On Wednesday, November 30, 2016 at 6:56:11 PM UTC-5, Andrew David Wong wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA512 > > Dear Qubes Community, > > Since the initial launch [01] of Qubes OS back in April 2010, work on Qubes > has been funded in several different ways. Originally a pet project, it was > first supported by Invisible Things Lab [02] (ITL) out of the money we earned > on various R&D and consulting contracts. Later, we decided that we should try > to > commercialize it. Our idea, back then, was to commercialize Windows AppVM > support. Unlike the rest of Qubes OS, which is licensed under GPLv2, we > thought > we would offer Windows AppVM support under a proprietary license. Even though > we > made a lot of progress on both the business and technical sides of this > endeavor, it ultimately failed. > > Luckily, we got a helping hand from the Open Technology Fund [03] (OTF), which > has supported [04] the project for the past two years. While not a large > sum of money in itself, it did help us a lot, especially with all the work > necessary to improve Qubes' user interface, documentation, and outreach to new > communities. Indeed, the (estimated) Qubes user base has grown [05] > significantly over that period. Thank you, OTF! > > But Qubes is more than just a nice UI: it's an entirely new, complex system -- > a system that aims to change the game of endpoint security. Consequently, it > requires expertise covering a wide spectrum of topics: from understanding > low-level aspects of hardware and firmware (and how they translate to the > security of a desktop system), to UI design, documentation writing, and > community outreach. Even if we consider only the "security research" aspect of > Qubes, this area alone easily scales beyond the capabilities of a single human > being. > > In order to continue to deliver on its promise of strong desktop security, > Qubes > must retain and expand its core team, and this requires substantial funding. > At > this point, we believe the only realistic way to achieve this is through > commercialization, supplemented by community funding. > > > Commercialization > ================= > > We're taking a different approach to commercialization this time. Building on > the success of the recent Qubes 3.2 release, which has been praised by users > for > its stability and overall usability, we will begin offering commercial > editions > (licenses) of Qubes OS to corporate customers. We believe that the maturity of > Qubes, combined with its powerful new management stack [06], makes it ripe > for adoption by any corporation with significant security needs. > > Commercial editions of Qubes OS will be customized to meet special corporate > requirements. For example, two features that might be particularly attractive > to > corporate customers are (1) "locking down" dom0 in order to separate the user > and administrator roles and (2) integrating our local management stack with a > corporation's remote management infrastructure. These are both examples of > features that our developers are capable of implementing now, on Qubes 3.2. > > We plan to partner with one to three corporate clients in order to run a pilot > program throughout the first half of 2017. After it has been successfully > completed, we'll then widen our offer to more corporate customers and, > ultimately, to small business customers. Our main constraint is the > scalability > required to cover each additional client. Hence, we plan to focus on larger > customers first. > > Let there be no misunderstanding: Qubes OS will always remain open source. We > anticipate that the majority of our commercialization efforts will involve the > creation of custom Salt configurations, and perhaps writing a few additional > apps and integration code. In the event that any corporate features require > reworking the core Qubes code, that new code will remain open source. > > We considered many other ways of attempting to commercialize Qubes before > arriving at this model. One possibility that some of our users have inquired > about is that we sell dedicated Qubes hardware (i.e. laptops). However, there > are a number of challenges here, both in terms of making the hardware > trustworthy enough to merit our "seal of approval", and from a business and > logistics perspective. For these reasons, we don't plan to pursue this option > in > the immediate future. > > > Community funding > ================= > > Unfortunately, the financial necessity of shifting our priorities to > commercial > clients will mean that we have less time to work on features that benefit the > wider, security-minded open source community, which has been our focus for the > past seven years. This deeply saddens us. (We all use Qubes on our personal > computers too!) However, the reality is that ITL can't afford to sustain the > open source development of Qubes for much longer. We're running out of time. > > In an attempt to keep the open source development of Qubes going, we've teamed > up with Open Collective [07], which makes it easier to donate to the Qubes > project. Now, in addition to our Bitcoin fund [08], we can also accept > donations via credit card. ITL will not benefit from of any of the money > donated > through Open Collective. Instead, the funds will be paid directly to > individual > developers who have been hired to work on the open source edition of Qubes. > With the help of our community, we hope eventually to build a nonprofit > organization that will ensure the long-term future of Qubes as an open source > operating system that is freely available to all -- one of the few operating > systems that places the security of its users above all else. > > If you are a user of Qubes and want to help us continue working on it, please > donate now [07]. Those who have contributed will be publicly recognized on > our > Open Collective [07] page (if they so choose). Organizations that support the > Qubes project will be publicly recognized on our Partners page [09] > (again, if they so choose). If you are interested in supporting Qubes with > significant resources, whether as an individual or on behalf of an > organization, > we ask that you please contact us directly [10], since donating through > Open Collective entails significant administrative overhead. > > Thank you for your continued support. Together, we can ensure that Qubes is > around to secure our digital lives for many years to come. > > --The Qubes team > > > [01] https://blog.invisiblethings.org/2010/04/07/introducing-qubes-os.html > [02] https://invisiblethingslab.com > [03] https://www.opentech.fund/ > [04] https://www.opentech.fund/project/qubes-os > [05] https://www.qubes-os.org/counter/ > [06] https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2015/12/14/mgmt-stack/ > [07] https://opencollective.com/qubes-os > [08] https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2016/07/13/qubes-distributed-fund/ > [09] https://www.qubes-os.org/partners/ > [10] <busin...@qubes-os.org> > > You can also view this announcement on the Web at: > https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2016/11/30/qubes-commercialization/ > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > > iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJYP2b6AAoJENtN07w5UDAwJ4kQAMClOUh/vmxWr0Hb7ENgeBAq > xLQQrKuUBeK5yZ7+Jpeoqc/ni8VsZ8vwbXWayHLWHk1IMn22OMn/cd66T6tljt0x > UdcZ4Ng4nxl0j8sN0Ycw4iEx29LRwPs4m0EOPPEYRaqql+QNEPjs8mItE/vRtkd3 > KTudISYCflBwFB2SlVn8NHd8gNbaV/y8oy7gRLCpzEtf3rU4WAf2jKdRpGWx3RFx > uqYLJ/vfEOBs2SctsuNLzm+8eX7hZ6DOBQNBGgAtdLMnaWqBBA3uEjmwjGbNL2jm > BGVYUnPyKIgCcGHGuInCgRb8vatrV6Vesduw9IRbQHB2BOQT41pdhlbtbPUkOSu4 > HXn4j9/w3TXE4Qnvq5EeA3VTYM9cnf4COQ4XuaXNxUX9ojiuRgFqNxQ1vHw98rST > nsS//+9AoL2PQmElunWwhPe/srWDcODZ/iVDd2uafc0gEdNTYUHzDSQkhhd5GOEM > 2xe9zMfR8m+mpXTX5/ObVbsQ61EXUw6YYb9IH0vBvnG6QUSRe6xzXKVK8h/9JaHt > 5rhQxb+njEcovZ9cLadwA9IIZP4FJhYU0cvXpRbPSHueFRf7j4JfplClPEnL2vEC > NqG/lcgCKjA6tmk2x+CXU0rue35OwzjMUaWq8YZ0MmX0fc+/MFw121LpBu+0Ke0H > VOFj+L9DRea6g7k0OPtI > =3Y/D > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Andrew, I'm very willing to donate - and well noted that you all will continue to update the core changes in the public domain. I do understand the why, the what and the dollars for the change - however, will there be anyone left to work on the core, for the sake of the core? Just wondering where the donation dollars will be going. I ask because I agree with the person noting 20,000 current licenses. If we all sent in $100 US each then that's $2 million US. Is it possible to set up some separation of funding to ensure each group is getting what they want? Set up the public funding better with separate marketing, and let that fund improvements for the public domain (not just maintenance and slight core improvements) - and then fund your corporate goals using the methods you mentioned. As a relatively new user I'm concerned about investing more time in this and it not progressing. Thanks, Patrick Dallas, Texas -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "qubes-users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to qubes-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to qubes-users@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qubes-users/feecd91f-1eec-4283-a4d7-70b20659b439%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
