"Even if you don't use OpenBSD, you're likely to be benefiting from it unknowingly. If you're using Solaris, SCO UnixWare, OS X, SUSE Linux, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux, chances are you're using the OpenBSD-developed OpenSSH for secure shell access to remote machines. If so many are using this software, why are so few paying for it? Official responses (and non-responses) from Sun Microsystems, IBM, Novell, and Red Hat are below, but if you're one of the freeloaders who hasn't contributed to OpenBSD or OpenSSH, what's your excuse?" 
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Member since:2005-09-10
And now, they are complaining because people don't give back anything ? How hypocritical, as they were warned long ago, and even proposed to go GPL.
Asking for help/contribution (monetary, they don't need coders, they have the best!) is no hypocracy? You just use this issue as an excuse for yet another bsd vs gpl flamefest, which is unnecessary.
Please, (this is for other folks as well) don't bring in the licensing issues - it is such a weak excuse. Licensing the code under the GPL wouldn't put food on their table. Lots of GPL projects are asking for help (monetary or otherwise) as well. Bringing up the BSD vs GPL license issue in this context is ridiculous.
Member since:2005-07-06
It is pointless to license OpenSSH under the GPL, because Theo et al don't need help maintaining OpenSSH/BSD.
They are doing a great job, and your avg. Joe programmer couldn't contribute a quality patch to such a sensitive project. I wouldn't WANT anyone outside of Theo's team 'giving back' in this manner.
They need monetary 'giving back'. No FLOSS license switch is going to help this problem.
Member since:2005-10-02
Member since:2006-01-03
"They are doing a great job, and your avg. Joe programmer couldn't contribute a quality patch to such a sensitive project."
This is a perfect example of the elitist asshole attitude that drives people away from the BSDs and towards Linux.
The OpenBSD devs aren't some sort of supernatural programmers. They are just regular programmers which share a common interest in security and happen to know the OpenBSD code better that the outside people.
Some "average Joe programmers" have contributed small things to the Linux kernel that turned into great things. Even if that weren't the case, just the hospitality of the Linux folks are enough to explain why Linux is so popular and the BSDs keep chugging along in the shadows, just like they have been for the last decade.
Sure, some people would say that's just where the BSDs want to be, right before they start bitching about how Linux is getting unjustified credit and explaining it with "hype" and "buzz". I call that "denial".
Ok, but cutting the rant... If the BSDs want to keep their elitist attitude, they should also settle on having less funds. People don't tend to give money to assholes.
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight.""And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.
Member since:
2005-11-14
Well, I don't want to start a license war, so I'll just state my opinion : the license is a great deal of the problem.
Let's say it's BSD. It's summarized by OpenSSH folks as BSD license, or licenses "more free" than that. "more free" does not mean anything as long as the software is free already, they mean the licenses give you more power, but "more free" is better to entertain the troll with the GPL.
Well, so OpenSSH is BSD license, it's designed specifically to be used without anyone giving anything back.
And now, they are complaining because people don't give back anything ? How hypocritical, as they were warned long ago, and even proposed to go GPL.
If such a software was GPL, companies would battle to host it, offer servers, pay bandwidth, ...
Because they could not control the software, all they could do is please the devs, to have the devs more receptive to their propositions.
While with BSD license, if the dev stops, someone else can take control of it entirely, and put resources on it to its sole benefit.
Not possible with the GPL, which assure you that what resources you put on the project will not help the competitors outpace you.
It works now because OpenSSH devs are so good and dedicated, that the big boys can't do better, but I'm not at all surprised that they don't want to pull resources in sth that can be locked from them so easily if it was to stop, or the devs to disappear.