Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
Hello! On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 10:35:05AM -0700, Spruell, Darren-Perot wrote: And a quick Google search reveals that this is a.) a dead horse, b.) already in place: http://mailman.theapt.org/listinfo/openbsd-newbies This should be referred to from http://www.openbsd.org/mail.html Systematically, it'd fit under Other Mailing Lists OTOH I'd think a reference quite far towards the top would perhaps be better for leading newbies there. There *is* already a reference from the FAQ, section 2.2. Perhaps that should be more prominent, too, if people don't like to (gently - I think there's no contradiction in advicing people to learn and to read and doing that in a gentle way) answer newbie questions on [EMAIL PROTECTED] DS Kind regards, Hannah.
openbsd-newbies (was: openbsd and the money -solutions)
On 2006-03-27 14:49:52 +0200, Hannah Schroeter wrote:
On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 10:35:05AM -0700, Spruell, Darren-Perot wrote:
And a quick Google search reveals that this is a.) a dead horse, b.) already
in place:
http://mailman.theapt.org/listinfo/openbsd-newbies
This should be referred to from http://www.openbsd.org/mail.html
Agreed, but STFA :-{
At least it's in the FAQ: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq2.html#MailLists
Best
Martin
--
http://www.tm.oneiros.de
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
...on Sat, Mar 25, 2006 at 08:25:32AM +0100, Jurjen Oskam wrote: There is no reason to provide funding from a business standpoint. What does the business gain? Does having a business standpoint require shutting off all common sense? In todays world: Mostly. Modern businesses have developed an own definition of morality and common sense, which is not necessarily compatible with whatever individuals may think. In that environment, the ethics applied by the OpenBSD community are deeply anachronistic - which makes them great for some people, and a pain for others, regardless of any technical merits. My guess is that especially (US-based) public companies don't want to be seen associated with OpenBSD (by donating, for example), as they fear damage to their business reputation from that. Alex.
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
thus Stefan Olsson spake: From: Alexander Bochmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 2:29 PM My guess is that especially (US-based) public companies don't want to be seen associated with OpenBSD (by donating, for example), as they fear damage to their business reputation from that. -Why? In what way would it damage their reputation? Does German businesses think the same? any BSD is not as 'l33t' as Linux, even for managers and PR guys. it's a shame, but a fact. (if they have some brains in contrast to the common guys in those places, they make it dependent from the license. however, this proves that they don't understand it :)
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
thus Timo Schoeler spake: thus Stefan Olsson spake: From: Alexander Bochmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 2:29 PM My guess is that especially (US-based) public companies don't want to be seen associated with OpenBSD (by donating, for example), as they fear damage to their business reputation from that. -Why? In what way would it damage their reputation? Does German businesses think the same? any BSD is not as 'l33t' as Linux, even for managers and PR guys. it's a shame, but a fact. ^ is not as 'l33t' for non-BSD users, that is ;) (if they have some brains in contrast to the common guys in those places, they make it dependent from the license. however, this proves that they don't understand it :)
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On 03/24/06 04:17, Theo de Raadt wrote: http://www.digg.com/linux_unix/OpenBSD_needs_a_major_donor http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/21/1555243 .. These donations from individuals are really great. The community is great. Thanks a lot. But we know this is the wrong way to fund OpenBSD, OpenSSH, and our other subprojects in the long term, and that the Unix (and maybe even Linux) vendors who ship OpenSSH in their products should be helping with at least a few pennies of the millions and millions of dollars we have saved them. This is whining and it isn't very sure because you have no idea what alternatives for the free OpenSSH product would have cost. How many vendors are shipping another SSH implimentation? Currently there is one version that is a little better than others, good enough and freely available. Not that strange other people aren't interesting in shipping other versions. Therefore Damien and I have just sent these two mails to a few mailing lists: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openssh-unix-devm=114316163313701w=2 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openssh-unix-devm=114316224627520w=2 I suspect that conversation is not over. You need to automatically repeat the message, beg at the right places, for example at the FTP site, at least via http to ftp.openbsd.org no entrance without clicking away a want it better? donate now screen with paypall and credit card buttons. Beg at the places where people ask you to actually hand them over a free copy of the software. Demand something like $50 a year for access to the ftp.openbsd.org now!!! +++chefren
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
Please, stop wanting companies to support you. It doesn't work that way. To develop an OS under a licence like the ISC has a big hole: funding. You can't just go: Hey, you use the implementation that I develop and give away for free, you should pay me!. If the pay you, OK, if the don't, well, that's OK too, and more realistic. One thing you can do, is to maintain OpenBSD free as in freedom, but not as in free bear. The CVS access would be the same as now, but no more FTP downloads with ISOs or install sets.
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On 2006-03-24 12:10:37 +0100, chefren wrote: This is whining and it isn't very sure because you have no idea what alternatives for the free OpenSSH product would have cost. They can happily use lsh. Best Martin -- http://www.tm.oneiros.de
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 08:40:59AM -0300, Andr?s Delfino wrote: Please, stop wanting companies to support you. It doesn't work that way. To develop an OS under a licence like the ISC has a big hole: funding. You can't just go: Hey, you use the implementation that I develop and give away for free, you should pay me!. If the pay you, OK, if the don't, well, that's OK too, and more realistic. One thing you can do, is to maintain OpenBSD free as in freedom, but not as in free bear. The CVS access would be the same as now, but no more FTP downloads with ISOs or install sets. sorry dude but you are full of shit. for example from history: how do you think bsd was developped originally at the ucb? cu -- paranoic mickey (my employers have changed but, the name has remained)
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
It was the unique Unix-like OS with that licence. Right now, there are tons of other systems. Companies want to invest in Linux-based systems, because of marketing. On 3/24/06, mickey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 08:40:59AM -0300, Andr?s Delfino wrote: Please, stop wanting companies to support you. It doesn't work that way. To develop an OS under a licence like the ISC has a big hole: funding. You can't just go: Hey, you use the implementation that I develop and give away for free, you should pay me!. If the pay you, OK, if the don't, well, that's OK too, and more realistic. One thing you can do, is to maintain OpenBSD free as in freedom, but not as in free bear. The CVS access would be the same as now, but no more FTP downloads with ISOs or install sets. sorry dude but you are full of shit. for example from history: how do you think bsd was developped originally at the ucb? cu -- paranoic mickey (my employers have changed but, the name has remained)
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On Fri, 24 Mar 2006, chefren wrote: Demand something like $50 a year for access to the ftp.openbsd.org now!!! You are suggesting that we screw the people who have contributed by far the most to OpenBSD and OpenSSH, individual users and small organisations. Not a very bright idea. -d
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On Fri, 24 Mar 2006, Andris Delfino wrote: Please, stop wanting companies to support you. It doesn't work that way. To develop an OS under a licence like the ISC has a big hole: funding. You can't just go: Hey, you use the implementation that I develop and give away for free, you should pay me!. If the pay you, OK, if the don't, well, that's OK too, and more realistic. Even if we were to accept your pessimistic worldview that organisational gratitude is only a myth, then it is still in companies who use OpenBSD or OpenSSH interest to contribute - funding committed and internally-motivated developers to improve components of your product is far less expensive than recruiting, training, paying and providing office space for semi-motivated staff who crank out code of varying quality for financial reward alone. BTW, your linkage between the license and a lack of funding is specious, and there exist plenty of counter examples - including BSD itself. -d
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
As I have said before, BSD was the unique Unix-like operative system with a ISC-style license. That's why, IMHO, companies invested in it. On 3/24/06, Damien Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 24 Mar 2006, Andris Delfino wrote: Please, stop wanting companies to support you. It doesn't work that way. To develop an OS under a licence like the ISC has a big hole: funding. You can't just go: Hey, you use the implementation that I develop and give away for free, you should pay me!. If the pay you, OK, if the don't, well, that's OK too, and more realistic. Even if we were to accept your pessimistic worldview that organisational gratitude is only a myth, then it is still in companies who use OpenBSD or OpenSSH interest to contribute - funding committed and internally-motivated developers to improve components of your product is far less expensive than recruiting, training, paying and providing office space for semi-motivated staff who crank out code of varying quality for financial reward alone. BTW, your linkage between the license and a lack of funding is specious, and there exist plenty of counter examples - including BSD itself. -d
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 09:36:01AM -0300, Andr?s Delfino wrote: It was the unique Unix-like OS with that licence. Right now, there are tons of other systems. Companies want to invest in Linux-based systems, because of marketing. what are you smoking dude? what unique? there was not att unix and no hpux and no sunos and nothing else? ibm did not make its own os either? all those huge moose financed bsd at the same time because they were interested in using shit from it. cu On 3/24/06, mickey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 08:40:59AM -0300, Andr?s Delfino wrote: Please, stop wanting companies to support you. It doesn't work that way. To develop an OS under a licence like the ISC has a big hole: funding. You can't just go: Hey, you use the implementation that I develop and give away for free, you should pay me!. If the pay you, OK, if the don't, well, that's OK too, and more realistic. One thing you can do, is to maintain OpenBSD free as in freedom, but not as in free bear. The CVS access would be the same as now, but no more FTP downloads with ISOs or install sets. sorry dude but you are full of shit. for example from history: how do you think bsd was developped originally at the ucb? cu -- paranoic mickey (my employers have changed but, the name has remained) -- paranoic mickey (my employers have changed but, the name has remained)
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
Ryan Flannery [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I really hate prolonging this thread, but I'm curious about the following... I've done quite bit of contract work around my area, and in most cases I've been able to implement OpenBSD for something. Whenever that's happened, I've always pushed for the company to make a donation. In most cases it's worked (actually all that I can think of), resulting in (usually) around $500. It's not what the larger companies could do, but I'm curious if other contractors try to push donations when they utilize openbsd/openssh. All the companies I've worked with have been fairly receptive. I work for a startup that simply would not exist without OpenSSH. AFAIK, they have never donated a penny, the excuse being, we will once we turn a profit. But, if they do, will they really donate? Or will they be too busy counting the dollars. The recent messages by Damien and Theo are great for forwarding to bosses and marketing and PR. Thanks for those; that's what I'll do with them. That said, I think a wall of shame page on the OpenSSH site might be a good idea: one listing all those big companies mentioned that have never donated a dime. Negative PR might result in more donations than managers receiving the minor annoyance message forwarded to them, which they'll simply delete and forget about. -- deanna
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On 03/24/06 13:54, Damien Miller wrote: On Fri, 24 Mar 2006, chefren wrote: Demand something like $50 a year for access to the ftp.openbsd.org now!!! You are suggesting that we screw the people who have contributed by far the most to OpenBSD and OpenSSH, individual users and small organisations. N O N O N O NO!!! I have no problems with pointing to FTP/HTTP mirrors that distribute everything for free. I only say: Make ftp.openbsd.org something that costs money for people who want to download from =there= just like the real CD's cost money while you can download comparable iso's for free. And I have said that I'm willing to do the necessary administation. +++chefren
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 10:10:36AM -0300, Andr?s Delfino wrote: As I have said before, BSD was the unique Unix-like operative system with a ISC-style license. That's why, IMHO, companies invested in it. they supported it because they used it for their own product. so what has changed in 'em now? they use it but they do not support it. they make you and me simple folks and small companies to pay our money to make software for 'em. and we continue doing so for at least stuff we get to use for living has decent shit in it. cu On 3/24/06, Damien Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 24 Mar 2006, Andris Delfino wrote: Please, stop wanting companies to support you. It doesn't work that way. To develop an OS under a licence like the ISC has a big hole: funding. You can't just go: Hey, you use the implementation that I develop and give away for free, you should pay me!. If the pay you, OK, if the don't, well, that's OK too, and more realistic. Even if we were to accept your pessimistic worldview that organisational gratitude is only a myth, then it is still in companies who use OpenBSD or OpenSSH interest to contribute - funding committed and internally-motivated developers to improve components of your product is far less expensive than recruiting, training, paying and providing office space for semi-motivated staff who crank out code of varying quality for financial reward alone. BTW, your linkage between the license and a lack of funding is specious, and there exist plenty of counter examples - including BSD itself. -d -- paranoic mickey (my employers have changed but, the name has remained)
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On Fri, 24 Mar 2006, mickey wrote: SNAP sorry dude but you are full of shit. for example from history: how do you think bsd was developped originally at the ucb? cu -- paranoic mickey (my employers have changed but, the name has remained) Lot's of money flowing from the US Gov't Dept of Defense? diana
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
Don't do that, that is extortion. If you don't want to make OpenBSD free-as-in-freedom, but not free-as-in-beer; well, there is another thing that might help. Companies will only donate if they gain something, not just code, I'm talking about money. I'm not a legal guy, but: isn't there a way to make companies gain some money if the donate to us? Like a tax-exempt or something? On 3/24/06, Deanna Phillips [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ryan Flannery [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I really hate prolonging this thread, but I'm curious about the following... I've done quite bit of contract work around my area, and in most cases I've been able to implement OpenBSD for something. Whenever that's happened, I've always pushed for the company to make a donation. In most cases it's worked (actually all that I can think of), resulting in (usually) around $500. It's not what the larger companies could do, but I'm curious if other contractors try to push donations when they utilize openbsd/openssh. All the companies I've worked with have been fairly receptive. I work for a startup that simply would not exist without OpenSSH. AFAIK, they have never donated a penny, the excuse being, we will once we turn a profit. But, if they do, will they really donate? Or will they be too busy counting the dollars. The recent messages by Damien and Theo are great for forwarding to bosses and marketing and PR. Thanks for those; that's what I'll do with them. That said, I think a wall of shame page on the OpenSSH site might be a good idea: one listing all those big companies mentioned that have never donated a dime. Negative PR might result in more donations than managers receiving the minor annoyance message forwarded to them, which they'll simply delete and forget about. -- deanna
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 06:43:27AM -0700, Diana Eichert wrote: On Fri, 24 Mar 2006, mickey wrote: SNAP sorry dude but you are full of shit. for example from history: how do you think bsd was developped originally at the ucb? cu -- paranoic mickey (my employers have changed but, the name has remained) Lot's of money flowing from the US Gov't Dept of Defense? and big companies... cu -- paranoic mickey (my employers have changed but, the name has remained)
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
--- Deanna Phillips [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That said, I think a wall of shame page on the OpenSSH site might be a good idea: one listing all those big companies mentioned that have never donated a dime. Negative PR might result in more donations than managers receiving the minor annoyance message forwarded to them, which they'll simply delete and forget about. Too bad openSSH couldn't just require a license fee for openSSH to be included in OS's besides openBSD that are sold for money. This would include corporate use as well. So if IBM wanted to include openSSH in one of its products sold to someone, they would have to pay openSSH to include it in their product or kick back to the openSSH team some percentage of the revenue generated by that product. Of course, the license would have to be written so the openSSH team is not obligated to do support. If IBM wanted their employees to use openSSH, they would have to pay a site license fee. Of course, home users (non-business) and universities would be excluded. Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On Fri, 24 Mar 2006, mickey wrote: On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 06:43:27AM -0700, Diana Eichert wrote: SNIP Lot's of money flowing from the US Gov't Dept of Defense? and big companies... sorry Mickey, but I've been involved with DOD DOE ( and it's predecessors) for almost 25 years. UC get's a large amount of it's research funding from the US Gov't. Now the do-gooder liberals in California may want you to think it's for basic research, but I can guarantee you DOD DOE don't spend US tax payer $$ unless there is some return in support of defense and nuclear physics work. diana
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
Andris Delfino [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Don't do that, that is extortion. Well, it needn't be so severe. It could simply be an addition to the users page ( http://www.openssh.org/users.html ) with parenthetical notes such as: ( has donated to the project -- thank you. ) next to those that have, and either a mild admonition or glaring emptiness next to the others. -- deanna
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
(I'm so sorry that I'm continuing this thread...) There is quite a conflict between the core developers that don't wish to spend their time nicely holding newbies' hands (frankly, I don't want them to spend their time on that either), and the touchy-feely people that think OpenBSD would progress further by not flaming to oblivion every new user that haplessly posts an uninformed question to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Both sides are right. Why don't we have separate lists? One for general questions, and gently guiding new users to the FAQ and man pages? It can be all fuzzy and warm; a place for pleasantries. And a separate list for more experienced users that want to dwell in the lair of dragons. Posters get access to the top people to help resolve issues, but asking a dumb question will get them ignored (at best). I think this would be very beneficial to OpenBSD. New, dumb users don't take up developer time, and don't get the insults that come with it. I really think we have the separate lists now, with misc@ and [EMAIL PROTECTED] The description for misc is General user questions and answers. This is the most active list, and should be the default for most questions. This seems like the newbie list to me. And tech@ is Discussion of technical topics for OpenBSD developers and advanced users. This is *not* a tech support forum, do not use it as such. OpenBSD developers will often make patches to implement new features and other important changes available for public testing through this list. Wonderful! Powers that be, what say you? Ryan Fox [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type APPLICATION/DEFANGED which had a name of rfox.22208DEFANGED-vcf]
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On 2006/03/24 11:20, Ryan Fox wrote: Why don't we have separate lists? One for general questions, and gently guiding new users to the FAQ and man pages? Like misc@ and http://mailman.theapt.org/listinfo/openbsd-newbies, you mean?
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
Hi! On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 11:20:19AM -0500, Ryan Fox wrote: Why don't we have separate lists? One for general questions, and gently guiding new users to the FAQ and man pages? It can be all fuzzy and warm; a place for pleasantries. And a separate list for more experienced users that want to dwell in the lair of dragons. Posters get access to the top people to help resolve issues, but asking a dumb question will get them ignored (at best). There *is* already a newbies list IIRC. I'm not on it, how much traffic is it (I just figured that'd be a way to help the project, too, in some way, to be there and answer questions occasionally)? [...] Kind regards, Hannah.
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On 3/24/06, chefren [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Demand something like $50 a year for access to the ftp.openbsd.org now!!! great idea. that's $50 from ibm, $50 from sun, $50 from redhat, and $50 from apple. $200 sounds about right to cover all the expenses. in case the project ends up using a little more than $200 for electricity this year, you'll cover the spread, right?
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On 3/24/06, Ryan Fox [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is quite a conflict between the core developers that don't wish to spend their time nicely holding newbies' hands (frankly, I don't want them to spend their time on that either), and the touchy-feely people that think OpenBSD would progress further by not flaming to oblivion every new user that haplessly posts an uninformed question to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Now the discussion has drifted away from the subject of financing. Both sides are right. Why don't we have separate lists? One for general questions, and gently guiding new users to the FAQ and man pages? This has been discussed ad infinitum. There are 3 lists, misc, tech, and openbsd-newbies: http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=articlesid=20040319073626 Greg
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On Thu, Mar 23, 2006 at 08:17:42PM -0700, Theo de Raadt wrote: http://www.digg.com/linux_unix/OpenBSD_needs_a_major_donor http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/21/1555243 No one seems to care (unless donations have shot up and Theo, et. al. haven't mentioned it) From what I see, we have received a mini flood of donations, which means there will soon be a drought. It is already slowing down a lot. In the end, it will not be enough, unless there is another funding drive just like this in another 6 months. If I can try to estimate the situation, having seen how it works before.. hold onto your seats, this is confusing: In the end, 50% of what we have gotten we would have received anyways from nice donators over the coming 6 months. So we will have received about twice as much as normal, but just sooner. Of course, since this rush was driven by a press deluge on this issue (just check news.google), people will very quickly forget, and not wish to help us again quite as soon. As I said, it is already slowing down. There are a finite number of people who can be reached directly via even these information forums... One thing you can do is extend the conversation, politely, to your local LUG/BUG/UUG mailing list (which I imagine many of us are on.) Some of them will have seen it on slashdot, but many won't. Bringing in new donors and interested people in OpenSSH will help more than us all chipping in what we would have already (full disclosure: I'm a lapsed CD buyer who right now placed his first CD order in a couple years). -- David Terrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://meat.net/
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] That said, I think a wall of shame page on the OpenSSH site might be a good idea: one listing all those big companies mentioned that have never donated a dime. Negative PR might result in more donations than managers receiving the minor annoyance message forwarded to them, which they'll simply delete and forget about. Too bad openSSH couldn't just require a license fee for openSSH to be included in OS's besides openBSD that are sold for money. This would include corporate use as well. So if IBM wanted to include openSSH in one of its products sold to someone, they would have to pay openSSH to include it in their product or kick back to the openSSH team some percentage of the revenue generated by that product. Complicating licensing and reducing freedom obviously don't fit project goals. Better approach. How about said companies belly up and support the group that enables them (in part) to enjoy the financial success they have? You shouldn't *have* to levy a license against somebody to get them to show some appreciation. Call it the moral right thing, or social responsibility, or whatever. It's not about paying for services or products. If that was the goal, don't you think that would have been put in place up front and called OpenSSH ClosedSSH and sold commercially? Ditto for OpenBSD? What is lacking is the symbiotic relationship that the corporations that are in a place to support the project don't currently care to engage in. For these companies, a parasitic approach is appropriate and they will simply take from the project (which, yes, they are entitled to because of the free licensing, BUT...) and never *give* back. This is parasitic. These organizations need to step up and enable the project that enables them. Leveraging licensing against them shouldn't be (and isn't) required. Period. A little goodwill, or charity, or responsibility or logic may be. Of course, the license would have to be written so the openSSH team is not obligated to do support. Yet amazingly, the current license already is. YOU'RE FIXING THE WRONG PROBLEM. The problem to fix is _why don't the moneybag corporations contribute to the project that enables them to be successful?_ That problem is not fixed by compromising values and convoluting licensing. And its not fixed by bludgeoning them with a license clause. You're coming back to the realm of commercial software again. If IBM wanted their employees to use openSSH, they would have to pay a site license fee. Of course, home users (non-business) and universities would be excluded. Sounds convoluted. DS
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Why don't we have separate lists? One for general questions, and gently guiding new users to the FAQ and man pages? It can be all fuzzy and warm; a place for pleasantries. And a separate list for more experienced users that want to dwell in the lair of dragons. Posters get access to the top people to help resolve issues, but asking a dumb question will get them ignored (at best). And a quick Google search reveals that this is a.) a dead horse, b.) already in place: http://mailman.theapt.org/listinfo/openbsd-newbies DS
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
Hey I don't usually say much on the mailing list, but if I could make just 1 suggestion, offer CD's, posters and BSDWare VIA Paypal payments. I know myself, I dumped my credit cards because, well, I like to spend, But I have replaced that with my paypal usage and would use paypal to purchase BSD stuff for sure.. I love BSD, I sell the idea of openBSD to everyone I talk to and have recently sat in a business meeting and during this, I have worked on convincing a company that has ISA server running to replace that junk with OpenBSD PF/ISAKMPD because it blows the doors off of ISA in performance and rebuild time and is much more flexable in tools available and well, its not, ISA :) I get my company to buy the a CD set every 6 months, I'm a little behind on 3.9 (I never purchase right away) so I will get that hashed out First of next week and get it ordered up.. If you do offer paypal for the stuff above, I will buy more frequently as to do my part to help support the System I trust with my systems/network security. I will send a donation now as well as I can do that VIA paypal (won't be large, but it will be a donation) Anyhow, Just wanted to mention that. It might go on deaf ears, but I'm just trying to offer a suggestion that would possibly get more orders with little work on setting it up. NOTE: If someone already suggested this, and it got slammed down or something, I'm sorry, I have read as much of the postings I can so I might have missed some. James Mackinnon Devantec Solutions - Original Message - From: Theo de Raadt [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: misc@openbsd.org Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 7:02 PM Subject: Re: openbsd and the money -solutions I did not mean to step on another sacred cow - I really only wanted to suggest redirecting this thread toward workable solutions. The problem is that many of the workable solutions people are suggesting are completely ridiculous. They are in the catagory of Cater to me, the entire world is just like me when we know is not true. Now please, you are keeping many of us from the source code.
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
James Mackinnon wrote: If you do offer paypal for the stuff above, I will buy more frequently as to do my part to help support the System I trust with my systems/network security. I will send a donation now as well as I can do that VIA paypal (won't be large, but it will be a donation) It's your lucky day. From http://www.openbsd.org/orders.html#cshop Other payment methods: * PayPal: Payments may be sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you know the total, including shipping, like for single CD sets (see mail order costs below or ask us), just place a web order, select payment method pre-arranged, and put a note in the comments section of the order that payment is being made by PayPal. Pay in either US dollars, Canadian dollars or Euros.
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
Finally having to weight in: I personally and my company has been buying at least 2 copies of each release and t-shirts for as long as I can remember. The store folks do a great job, and the one time they mixed up an order they sent me a T-shirt and a nice reply. Theo and many others have worked hard for years to give us an outstanding OS, and Theo and others have made it a cost-effective distribution even in the one CD per machine ration. During this time he and his team have had to deal with what are complicated licensing and design issues. I always wonder, do people believe that this happens by some magic method, or do they not get that it is: a lot of long hours, people complaining about things covered in FAQ's or available in archive, and in general being painted as some money grubbing developer every-time you tried to take the ship farther? So please for those of us that need the bandwidth of these groups to follow critical issues that have not been covered in the past: 1. Read the damn FAQ's, newbies, and do a Google search on what you are about to waste list bandwidth on. People on the project spend good time getting this done for us. 2. Buy the CD, and quit bitching about it. For that matter be a good neighbor and buy one copy per machine you run the OS on. 3. If you think that the price is unwarranted and unaffordable, you really need to get a job so you can afford the meager fee. Or donate some blood? 4. The stickers make it all worth it. So here is my plea. Move on Also one promise if someone actually does start copying the current obsd distribtion ISO that is copyright Theo; I for one will make donation to help Theo hire legal counsel to file a suit under WIPO and all other applicable jurisdictional piracy statutes to stop the distribution. He has been creative in getting funds to make the ship go. If you don't like it. Get off the ship. Please note I do not work for Theo and am not a principal developer. I am just a client for the OpenBSD distribution, making my own additions for our clients and ourselves as needed. My comments should probably have remained in my head, but this thread made me so fumed I had to actually reach for my nitro tablets and take two. Flame away if you must. Move on and be a good citizen. Life is too short to argue over things under $50 CU Chet Uber President and Chief Scientist SecurityPosture, Inc. 3718 N 113 Plaza, Omaha, NE 68164 vox +1 (402) 505-9684 | fax +1 (402) 932-2130 | cell (402) 813-3211 -- This communication is confidential to the parties it was intended to serve --
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On Fri, 24 Mar 2006, Chet Uber wrote: 1. Read the damn FAQ's, newbies, and do a Google search on what you are about to waste list bandwidth on. People on the project spend good time getting this done for us. 2. Buy the CD, and quit bitching about it. For that matter be a good neighbor and buy one copy per machine you run the OS on. 3. If you think that the price is unwarranted and unaffordable, you really need to get a job so you can afford the meager fee. Or donate some blood? 4. The stickers make it all worth it. CU Chet Uber President and Chief Scientist SecurityPosture, Inc. 3718 N 113 Plaza, Omaha, NE 68164 vox +1 (402) 505-9684 | fax +1 (402) 932-2130 | cell (402) 813-3211 -- This communication is confidential to the parties it was intended to serve I kind of like #3 (donate blood) easy $10 for OpenBSD and help save someone's existence at the same time. I'm sure we can all spare a little and the ratio of clean usable computer geek blood is bound to be higher than the average seeing as how many of us spend 90% of time in front of a monitor leaving us only 10% of time to go out and impurify ourselves. -Matt-
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
--- Spruell, Darren-Perot [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Better approach. How about said companies belly up and support the group that enables them (in part) to enjoy the financial success they have? Because there is no reason for them to. Here's what would happen: 1) license change comes out 2) IT looks for alternative program 3) IT provides figures to finance for either the alternative program, the new license, or in house development 4) finance runs some cash flow analysis and sits down with the CIO and CFO based on the results 5) suggestion is provided to management I work in finance. There is no reason to provide funding from a business standpoint. What does the business gain? Corporations basically have a free development team. Sure they cannot dictate requests, but the code quality is high and the product works well. Honestly, unless the openSSH team mandates funding, no one will cough up cash. And the license price has to be the sweet spot, where it isn't too high that no funding is received and not too low that it doesn't accomplish anything. And Theo from his messages doesn't want the direction of the program dictated to him by folks that donate. No corporation is gonna provide funding unless they get something out of it. I think Theo needs to put his foot down on this issue. I would think of openSSH as separate from openBSD. I would not advocate changing licenses on the rest of openBSD. Of course, the downside is that some of the corporations might withhold documentation needed for driver development unless the license is lifted. Cheers, Brian Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
Copyright law is complex, OpenBSD policy is simple - OpenBSD strives to maintain the spirit of the original Berkeley Unix copyrights. This is the first sentence of this page: http://www.openbsd.org/policy.html Can't people see how ridiculous is all that talk about why don't we change the license? It's written clearly: strives, which means that being free as Berkeley Unix was is damn important to the project. Besides, let's say that all of a sudden OpenSSH's license changes as has been suggested by many. Any company and/or project could think Well, the new version has XXX license but the previous version is BSD! So, let's just get the old code and fork it. Read the OpenSSH history here: http://openssh.org/history.html Whoo, these first sentences are really great: OpenSSH is a derivative of the original free ssh 1.2.12 release from Tatu Ylvnen. Tatu changed the license and created... SSH.com! How ironic... why wouldn't someone think to do just the same if OpenSSH's license changed? Cut these threads, please, and let the devs code. On 3/24/06, Brian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- Spruell, Darren-Perot [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Better approach. How about said companies belly up and support the group that enables them (in part) to enjoy the financial success they have? Because there is no reason for them to. Here's what would happen: 1) license change comes out 2) IT looks for alternative program 3) IT provides figures to finance for either the alternative program, the new license, or in house development 4) finance runs some cash flow analysis and sits down with the CIO and CFO based on the results 5) suggestion is provided to management I work in finance. There is no reason to provide funding from a business standpoint. What does the business gain? Corporations basically have a free development team. Sure they cannot dictate requests, but the code quality is high and the product works well. Honestly, unless the openSSH team mandates funding, no one will cough up cash. And the license price has to be the sweet spot, where it isn't too high that no funding is received and not too low that it doesn't accomplish anything. And Theo from his messages doesn't want the direction of the program dictated to him by folks that donate. No corporation is gonna provide funding unless they get something out of it. I think Theo needs to put his foot down on this issue. I would think of openSSH as separate from openBSD. I would not advocate changing licenses on the rest of openBSD. Of course, the downside is that some of the corporations might withhold documentation needed for driver development unless the license is lifted. Cheers, Brian Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -- Felipe Brant Scarel PATUX/OpenBSD Project Leader (http://www.patux.cic.unb.br)
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 03:15:27PM -0800, Brian wrote: There is no reason to provide funding from a business standpoint. What does the business gain? Does having a business standpoint require shutting off all common sense? Everytime someone mentions things like business decision or business standpoint you're practically *guaranteed* to hear an extremely narrowminded and shortsighted argument. No corporation is gonna provide funding unless they get something out of it. The companies which integrated Sendmail all just had to spend a lot of money to issue an advisory about the latest vulnerability. They had to scramble to patch things on their version of Sendmail, or at least make sure that the Sendmail-supplied patches work well on their particular OS. As we all know, OpenSSH is used by many companies in many products. A high quality OpenSSH is in the interest of each and every company. A high quality OpenSSH *lowers* costs, both today (because it's freely available), and in the future because high quality means less bugs, wich means a significantly lowered chance of having to spend a lot money should a vulnerability be found. If it would no longer be possible (for whatever reason) to provide high quality software, costs for each company would go *up* much more than it would cost all of them together to make it possible for a project like OpenBSD to keep providing high quality OpenSSH software. -- Jurjen Oskam
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
I read that FTP is becoming far more popular than CDROMs as a means of obtaining OpenBSD. If this is because it's more convenient (vs. folks just being too cheap) then it might make sense to sell downloadable official (copyright Theo de Raadt) ISO images of releases as well as CDROMs. Yes, I read the FAQ I'm just thinking that selling only CDROMs in today's world may be akin to selling only floppies (no CDROMs available) a few years back. If you don't like this idea don't waste time on it - propose something better! -- _ _ _ __| | __ _ _ __ | |__ __ _ ___ ___| | ___ _ __ / _` |/ _` | '_ \ | '_ \ / _` / __/ __| |/ _ \ '__| | (_| | (_| | | | | | | | | (_| \__ \__ \ | __/ | \__,_|\__,_|_| |_| |_| |_|\__,_|___/___/_|\___|_| [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
I read that FTP is becoming far more popular than CDROMs as a means of obtaining OpenBSD. If this is because it's more convenient (vs. folks just being too cheap) then it might make sense to sell downloadable official (copyright Theo de Raadt) ISO images of releases as well as CDROMs. Yes, I read the FAQ I'm just thinking that selling only CDROMs in today's world may be akin to selling only floppies (no CDROMs available) a few years back. If you don't like this idea don't waste time on it - propose something better! We can't. Just like you can't google.
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On 03/23/06 20:52, Daniel E. Hassler wrote: I read that FTP is becoming far more popular than CDROMs as a means of obtaining OpenBSD. If this is because it's more convenient (vs. folks just being too cheap) then it might make sense to sell downloadable official (copyright Theo de Raadt) ISO images of releases as well as CDROMs. Yes, I read the FAQ I'm just thinking that selling only CDROMs in today's world may be akin to selling only floppies (no CDROMs available) a few years back. If you don't like this idea don't waste time on it - propose something better! Yep! CD sales will definitely go down/down/down and FTP use will definitely go up/up/up. Sell access to a new ftp.openbsd.org server with the real thing. I see no problem at all. The OpenBSD web site may definitely point to the free mirrors too but, like with old CD's, _let people pay for the real thing!_ This proposal has nothing to do with less-free or less-open, Theo had no problem with receiving money for the real CD's, why have trouble with receiving money for the real FTP??? It is clear it seems clueless for most techies, the Sunsite ftp site may even be the real server, but it's clear for me and lots of others that people and companies will be paying for being able to download from the real and trustable ftp.openbsd.org server. Sigh... Is it so difficult to try this for a period? I offer to do the administration. +++chefren
We can't. [was: Re: openbsd and the money -solutions]
On 03/23/06 22:11, Theo de Raadt wrote: We can't. What's difficult with pointing ftp.openbsd.org to a new server that's a mirror of the current ftp.openbsd.org server? Why can you point us again and again to the place where we should buy CD's while we want to be pointed to a the place where we can buy FTP access because that's far more handy? Flip that bit! +++chefren
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
I fail to see why there aren't at least 2000 people/organizations/OS's/OS projects willing to donate at a dollar a day. That should give the projects what they need to evolve at a healthy pace. ~5,000/mo for power, internet connection, and other overhead ~25,000/mo for hackathons ~10,000/mo for hardware ~20,000/mo for a team of developers You all write good software, count me at a dollar a day payed monthly. Surely more people can afford the same? Axton Grams
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
Some of us: 1. Work for companies which want you to have a physical CD around, even if it is available via FTP. 2. Buy CD's (I have to preorder 3.9, and I will). 3. Put the stickers on our machines and servers. 4. Work on machines which may not be connected to the Internet. 5. Don't have the time to burn everything to CD. I'm more than willing to buy my CDs every 6 months. The problem with anything FTP-related is that not everyone follows the honor system that it implies. It's much easier to give someone a username and password than it is to dupe a CD :). The issue isn't with new ways to sell the product. It's with the fact that companies who have made a lot of money selling the feature set provided by OpenBSD, OpenSSH, and related projects like IBM, Red Hat, Cisco, and Check Point haven't contributed to the project. It's a double-edged sword. The license the projects are under encourages commercial usage moreso than other licenses. However, that doesn't mean that those who do are going to give back. The better possible solution (and the more professional one, IMHO), is when you have an OBSD-related project, encourage your customers to buy the CDs along with the project, with an explanation of what the project does. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of chefren Sent: Thu 3/23/2006 4:27 PM To: misc@openbsd.org Subject: Re: openbsd and the money -solutions On 03/23/06 20:52, Daniel E. Hassler wrote: I read that FTP is becoming far more popular than CDROMs as a means of obtaining OpenBSD. If this is because it's more convenient (vs. folks just being too cheap) then it might make sense to sell downloadable official (copyright Theo de Raadt) ISO images of releases as well as CDROMs. Yes, I read the FAQ I'm just thinking that selling only CDROMs in today's world may be akin to selling only floppies (no CDROMs available) a few years back. If you don't like this idea don't waste time on it - propose something better! Yep! CD sales will definitely go down/down/down and FTP use will definitely go up/up/up. Sell access to a new ftp.openbsd.org server with the real thing. I see no problem at all. The OpenBSD web site may definitely point to the free mirrors too but, like with old CD's, _let people pay for the real thing!_ This proposal has nothing to do with less-free or less-open, Theo had no problem with receiving money for the real CD's, why have trouble with receiving money for the real FTP??? It is clear it seems clueless for most techies, the Sunsite ftp site may even be the real server, but it's clear for me and lots of others that people and companies will be paying for being able to download from the real and trustable ftp.openbsd.org server. Sigh... Is it so difficult to try this for a period? I offer to do the administration. +++chefren
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On Thu, 2006-03-23 at 22:27:10 +0100, chefren proclaimed... Sigh... Is it so difficult to try this for a period? I offer to do the administration. Who the fuck are you? Nobody, that's who. I don't trust some nobody to do the administration of the FTP server I download from. Why would we trust a non-team member? Actually, why don't YOU go sell access to OpenBSD via FTP? Nothing is stopping you, or are you too stupid to read a license? Go do it, and go see how many people you get to turn to you instead of the people that have built their reputations over the course of 10 years. - Eric
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
Apologies if this hasn't already been covered on the lists somewhere. Limit CD-ROM download availability and push for more CD sales. Instead of offering hefty discounts to resellers, why not establish trusted distribution points in different countries? I would personally be happy to act as one such, although as I am an unknown to the project, I wouldn't expect to be offered such a role. Personally, I wouldn't want paying for the task and I'm sure that nobody else would, in helping out the project. But surely there are trusted users in most countries, who could act in this way, further improving costs/profits and negating the need for resellers? Surely the resellers don't help in raising the profile of the project and so are just cashing in? -- Best regards, Craig http://slashboot.org/ Support OpenBSD http://www.openbsd.org/orders.html
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
I did not mean to step on another sacred cow - I really only wanted to suggest redirecting this thread toward workable solutions. The problem is that many of the workable solutions people are suggesting are completely ridiculous. They are in the catagory of Cater to me, the entire world is just like me when we know is not true. Now please, you are keeping many of us from the source code.
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
Are you saying we can't propose anything better? I did not mean to step on another sacred cow - I really only wanted to suggest redirecting this thread toward workable solutions. I don't know anything and I can prove it! Theo de Raadt wrote: I read that FTP is becoming far more popular than CDROMs as a means of obtaining OpenBSD. If this is because it's more convenient (vs. folks just being too cheap) then it might make sense to sell downloadable official (copyright Theo de Raadt) ISO images of releases as well as CDROMs. Yes, I read the FAQ I'm just thinking that selling only CDROMs in today's world may be akin to selling only floppies (no CDROMs available) a few years back. If you don't like this idea don't waste time on it - propose something better! We can't. Just like you can't google. -- _ _ _ __| | __ _ _ __ | |__ __ _ ___ ___| | ___ _ __ / _` |/ _` | '_ \ | '_ \ / _` / __/ __| |/ _ \ '__| | (_| | (_| | | | | | | | | (_| \__ \__ \ | __/ | \__,_|\__,_|_| |_| |_| |_|\__,_|___/___/_|\___|_| [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
Hi, Just an idea, but why not try to have this conversation linked to on slashdot / digg. There is huge traffic to these sites from the linux community, who all owe the OpenBSD developers for OpenSSH. Regards Edd
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On 3/23/06, Edd Barrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Just an idea, but why not try to have this conversation linked to on slashdot / digg. There is huge traffic to these sites from the linux community, who all owe the OpenBSD developers for OpenSSH. Someone put it up on Slashdot Tuesday. Hopefully it's driven some letter writing, purchases and donations. Greg
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On 3/23/06, Edd Barrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just an idea, but why not try to have this conversation linked to on slashdot / digg. There is huge traffic to these sites from the linux community, who all owe the OpenBSD developers for OpenSSH. yeah, the last time we tried that, way back on march 22, it worked out great.
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On 3/23/06, Edd Barrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Just an idea, but why not try to have this conversation linked to on slashdot / digg. There is huge traffic to these sites from the linux community, who all owe the OpenBSD developers for OpenSSH. http://www.digg.com/linux_unix/OpenBSD_needs_a_major_donor http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/21/1555243 No one seems to care (unless donations have shot up and Theo, et. al. haven't mentioned it) aaron.glenn
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
http://www.digg.com/linux_unix/OpenBSD_needs_a_major_donor http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/21/1555243 No one seems to care (unless donations have shot up and Theo, et. al. haven't mentioned it) From what I see, we have received a mini flood of donations, which means there will soon be a drought. It is already slowing down a lot. In the end, it will not be enough, unless there is another funding drive just like this in another 6 months. If I can try to estimate the situation, having seen how it works before.. hold onto your seats, this is confusing: In the end, 50% of what we have gotten we would have received anyways from nice donators over the coming 6 months. So we will have received about twice as much as normal, but just sooner. Of course, since this rush was driven by a press deluge on this issue (just check news.google), people will very quickly forget, and not wish to help us again quite as soon. As I said, it is already slowing down. There are a finite number of people who can be reached directly via even these information forums... These donations from individuals are really great. The community is great. Thanks a lot. But we know this is the wrong way to fund OpenBSD, OpenSSH, and our other subprojects in the long term, and that the Unix (and maybe even Linux) vendors who ship OpenSSH in their products should be helping with at least a few pennies of the millions and millions of dollars we have saved them. How many vendors are shipping another SSH implimentation? Therefore Damien and I have just sent these two mails to a few mailing lists: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openssh-unix-devm=114316163313701w=2 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openssh-unix-devm=114316224627520w=2 I suspect that conversation is not over.
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
correction: no one with a great deal of money seems to care. ;) I've been following the thread, and once I saw it on slashdot I got off my lazy ass and donated what little I could right now (more to come, but on a grad student salary, I can't donate what companies can). I really hate prolonging this thread, but I'm curious about the following... I've done quite bit of contract work around my area, and in most cases I've been able to implement OpenBSD for something. Whenever that's happened, I've always pushed for the company to make a donation. In most cases it's worked (actually all that I can think of), resulting in (usually) around $500. It's not what the larger companies could do, but I'm curious if other contractors try to push donations when they utilize openbsd/openssh. All the companies I've worked with have been fairly receptive. -ryan On Mar 23, 2006, at 9:34 PM, Aaron Glenn wrote: On 3/23/06, Edd Barrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Just an idea, but why not try to have this conversation linked to on slashdot / digg. There is huge traffic to these sites from the linux community, who all owe the OpenBSD developers for OpenSSH. http://www.digg.com/linux_unix/OpenBSD_needs_a_major_donor http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/21/1555243 No one seems to care (unless donations have shot up and Theo, et. al. haven't mentioned it) aaron.glenn
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
Just another idea. Start making the mega-companies like IBM, RedHat, etc pay a license fee for the use of OpenSSH. They save literally millions of dollars incorporating this into their own products, and don't give anything back to the project. They won't give anything financially without it being *required* for them to give; they certainly aren't going to give money out of the goodness of their hearts .. Aaron Glenn wrote: On 3/23/06, Edd Barrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Just an idea, but why not try to have this conversation linked to on slashdot / digg. There is huge traffic to these sites from the linux community, who all owe the OpenBSD developers for OpenSSH. http://www.digg.com/linux_unix/OpenBSD_needs_a_major_donor http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/21/1555243 No one seems to care (unless donations have shot up and Theo, et. al. haven't mentioned it) aaron.glenn
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On Thu, 2006-03-23 at 23:00:50 -0500, Paul Greene proclaimed... Just another idea. Start making the mega-companies like IBM, RedHat, etc pay a license fee for the use of OpenSSH. They save literally millions of dollars incorporating this into their own products, and don't give anything back to the project. Then they'll just keep using old code and never patch, etc. The BSD license cannot be revoked from those vendors.
Re: openbsd and the money -solutions
On Thu, 23 Mar 2006, Paul Greene wrote: Just another idea. Start making the mega-companies like IBM, RedHat, etc pay a license fee for the use of OpenSSH. They save literally millions of dollars incorporating this into their own products, and don't give anything back to the project. No, we won't compromise our principles by making OpenSSH somewhat free. The choice is: 1. Vendors, who have benefitted immensely from integrating OpenSSH, contibute something back to improve it further 2. Development continues more slowly We love doing what we do, and we aren't going to stop over some dollars. The assistance that we are asking for is so we can do more of it, and this benefits everyone - especially the organisations whom we are seeking that very assistance from. -d
