FreeBSD’s Security officer Colin Percival seeks sponsorship. This has happened before with other FreeBSD contributors. “I’m hoping to raise $15000 Canadian (about US$13000) to pay me to work full-time on FreeBSD for 16 weeks over the summer. This will allow me to devote more time to my role as FreeBSD Security Officer, perform a complete overhaul of FreeBSD Update, and make some significant improvements to Portsnap.”
I think Colin has contributed a lot to FreeBSD.
Any person who uses FreeBSD should pay back.
I don’t think they *should* do anything. I think they *should* do as they please. That’s the whole point of OSS, and especially the BSD license. If you feel inclined to donate, do so – if you don’t – there is no reason for you to do so.
Trying to sway people to donate is just as *wrong* (if not more so) than people/businesses not donating to a project that’s success is completely based on it’s “freeness”.
The develop has every right to ask for funding to do more work on the project, and as long as the request is polite and courteous, and the developer is *worth* the money to people deciding to donate or not, then the developer will get the required donations. It’s been proven time and time again! That’s why the FreeBSD project has had multiple such developers funded in this way. Everybody comes out on top!
Let people decide what they want to do on their own. Point them to the “seeks sponsorship” page if you like. Do not tell them they *should* donate! Let them decide that for themselves. It’s no more than placing a guilt trip on somebody to tell them they “owe” the donations, or they “should” donate, etc. I don’t want that kind of negative stigma attached to FreeBSD, as it is to OpenBSD. I love FreeBSD, and I really love the way it operates as project – and I especially love the people behind it!
Cheers
PS – All that said, I intend to donate on my own accord.
I should have said. “In my opinion any person who uses FreeBSD should pay back”. I think appreciation either spiritual or financial is good and people should do it if/when they can
No one is compelled to reply “Thank You” after doing them a favor. It is just a matter of courtesy.
Right on.
I’m with you on all of the above then.
So true. I feel the complete same way. Hence my own donations to this cause. Now if they pulled a guilt trip demand for money, I’d switch to a different server OS
.
Oh, I know how to answer these things…
He should start releasing his code under the gpl because then companies couldn’t steal it and he wouldn’t need money!!
In all seriousness though, given the recent OpenBSD thread, I think I’ll toss in $10-20 on principle, though I don’t use FreeBSD. I might give it a whirl this summer.
He should start releasing his code under the gpl because then companies couldn’t steal it and he wouldn’t need money!!
This is lame, the GPL is a poison and prevents many companies from using it in commercial products because they would have to release their code. GPL is made against business. This is why BSD is better and 100% free.
This is lame…
Perhaps the sarcasm in my post was not obvious enough.
What is a poison is that companies take BSD-licensed free software, lock it in and then don’t give anything back both to users and developers. Look at what Apple did with Darwin/OS X and KHTML(*), or what did Sun with SunSSH.
That’s why GPL exists. It is just a device to make everyone play fair.
(*)That’s GPL software, but the KDE developers had to cry far loud to have usable Safari patches back from Apple.
“That’s why GPL exists. It is just a device to make everyone play fair. ”
For the love of God and all that is sacred, DONT START THAT SH1T AGAIN.
This is about money, not code.
Because this project isn’t run by a complete ass, I think I’d agree on donating. The request for sponsorship was professional and polite, and I’ve only seen the FreeBSD project (and people funded to work on FreeBSD related goodies) respond extremely kindly to such donations.
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen them badmouth the people funding them.
Right on! Keep up the great work, all of you.
He should start releasing his code under the gpl because then companies couldn’t steal it and he wouldn’t need money!!
What evidence is there to support what you are saying?
He was saying that in sarcasm (related to an earlier discussion where it was brought up (by a troll) that anything GPL doesn’t need to ask for funding, there’s plenty of it, but BSD by nature is set up for failure).
but BSD by nature is set up for failure
How could we find out whether that is true?
Considering that BSD has been around for 20 years, I see no proof for your assertion.
BSD by nature is set up for failure , was said.
Could you explain this further?
I’m the one that said it, but I was refering to the earlier argument that took place in the OpenBSD seeks funding discussion. The GPL zealots came out of the woodwork and proclaimed that BSD was set up for failure and GPL projects had plenty of funding. Personally, I’m a user of BSD (FreeBSD in particular). It’s funny though that when BSD’s are brought up, others are quick to bring in the license argument.
What evidence is there to support what you are saying?
None, as far as I can tell
Wow, after two days, he’s truckin’ right along. Almost 10% of the way there! It’s really cool that he’s keeping the page updated like that.
Hopefully the story spreads through the news some more. I’d give him about a week before the intial burst really dies out. Looks like he might make a very good percentage of it in that time.
Wow, after two days, he’s truckin’ right along. Almost 10% of the way there! It’s really cool that he’s keeping the page updated like that.
It hasn’t been two days yet — it has been slightly less than seven hours. The dates are slightly misleading in that I sent out my email at 20:20 UTC on the 30th.
As for the running tally, I want people to be able to see how close I am to reaching my target — I’d hate to be in the position of receiving far more than $15,000 simply because people didn’t realize how close I was and kept on sending in large donations. Of course I’m not close to the target right now, so this isn’t a major issue yet, but if I keep it updated now it will save me that much time later. 🙂
It hasn’t been two days yet — it has been slightly less than seven hours. The dates are slightly misleading in that I sent out my email at 20:20 UTC on the 30th.
My bad. I saw the 30th and the 31st on the list and it didn’t even occur to me that it’s still the 30th in my time zone :p
So, 7 hours, ~$1400… You should be done in less than 4 days
I’m not getting into a GPL/BSD flameware here. I just wanted to poke my head in and say that “Sponsorship” is perhaps the best word to describe what Colin is asking for… He isn’t looking to make a profit, but the funds to do a social good. I don’t use *BSD myself (like many others), but this doesn’t change the fact that this will do so much good for the community. I’ll be a sponsor – and I encourage all to be the same.
Dude, I’m not an accountant, but you may want to look into the taxation implications.
You can true-up your income tax next April and write a cheque to cover the difference, but under tax guidelines if you exceed a certain amount of underpayment in a given tax year, I think you’re obligated to make quarterly lump sum payments the next couple of years under the assumption that you’re self-employed.
Like I say, I’m not a tax expert. Just mentioning it because I had a buddy that did some for-hire consulting work while working part-time (with payroll deductions), and after filing his taxes was put on a mandatory quarterly payment plan for pre-paying his taxes the following year.
Might not apply in your case, but may want to check the implications just to be safe, it can be a real PITA trying to get RevCan to reverse a decision once they’ve made one. Better safe than sorry. We all know Ottawa is overly addicted to our tax dollars.
You can true-up your income tax next April and write a cheque to cover the difference, but under tax guidelines if you exceed a certain amount of underpayment in a given tax year, I think you’re obligated to make quarterly lump sum payments the next couple of years under the assumption that you’re self-employed.
My understanding of the Revenue Canada’s documentation is that after I file my tax return in April 2007, they’ll write to me and say “we want you to pay by installments”. However, this doesn’t mean that I automatically have to make quarterly payments in the future; rather, it means that I’m responsible for making sure that I pay *any tax owing* quarterly.
Since I’ll be returning to paying my taxes via payroll deductions in September, I shouldn’t actually need to make any installment payments even if Revenue Canada advises me to do so.
*waves hand around* depends, there are a number of things one could look at this; for example; you could claim that this is one of those things where by its a once off – kinda like selling a used car – you’re not expected to declare how much money you got from that sale.
There are a number of different ways you could look at it, and as to whether it can be seen as a once off sale of services, or whether its a matter of getting enough money for subsistance.
Ultimately, the best work around; get the money put directly to the things that need paying for so it looks as though he is a ‘poor person which the community is helping”.
That was the best donation/fundraiser request I’ve seen in a long time and after my recent issues with OpenBSD, I will most definately be donating and probably changing operating systems.
When the recent emails went out that OpenBSD needed donations I was fully on board with everything that was going down, and made a nice little donation. Then 20 minutes later it all went bad. Theo started flaming users left and right on misc@. The same users that had just donated to his sorry ass and I ended up in a flame war myself with him. Way to say thanks asshat.
This I really liked
“Things which people have already asked for:
$insert_awesome_list_of_features_here”
Imagine that, asking for money to develop the features people have requested. Not “give us the money you owe us, and we’ll write whatever code we damn well feel like writing.”
Anyway, my rant will stop here but I’d be willing to bet Colin hits 13.000 long before Theo de Raadt.
“I will most definately be donating and probably changing operating systems.”
It’s a good thing that there arent a lot of people following this wonderfull line of reasoning.
Linus: GNOME fscking sucks!
Gnome devs: Holy sh1t, Linus badmouthed us. We’ll have to stop supporting Linux as a platform.
Linus: GPL v3 fscking sucks!
FSF: Holy sh1t, Linus badmouthed us. We better make some clause prohibiting Linux from using the GPL.
That was really, really quite lame. If somebody spits in your face, are you going to pay them to be your server admin? I don’t think so. If somebody simply disagrees with you on certain issues, you would probably still pay them to be your server admin assuming they knew the job well.
There’s a big difference between the things you mentioned and the OP switching to FreeBSD. Theo generally pisses everybody off, and seems to have a knack for really pissing off the people who give him money. He is a huge ass about it, too. His actions are *personally* offensive!
Linux not liking Gnome or GPL3 (…) is not the same thing, whatsoever. He simply does not like something, and has voiced his opinion (I didn’t realize he disliked GPL3 but I digress.) He didn’t say GNOME BLEEPING SUCKS or curse the devs or call them names or ask for donations from them and then call them all foul words. He just voiced his opinion. That’s why you see GNOME on Linux still. If he called them all sons of female dogs and various other names, and badmouthed their families after the GNOME project donated 10 grand to him, that might be a different story.
Do you get it? Good.
“He just voiced his opinion”
Geee, so did Theo.
“That’s why you see GNOME on Linux still. If he called them all sons of female dogs and various other names, and badmouthed their families after the GNOME project donated 10 grand to him, that might be a different story.”
No, they still would beucase as opposed to most people on osnews the gnome devs are grownups.
“Do you get it?”
Yep, I get it but you dont. The line of reasoning is exactly the same but I guess it’s ok for Linus to be an a$$ but noone else.
Note that I dont mind Linus being an a$$, I like people who speak their mind regardless even if I dont necessarily agree with their view. I just find it really hypocritical that people whine about Theo being an a$$ but laud Linus for beeing outspoken and frank. And lets not even mention RMS.
You still don’t get it.
“Geee, so did Theo. ”
No, Theo made a complete ass of himself, and he quite often does. He isn’t voicing his opinion, he’s insulting people, outright.
“No, they still would beucase as opposed to most people on osnews the gnome devs are grownups. ”
Uh, you must live in lala land. I’m a grownup, I deal with grownups all day. I own a business, most of my friends own businesses. I don’t care who you are, if you insult me, that’s it. That’s the same for nearly all businesses. That’s why DARPA pulled funding from Theo. They were insulted by him. Are you saying DARPA isn’t “grownup”? You really seem to have no clue about the world we live in. Good luck with life.
“Yep, I get it but you dont. The line of reasoning is exactly the same but I guess it’s ok for Linus to be an a$$ but noone else. ”
Linus hasn’t been an ass though. He has stated his distaste for GNOME. He has not (that I have ever seen) been purposefully insulting, using derrogatory terms, and so forth to the GNOME project. Theo VERY OFTEN does this to people who have even donated to him. Are you his half brother or something? You’re supporting a guy that’s repeatedly flamed his own users, even people who have donated to him. If that’s what you want, GO FOR IT. Donate your life away to the man, and see what good it does for you.
I’m done with this conversation, thanks for the laughs.
Oh, and as a sidenote, I lump RMS in the same catagory as Theo. He’s almost as much of an ass in some regards, more of an ass in others. At least we agree on one thing. He badmouthed O’Reilly once at their own conference when they PAID for him to speak there. That’s a Theo-kind-of-thing to do.
“Linus hasn’t been an ass though. He has stated his distaste for GNOME. He has not (that I have ever seen) been purposefully insulting, using derrogatory terms, and so forth to the GNOME project.”
Really.
http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2005-December/00…
“Then a person that claims that it’s usable for something else is a f–kING
IDIOT.
And in that f–kING IDIOT vein:
> The majority of end-users want a simple printer dialog.
This is a great example of being a F.I.
There is no such thing as a “majority of end users” in general. For
example, maybe _I_ am in what you _claim_ to be a majority, in that I
want a simple printer dialog – because I have a simple printer, and
even simpler printer needs.
So a simple printer dialog doesn’t bother me, and as such you can count me
in your “majority”.
But I can guarantee you one thing: the _vast_ majority of people are part
of a specific minority when it comes to something. This is somethign that
the F.I. “interface designers” in the Gnome sense seems to continually
overlook.”
There were a few other nice little Linus nuggets in there, but I’ll leave it to those who are really bored to pick them out.
Edited 2006-04-01 10:21
Always gives me a chuckle, getting modded down for providing evidence that Linus is in fact a human being, and not a god.
As a side note, “grownups” don’t write “a$$”. “Ass” is not vulgar when used properly. Even if it was, writing “a$$” would be circumventing filters (if they existed), which is generally frowned upon and against TOS agreements everywhere. Either way, it makes you look about 16. Do you also write “M $”? It seems to be the trendy thing nowadays for the teenage techie crowd.
Edited 2006-04-01 08:08
“When the recent emails went out that OpenBSD needed donations I was fully on board with everything that was going down, and made a nice little donation. Then 20 minutes later it all went bad. Theo started flaming users left and right on misc@. The same users that had just donated to his sorry ass and I ended up in a flame war myself with him. Way to say thanks asshat.”
Not that I find it an unbelieveable story, but could you perhaps provide those of us who are not subscribed to that list some relevant archive links?
Well Lazarus, it’s funny how a thread of over 300 messages managed to not get archived over at MARC, but not to worry. I kept at least one of these around myself. Here is me flaming Theo, for flaming another guy for absolutely no good reason.
http://bsdnut.com/email.txt
In case you want another look at just how good Theo’s people skills are, check here.
http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20060328223757&pid=19&mo…
that’s more than i make a year
that’s more than i make a year
a high school dropout?
Or perhaps maybe a student….single mother….illness….somebody who is unemployed….partime worker….could be any number of reasons, don’t be so quick to make assumptions
Hmm, that makes 937,50$ CAN per week. Taking into account a 40h work week (anything above that sure is unhealthy), it goes for 23,44$ per hour. Frankly, no matter one’s competence, I don’t think free software can go hand in hand with that in light of a sustainable economy.
leaving which license is better nonsense debate out. the important thing is to meet his target of $13000 US$ so he can overhaul the needed area.
It seems this guy will be paid the equivalent of 3250$/month.
It seems really a LOT to me.
that’s less than $40K before taxes. I don’t know anything about Colin, but if he has family, he has to support them as well.
He works at a college, which probably also pays him something similar. So he’s looking to replace his income for 16 weeks.
What are canadian taxes? In the US it’s roughly 30%. In the US $39,000 is roughly $27,000 take home.
Is there not some sort of government grant that he can apply for?
I’ve been using FreeBSD on my old laptop for 5 years and it has served me very good. Just yesterday I got the first new computer I’ve had in a long time, a beefy Opteron system (still assembling it). In May I’ll be getting a 30/30Mbit fiberoptic connection to my apartment, and I’m getting a machine to use as a web server and whatnot. The server machine probably won’t be that fast, so the ability to build updates on my new AMD64 and install it on the server with FreeBSD Update would be great, and I see that he’s tackling the support of AMD64 as a building platform first. Throwing in my 10 bucks right now