Contributed by jolan on from the /**/ dept.
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OpenBSD Journal
Contributed by jolan on from the /**/ dept.
(Comments are closed)
Copyright © - Daniel Hartmeier. All rights reserved. Articles and comments are copyright their respective authors, submission implies license to publish on this web site. Contents of the archive prior to as well as images and HTML templates were copied from the fabulous original deadly.org with Jose's and Jim's kind permission. This journal runs as CGI with httpd(8) on OpenBSD, the source code is BSD licensed. undeadly \Un*dead"ly\, a. Not subject to death; immortal. [Obs.]
By Anonymous Coward (131.130.1.135) on
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By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on
"I'm sorry but we cannot fix that bug as the group which maintained that particular bit of software have gone bankrupt, because we could not be bothered to support them financially witha small portion of the money our customers gave us for free software and support contracts"
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By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on
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By Anonymous Coward (157.161.253.154) on
must be the most retarded and unprofessional thing
I've heard about IBM in a long time.
Of course it's a large company with ample possibility of making
a fool of it's self, but this is taking the biscuit.
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By Anonymous Coward (84.188.214.210) on
Some negative puplicity.. ;)
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By Anonymous Coward (32.97.110.142) on
By Anonymous Coward (80.108.115.184) on
By Anonymous Coward (24.34.57.27) on
"OpenSSH: you'll miss it when it's gone"
Sorry, but OpenSSH will live on. It only takes one dedicated person to see to that.
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By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on
http://openssh.org/history.html
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By Thorsten Glaser (213.196.226.129) on http://mirbsd.de/
PS: Thanks to Daniel & Co. for making "Plain text" default.
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By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on
http://openssh.com/
http://openssh.org/
By Anonymous Coward (67.64.89.177) on
By Anonymous Coward (156.34.223.119) on
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By RC (71.105.45.69) on
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By Anonymous Coward (156.34.223.119) on
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By RC (71.105.45.69) on
If these companies were offering a small ammount of support, you would have a point. Since they're offering NO support, there's nothing those companies could do that could make the situation worse...
Shaming them into cooperating might help, but even if not, it's better than doing nothing, and just hoping they'll suddenly change their policy.
By Anonymous Coward (70.179.123.124) on
How else would you have it done? Nicely?
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By Anonymous Coward (156.34.223.119) on
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By Theo (199.185.136.4) on
> environment, positions tend to become entrenched. I would try
> to give positive publicity to those that provide support.
Yes, this is Theo. I rarely respond here.
So exaclty who gives support? Who deserves positive publicity?
The 18 individuals who donated $1000 specifically to OpenSSH over 5 years? I could name they but they did not ask for that. Noone else has specifically donated to OpenSSH.
Are you deluded, or are you just plain STUPID? No, that's not really a question. If you are going to make statements like that shown above, and you get it that completely wrong you are either (1) being "adversarial" yourself, or (2) stupid. This is a commmunity. You are an imposter, or you are stupid. There are no other possibilities, right?
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By cfrankb (24.20.163.228) on
By Anonymous Coward (156.34.223.119) on
A bit of confrontation certainly does work sometimes. Knowing when to squeal loudly, and when to stick with meek and polite (and risk being ignored) is a tough call. But consider, there are some battles that were never open to being won in the first place -- no matter how they are approached. Perhaps Sun supporting OpenSSH was never in the cards. If that is the case, then publically derided them for it won't help or hurt this time around. But if you go too far and they label you as disagreeable, it may become a lot harder to elicit their cooperation on some future issue.
Anyway ... just my opinion. Some agree and some do not. Think about it and take it for what you feel it is worth. Cheers!
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By Janne Johansson (130.237.95.193) jj@inet6.se on
I must admit to not understand big finance, but if the $big_company has
been screwing you over for 5+ years (or more?) then toe-stepping around them in hopes of getting some candy in the future sounds like a waste.
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By Anonymous Coward (156.34.223.119) on
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By Anonymous Coward (172.182.108.150) on
By Chris (24.76.100.162) on
<p>
As far as I can see, your attitude is an excuse to never do anything but play nice, because something negative *might* happen if you don't, despite the fact that something negative is *already* happening due to your playing nice.
By Anonymous Coward (216.135.89.5) on
16 p3-0-S1.bb1.cal1.rogerstelecom.net (204.50.128.13) 87.856 ms 88.074 ms 88.200 ms
17 g5-0-0-S1.gw1.cal1.rogerstelecom.net (204.50.251.195) 157.077 ms 85.575 ms 92.426 ms
18 Z-s0-0-0-24-S1.gw1.cal1.rogerstelecom.net (207.107.204.178) 88.211 ms 87.878 ms 89.602 ms
19 pf.openbsd.org (199.185.230.2) 90.408 ms 89.131 ms 90.434 ms
20 u.openbsd.org (199.185.136.4) 92.842 ms 93.313 ms 92.747 ms
By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on
To quote Damien Miller
"The second consumer of funds above refers to the annual hackathons that the OpenBSD project runs. These provide a forum where major functionality improvements can be initiated, fleshed out, reviewed and committed. The last two hackathons alone have been directly responsible for:
- Fixing of dozens of bugs
- The addition of connection multiplexing
- The idea for the layer-2/layer-3 VPN over SSH released in 4.3
- The implementation of auto-reexecution
- Many proactive signed vs. unsigned integer cleanups"
Of course, by far the most secure platform to run sshd is still OpenBSD.
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By Anonymous Coward (71.41.115.162) on
By Anonymous Coward (70.33.202.39) on
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By Anonymous Coward (70.179.123.124) on
By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on
Do SUN and IBM produce tools that are used by OpenBSD ?
I cannot think of any off-hand.
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By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on
By Anonymous Coward (69.70.207.240) on
OpenBSD is filled with endless possibilities... it's a wonderful thing!
By Anonymous Coward (208.252.48.163) on
Some of the OpenSSH freeloaders, like Apple Computer and The SCO Group, are notorious for reaping financial rewards from selling open source software bundled with their proprietary products.
Jesus spin doctor Christ. As California corporations and taxpayers, companies like Apple and SCO paid for BSD's development. Apple have every legal, moral, and ethical right to use it.
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By Anonymous Coward (87.78.94.254) on
By David Gwynne (220.245.180.132) loki@animata.net on
This has nothing to do with the right to use our software. If you read the license we put on our code you'll notice we give most of our rights away. At no time have we asked them to stop using or shipping OpenSSH.
The issue here is sustainability. The people behind OpenSSH have put a lot of effort into making a good and free product, precisely so anyone and everyone can use it. However, they will be unable to keep up the effort if they don't get some support. There is no legal obligation on the big vendors to support OpenBSD and OpenSSH, but for a relatively trivial contribution they can keep it alive and reap the benefit of continued development of something they rely on.
By takahide (84.217.42.41) takahide at openbsd dot se on
OpenSSH development began in 1999 which means neither Apple nor SCO paid for it.
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By Anonymous Coward (68.43.94.80) on
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By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on
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By Anonymous Coward (84.188.214.210) on
So you could say &prefered_US_company (e.g. SUn with JAVA-Licenses provided to fBSD..) cheated to the project.
This will be mostly true in any case....
By Richard (195.212.199.56) on
Maybe the OBSD project needs to wake up to the real world a bit. Basically there's lots of mean people and corporations out there and that's not going to change any time soon.
I know it goes against the 'free' philosophy, but maybe the project should start charging large users (ie - people like Apple, Cisco, and the Linux distributions) for including its software into their products / packages. The software will still be free (the source is still freely available for the individual) but it would stop this leaching.
I appreciate it may not be easy to come up with a system that works and that can't be easily got round, but surely it's worth looking at.
Maybe you could even add specific clauses into the license such as "Cisco are not allowed to use this". Nothing to stop you doing that and after a while they might come knocking on your door to negotiate terms.
These actions would probably not bear fruit immediately (it would be difficult/impossible to make such restrictions work retrospectively), but over time they would have some effect.
If it comes to the worst, then start charging everyone! Red Hat do and they seem to be doing ok out of it.
I noticed the comment in the interview about the rise in FTP traffic from OBSD. That's another issue that should be addressed; access to the FTP server could maybe be on a subscription basis; allow access if you've bought the CD for the version you are wanting access for, for example. This would allow 'nice' people to get updates and patches, but would prevent leaching of the codebase.
Just the other day I saw comments regarding the project's finances. Need I say more?
Just to re-iterate... I think the project needs to wake up to reality a bit. It's not nice and I know it goes against what we would all like, but if the other team are determined not to play fair then you can't just sit there and take it forever. It's simply not sustainable and a "moral victory" still means you're on the loosing side.
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By Richard (195.212.199.56) on
Maybe this philosophy ought to be looked at again and taken a bit closer to heart; why do you care if (say) CARP can't be freely used by Cisco etc? As long as the people that write the stuff (and presumable those that buy the CDs etc too) can get access to it then what's the problem?
Ok, I'll shut up now.
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By Anonymous Coward (87.78.164.190) on
Distributing the code under the BSD license is the fundamental way things are done by the OpenBSD team. If the'd change the license, there'd be lot's of forks and they'd forsake their goals.
This whole "money-issue" is an ethical/moral one.
(*wont start ranting bout capitalism* *wont start* *must resist*)
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By Anonymous Coward (143.166.226.19) on
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By Anonymous Coward (87.78.67.195) on
By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on
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By Anonymous Coward (62.7.165.30) on
I've been using BSD for a number of years (and paying for it - I buy the CDs etc and I donate cash). And I've been in the software (writing) business for well over 20 years.
I KNOW about the BSD licence and what it means. I KNOW you can't just slap restrictions on top of code that's derived from other stuff that's not under your control and is licenced under BSD.
BUT... You CAN change the licence of stuff that is new (CARP / OpenSSL ?)
Rich.
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By Anonymous Coward (87.78.132.217) on
License change causing a fork.
Fork not good, fork bad, fork against religion and believes. Me spoon...
This whole discussion 'bout solutions is senseless.
There is just one solution. The "accused" vendors to step up and make a statement.
Third hand will just leed to more traffic on Daniel's bill. This charade is like a voyage to jerusalem with as many chairs as players.
By Nate (65.95.124.5) on
By Anonymous Coward (82.153.166.138) on
CentOS came along. OpenBSD's model is great, corporations just need to catch up with how things should be and realise what would be in their long-term interests to support.
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By Anonymous Coward (62.7.165.30) on
As I said, a moral victory still mens you're on the losing side.
By Nicolai Brown (12.216.45.89) on http://www.public.iastate.edu/~free-unix/OpenBSD
Rather, I'd like to say how happy I am with the CD sets whenever I buy them. I started using OpenBSD at 2.6, and thinking back, I've gotten the most enjoyment and usefulness out of OpenBSD when I buy the CD sets. They're nice to have, and it's a great way to support a project that I've used professionaly and personally for years.
The OpenBSD developers put out great products. (Note the plural!) For me it only makes sense to reward them for their hard work. I'm excited for the 3.9 CDs to arrive!
http://www.openbsd.org/orders.html
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By Anonymous Coward (156.34.223.119) on
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By Nicolai Brown (12.216.45.89) on http://www.public.iastate.edu/~free-unix/OpenBSD/
By SleighBoy (64.146.180.98) on http://www.code.cx/
By JYL (199.202.164.35) jylandry at jyl dot ca on http://www.jyl.ca
- Receive some value (CD distribution are fine. T-Shirts are harder to justify for many)
- When it is easy to subscribe to an annual contract of purchase (like you do for a newspaper, a magazine, most software maintenance, etc...)
- When it is easy to renew the annual contract. (Automatic renewal comes to mind)
I work for some major organizations. Purchasing a 50$ CD is all lost in the rounding done to present the "IT budget”. However, in order to purchase 1 CD set, it might cost the IT organization more than 50$ in overhead. All those steps are expensive compare to the cost of the good:
- Prepare the business justification every time,
- Have it approve by your boss or someone else,
- Have it approve as non-standard software every time (by IT, procurement…),
- Handling the procurement, the reception, dispatch the good, invoice cycle, etc…
- In some cases, the individual will put it on credit card but need to prepare an expense account, an invoice or something… (What a pain …)
Put it that way: In many of the larger company, the procurement of “non standard item” is time consuming, involving for the peoples that perform it and rather expensive for the organizations that want to contribute. On the contrary, yearly subscription are justify once and generally will necessitate only a “5 seconds OK” to renew the subscription every years.
I already mention those facts to Theo but he indicates that no “volunteer” will drive a business model like this one. Ok, Theo, these are your projects and do what you want. However, the business world will not change.
I did also mention that if the OpenBSD group was to release a CD every month basically offering an easy “patching method” for overwork “system admin”, it might easily get 50$ a month from these company if the “procurement method permit yearly contract renewal”. Well, Theo answer was polite but to the point… (No interest)
Donation: When donation might seem trivial for larger company, this is often not the case. Most IT organizations within larger company are not authorize to “Donate” and have no budget for that (read: the IT organization can’t do that – Unless you have a new born, you are sick, injure or dead: then, I can send you some flowers). The “Donation departments” often have exacting criteria to donate anything. Trying to fit the OpenBSD development group in those criteria is a stretch of imagination that only the most “Marketing oriented” IT guy will attempt. Consequently, up to a point, the OpenBSD group is barking to the wrong individual, the IT guy.
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By Anonymous Coward (84.188.214.210) on
they also supported GNuPG in the very young stages so it would be possible they would support also OpenBSD...
By Anonymous Coward (70.74.75.200) on
http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20040930171635&mode=expanded
Perhaps, you can change this trend with your insight and connections with the major organizations you work for.
> Consequently, up to a point, the OpenBSD group is barking to the wrong individual, the IT guy.
Why do you people think OpenBSD is whining or barking for revealing the truth about these corporations who could careless about supporting Free Source? Did you know Sun refused to pay for an OpenSSH developer to attend their SSH session? Did you know IBM's energy customer came to OpenBSD for support? I didn't. It is enlightening to know this pettiness is the norm considering they benefit in the millions, but can't contribute one lousy dollar. These corporations would love it, if all of this was hidden and never made public.
Please reward people for shedding light into this matter, not flaming them!!
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By JYL (66.158.132.32) jylandry at jyl dot ca on http://www.jyl.ca
This is already something. However, this solve partially a single problem -- Initial installation and supports: 8 hours of consultation that needs to be used in the 60 days period followings the purchase.
What wrong with this offer: Nothing – but you won’t sales many to large company.
Why:
- Justifying OpenBSD in large company is difficult and usually only possible for fringe “application” (Unless you are an ISP).
- You don’t want to business justify OBSD every quarter, 6 months or years. This can take 3 to 4 hours of your time to purchase a 50$ CD (and more if someone in the approval chain does not know about it use).
- Even HP, Cisco, IBM, Juniper have understand this problem. Take an example related to some low function firewall purchased from Juniper. The low end Netscreen 5GT come with the optional 1 years software supports at $200 per unit. Next year, the contract renews by itself. (unless I stop it).
- Last year, Juniper received a few thousands in support for “next to nothing”. I don’t receive CD or book or anything. Just the right to download from their WEB site and do a limited amount of Phone call (over the year). Last year, we did 2 phone calls that lasted 40 minutes total. This year, Juniper will also receive a few thousands dollars (contract just renew).
Juniper is a fringe suppliers for us and the Netscreen 5GT is only permitted for non-mission critical application and only when the necessary “Backup/supports” mechanism are put in place(very few unit operational). I have more firewall or servers running OBSD than there is Netscreen 5GT installed. Some of the OBSD run in “mission critical” application. Nevertheless, the OBSD group has receive only about 300$ totals from the company – purchase in two shot.
Down time in the larger company is usually expensive (thousands of dollar per hours is common even in a mid-sized one). Some insurance and supports are cheap if it permit to solve a problem in a timely manner. So, 2 months supports after purchase is interesting but does not satisfy most company , business day supports (8 hours) for a full year is much better. Of course, some company will insist on 12/7/365 and 24/7/365.
The other thing to consider is how deep is the hierarchy of large company. Between me and the country head of the “operational unit” (Call-it country president), there is 6 levels. This guy is not even a senior VP in the “worldwide” organization. Now, if we were a computer manufacturer, the person that will integrate OSSH in the OS will work for someone at my level. Do you honestly believe that the “president” of IBM will know? Unlikely, IBM has 350,000 employees and the OS architects/coders that took the decision to integrate it in AIX is unlikely to talk to Sam Palmisano in it lifetime.
By Anonymous Coward (65.34.16.170) on
buy ONE for EACH Computer!!!!
SUGGEST CORPORATIONS buy one each instance, M$0ft already has
them trained to do that...
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By JYL (199.202.164.35) jylandry at jyl dot ca on http://www.jyl.ca
By rodross (myXtie) (63.19.217.112) on
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By Anonymous Coward (66.207.218.19) on
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By takahide (84.217.34.32) takahide at openbsd dot se on
And all the "that's what you get for using the BSD license" posts? Doesn't help.
By James White (68.5.36.150) on
Unless I get a tax deduction for donations, you will not get donation from me, and I can not be the only person with this position. Many, if not all, US companies will take the same stance. Do not underestimate the tax incentive of a charitable donation! FreeBSD gets donations from me periodically because we both benefit. They need the money and I need the tax deductions. I would gladly do the same for OpenBSD.
PS. What the other poster said about using subscriptions to improve your sales to businesses… His comments are absolutely correct and equally true for individuals, especially procrastinators.
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By Anonymous Coward (69.92.186.247) on
2) You can probably write off the "donation" as an operation expense as paying for developers to fix bugs and add features to software seems pretty clear cut. I'm sure a decent accountant or tax attorney could help you out if you really cared.
By Anonymous Coward (66.207.218.19) on
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By Anonymous Coward (87.78.132.217) on
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By Anonymous Coward (66.207.218.19) on
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By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on
</sarcasm>