 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:16PM (#15061130) Homepage
    For clearly demonstrating they are part of the whole community. If other organizations would take the same attitude, we would all be much better for it.

    • Re:Congratulations to the Mozilla Foundation (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I disagree. Donations to the Moz foundation should go toward work on improving the broswer. It's not their place to redirect donations.
      • I wonder how many security patches OpenBSD has submitted to the mozilla project. I don't know, but this point makes the argument swing both ways. In theory, any software that runs on OpenBSD has to be audited for security, and any changes can be submitted upstream. Perhaps OpenBSD is doing more work for the Mozilla foundation than you might originally think.
        • In theory, any software that runs on OpenBSD has to be audited for security, and any changes can be submitted upstream.

          Ports (thirdparty software not in base system) is not audited that deeply quite simply because it would be too resource demanding. Note that the OpenBSD base system contains a lot of software.

      • Re:Congratulations to the Mozilla Foundation (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Kelson ( 129150 ) * on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @05:46PM (#15061692) Homepage Journal
        1. Given that Mozilla does acutlaly have a revenue stream in addition to donations, what makes you think that $10K is all redirected donations?

        2. Given that "the Mozilla project uses SSH extensively for various purposes, including securing connections to the Mozilla CVS repository," perhaps supporting further development of OpenSSH might be considered important for continued development of the browser?

        What about other uses of money that aren't directly "improving the browser?" Would it be acceptable for MoFo to buy new servers for download mirrors? Support forums? How about Windows licenses or Mac hardware for development workstations, build boxes, and QA?

        3. While we're at it, what is it with the donate-but-with-strings-attached attitude these days?

  • Isn't 10K too low? (Score:4, Informative)

    by guyfromindia ( 812078 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:18PM (#15061147) Homepage
    Considering the rumors that the foundation makes something close to $72 million? (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6048377.html [zdnet.com])
    Quoting Chris Blizzard, a board member "I won't comment on the dollar amount, except to say that ($72 million) is not correct, though not off by an order of magnitude...."
    Guess any amount is fine...but 10K seems too low, IMHO

    • NO (Score:5, Insightful)

      by paulpach ( 798828 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:38PM (#15061285)
      You could argue 0 is too low, and even then you would be wrong. Mozilla is already giving much more: The best browser in the world whose development costed a lot more in man-hours and money. They have no obligation whatsoever of giving a dime to bsd any more than you do.

      So regardless of how much money the Mozilla foundation makes, if out of their heart, self interest or whatever decide to donate $10k ( or even $10), all you get to say is "thank you", and if you really want to show appreciation, ask "is there anything I can do for you?".

    • Hey, I'm impressed they donated anything, given the stony response [thejemreport.com] from companies like IBM, Novell and Red Hat.

      10% of the target from just one donor? That doesn't sound bad at all.

  • Cisco (Score:3, Insightful)

    by porkThreeWays ( 895269 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:19PM (#15061153)
    It's sad that Cisco isn't on the list...

  • Trace the source (Score:5, Interesting)

    by quokkapox ( 847798 ) <quokkapox@gmail.com> on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:19PM (#15061154)
    This money is coming from the Mozilla Foundation, which makes serious dough from google searches run via the firefox browser's default start page and the default search engine field. So use firefox, hit CTRL-k to search with google, and keep it going.
    • It just doesn't instill much confidence in a project if it is so horribly mismanaged financially that they must scream that they will die unless someone just hands them a wheelbarrow full of cash when others make piles of it through creative deals. If all the energy spent flailing around begging for money had been used to figure out a similarly sustainable revenue stream, they'd no doubt end up receiving more donations out of respect for showing a shred of moxie instead of getting a pittance out of pity.

  • This just goes to show... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TechnoGuyRob ( 926031 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:20PM (#15061156) Homepage
    This just goes to show how little financial support there is for open source projects. Everyone thinks that the F/OSS and contracts will relieve everything, but the truth is, open source software needs all the help that it can get. Mozilla Firefox is one of the few projects that was lucky enough to gain widespread recognition, but in order for open source to survive, we must all work for it, not take it for granted.

    You may not realize it, but there are countless of excellent OSS projects out there. Imagine the amount of people that have monetary troubles every single day; now image that as being a lot more difficult, and you will see the struggles of an open source programmer. Advertising and the occassional donation simply ISN'T going to do it. The worst part is, no one has figured out a source for an actual revenue stream. If we don't ensure the survival of an increasingly popular commercial model, we might face another "dotcom" crash--after all, money has to come from somewhere.

    • Re:This just goes to show... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:41PM (#15061311)

      The worst part is, no one has figured out a source for an actual revenue stream.

      Where do people get ideas like this? Revenue comes from the same place as most software, the end users. How many people does IBM pay to work on open source software they use internally? When companies want features added, customization, or support for open source software they pay someone to provide it. It is not like this is anything new. Right now I work for a company that sells hardware with a lot of customized, closed source software on it. The boxes also include a lot of open source software on them. They run Linux or a BSD as the OS and make use of lots of popular server software. We do our development using mostly open source tools. What happens when we find a bug in something? We report it. That is free QA work. Sometimes we fix it; free coding. Sometimes we need more functionality; again free coding.

      That is all work our company paid someone to do and went into open source projects. That money comes from our investors and customers. So you might say, "so what?" That is only 40-50 engineers spending maybe 5% of their time. But that is what we need, so that is what we do. There are thousands of companies out there, of all sizes, doing the same thing. Some contribute a few hours a month from one developer and some hire people full-time to just improve a project, help steer the project's direction, and be an in-house expert on it. The developers are being paid. The code is being written. The end users are getting a very good deal. That is the primary business model of open source software, and it has been working for decades.

      P.S. more people would donate to Theo's cause if he could establish a proper non-profit for the US.

      • But doesn't IBM's revenue stream depend on configuring and supporting Linux being so difficult that you have to employ legions of their consultants to keep it running? They aren't into FOSS because they are nice guys...

        I agree with the gpp. $10K is peanuts. The fact that something as hugely useful as OSSH is going around begging seriously undermines the whole "FOSS's success as an iron law of history" thinking.

        • But doesn't IBM's revenue stream depend on configuring and supporting Linux being so difficult that you have to employ legions of their consultants to keep it running?

          IBM makes its money from services and hardware sales. Open source software provides value added for those businesses. Also, since that business requires a lot of infrastructure, they need software to use internally.

          I agree that IBM does benefit by making software hard to configure and deploy, but that does not in any way nullify the useful

    • How can there be a dotcom crash of OSS? Most everyone involved in producing the stuff does it with the foreknowledge that there isn't any money in it directly - and yet they persist. That's because many people are driven more by a need to create than a need to make money. You see that in the extreme with the classic "starving artist" and a lot of the best OSS hackers fit in that same category. They do what they do for the love of it or because there's some kind of deep internal drive to create their vis
    • It is precisely because so little money is available that open source does what it does. As soon as you add serious money, open source becomes more like a business and all the "free as in beer" mojo goes right out the window. Money corrupts, and the greatest successes of open source have come from hobbyists who do their work well because they love doing it, not because there's a huge paycheck involved.

      The Open Source community is not in any danger and things work as they always have. People do it because

  • Let's hope (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bogie ( 31020 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:21PM (#15061170) Journal
    That he uses the money to establish a foundation that is equipped to do things like fundraising and marketing. As I said before, being a non-profit is hard as heck, he needs to run it like a business and hire people who have real world non-profit experience. Raising just enough money to get by without committing to major organizational change is extremely shortsighted. Let's also hope that others follow the Mozilla foundation's example.

  • Well, I'll give it a shot... (Score:4, Funny)

    by dominion ( 3153 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:24PM (#15061188) Homepage
    The Appleseed Project [sourceforge.net] could use funding. And a foot massage.

    Mostly we'll just settle for a foot massage.

  • $10,000 doesn't go very far (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RingDev ( 879105 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:30PM (#15061225) Homepage Journal
    Think of it this way, if the median salary for the development team is say $55k/year, plus benefits and taxes, and there are what maybe 4 team members (developers + manager)? You are looking at a cool 1/4 mil per year. Which means that $10k will keep the developers paid for roughly half a month of full time work.

    Nothing against OS development, but if you want a professional package, someone has to pay for it.

    -Rick
    • Most OpenSSH/OpenBSD developers work for free. They are volunteers, they love what they do.

      Which doesn't mean they do not produce good code. Probably the quality is higher than what you'll see produced by most profesional developers.

      Read some of the background articles to learn what the money will be spend on.

    • You know, if the developers were all actually regularly paid that much, they probably wouldn't be asking for donations. Most open source development proceeds unpaid, donations are used for tangible assets like hardware or bandwidth. In that way, $10,000 can pay for a lot. It may shock you, but much of the Internet was built on volunteer programming.
    • This is 10% of their target just from one donor -- not even counting all the people who've donated smaller amounts.

  • Conspiciously absent... (Score:4, Informative)

    by rongage ( 237813 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:52PM (#15061377)

    If you looked through the list of donations on Theo's donations page, it's quite curious that some of the larger commercial interests in the Linux World (RedHat, Novell, etc...) are NOT in there.

    Of course, they may have requested no publicity.

    This is Slashdot, I'll let you draw your own conclusions here... :)

    • Re:Conspiciously absent... (Score:5, Informative)

      by SigILL ( 6475 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @05:47PM (#15061700) Homepage
      some of the larger commercial interests in the Linux World (RedHat, Novell, etc...) are NOT in there.

      Of course, they may have requested no publicity.

      Nope, they just didn't donate [theaimsgroup.com].

      Hell, IBM even wanted the OpenBSD team to handle end-user support for one of their high-paying customers for free.
      • Incorporate my work into your product, save millions, don't give a dime back, fine, whatever, it is your right within the license.

        Get a ton of money for a support contract then send your client, not support staff, not in house developers, your client to the dev mailing list for a fix, on a project where you have not shown the least bit of good will, fuck you.

    • I don't see Apple there either. Don't Apple use BSD and ssh ?

  • This is great news, however... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pestilence669 ( 823950 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @04:57PM (#15061396)
    I've noticed some undue emphasis placed on OpenSSH & OpenSSL. They are GREAT packages, but not the only thing people benefit from. Don't forget, that nearly every commercial operating system has pilfered code from the BSD projects.

    EVERYBODY should contribute, especially the companies that have profited from the hard work of the team.

  • Donation is to OpenBSD, not OpenSSH (Score:3, Informative)

    by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @05:20PM (#15061545)
    From the Frank Hecker's report of Mozilla foundation activities [hecker.org]:

    OpenBSD project. The Mozilla Foundation made a $10K donation to the OpenBSD project in support of development of OpenBSD, OpenSSH, and related activities. The OpenBSD project does great work in the area of creating a secure Unix-like operating system (which runs Firefox, of course) and developing related security technologies. In particular the Mozilla project uses SSH extensively for various purposes, including securing connections to the Mozilla CVS repository. The OpenBSD and OpenSSH projects have been experiencing some financial difficulties, and based on their importance to the Mozilla project and to the wider open source and free software world we felt that it was well worth showing our support for them.

  • According to Jesus [lds.org], the $50 I gave to OpenSSH last year tops Mozilla.

    (So where's my thread?)

  • OpenBSD and the money (Score:5, Insightful)

    by menix ( 179754 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @05:50PM (#15061723)
    http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=114312315700005&r= 1&w=2 [theaimsgroup.com]

    There has been such a great soap opera on this on the OpenBSD mailing list.

    It's nice to see mozilla.org donate some cash but the real money should be coming from IBM, Redhat, Cisco and all the other vendors that bundle OpenSSH into their products. Somewhere in that post is a link to an email chain where IBM demanded Theo fix a bug that was in OpenSSH. (I believe the bug was fixed in a more recent version of OpenSSH then they were bundling.)

    Sure, they could change the license for OpenSSH and start making money off it but that's missing the point of what the BSD license is all about.

    It costs a lot of money to run that project and keep ahead of the jerks who are trying to break into your systems every day.

    If you use products from vendors that have OpenSSH bundled in them and they aren't on http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html [openbsd.org] then send them an email and ask them to give regularly. that's the only thing we can do to help keep us safe on this hostile internet!

    GO PUFFY

  • Hypocrisy considered harmful. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 44BSD ( 701309 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @05:58PM (#15061766)
    I seem to recall RMS getting a 'genius grant' a while back. IIRC, those grants come with no strings, not traceability, and aren't conditional upon the recipient being tax-exempt. Basically, the idea seems (I know this sounds nutty) that people who are passionate about something and have made it their life's work will take such gifts in the spirit intended by the giver.

    Now, I may be wrong, but I do not recall a flamefest back then about how that anticapitalist hippie Stallman would just spend the money on pizza and T-shirts. Why is it, then, that when the Mozilla group seeks to fund OpenSSH, the standard seems to be different?
    • Now, I may be wrong, but I do not recall a flamefest back then about how that anticapitalist hippie Stallman would just spend the money on pizza and T-shirts. Why is it, then, that when the Mozilla group seeks to fund OpenSSH, the standard seems to be different?
      I imagine that Richard had offended less geeks.
  • Suck it netcraft!

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