The open-source project’s leader says the unused portion of a $2.3 million grant has been withdrawn due to concerns that it was mainly funding foreign researchers. OpenBSD would have 60 developers flying in from around the world (they bought their own tickets, non-refundable) for a Hackathon May 8 – 20, which
is a major part of OpenBSD’s development cycle. Follow the discussion here.
DARPA Pulls OpenBSD Funding
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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45 Comments
2003-04-19 7:51 am
2003-04-19 7:55 am
2003-04-19 8:08 am
2003-04-19 8:11 am
2003-04-19 11:42 am
2003-04-21 4:39 am
2003-04-21 5:07 am
…with Government funded OSS projects, “…due to concerns that it was mainly funding foreign researchers.” If OSS software is being used, fine, but do not release ANY source back to the community because it is not the function of the US Government to fund private projects like these.
Theo needs to realise that a man of his position, someone who is a (relatively) prominent figure (withing the OS world, anyways), needs to keep his mouth shut once in a while. Too bad for those fold who are gonne get shafted because of his inablity to control himself
I’m basing the above on the following:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=105061580500738&w=2
s/fold/folks/
“because it is not the function of the US Government to fund private projects like these.”
Well there goes the funding for all the defense industry…:)
Nobody knows why the funding was pulled. It was just as likely a typical victim of the post-War budget cutbacks as it was a result of Theo’s vocalness. Don’t jump to conclusions.
Anyone who’s dealt with the US government understands it’s highly unlikely they’d be able to react to _anything_ this quickly, much less some flippant remarks from a Canadian hacker.
-fp
and DARPA is entitled to spend its money where it wants.
because it is not the function of the US Government to fund private projects like these
Actually it is. This was being funded because it has uses to not only the Department of Defense, but also to the United States of America as a whole. The government funds many projects that it sees an interest in and this is generally a good thing. The framers of the Constitution felt that it was important that the government promote developments in arts and sciences. I for one agree with them. If this money was withdrawn because of Theo’s comments or because certain developers were over seas, well, that is ridiculous. If it is because they don’t see the work being done on OpenBSD is important, then I must disagree. OpenBSD’s buffer overflow protection, while fairly untested, could represent a major breakthrough in computing security. This code is freely available and could help all major operating systems grow in security.
1. The Department of Defense has some strict regulations about dealing with foreign entities. There have been some interesting corporate moves due to these regulations…..one example. AM General is the company that makes the Humvee. AM General was a division of American Motors Corporation (now a part of DaimlerChrysler). When Renault took a controlling interest of AMC in the late 70’s, AM General had to be spun off into a separate entity so that they could fulfill their government contracts. There is, therefore, legitimate concern about funding researchers who are not Americans and reside outside the US.
2. Theo proves himself, once again, to be a hothead and hypocrite. If he’s so against the war, why did he even accept the DARPA grant in the first place? Now he’s gonna whine about the developers and their plane tix. Well, Theo, since it’s your fault why don’t you reimburse them?
“and DARPA is entitled to spend its money where it wants.”
Eeerrrr.. no it is not, as a taxpayer I disagree. For startes, it ain’t “DARPA’s money”, it is the taxpayer’s money. Quite a big difference. Unless DARPA has finally developed a tree that grows money, if that is the case DARPA can do whatever they want with that money…..
DARPA is a public institution (military funded) so it should be held accountable on how and on what it spends its allocated funding.
Yeah, it was tax week… so I am bitter, so what
The US Government pays for several OS projects – DARPA funds were used for TAO/ACE for example. I don’t see anything wrong with this – it probably gets more bang for the buck than many other government projects. A few million for OpenBSD would provide many agencies with even more secure software, at a time when cost-effective security is one of the central goals of the US government.
It is a legitimate goal of a government to provide for the common welfare. If this conflicts with a commercial interest, so be it. We could close police departments and universities and force everyone to call private security or attend private universites. But, we (at least a majority of us) support government funding of roads, military, police, courts, education, etc. To the extent that a modest funding of Open Source projects will support legitimate government goals, so be it.
My greatest concern is that the US government pulled the funding AFTER the OpenBSD team members had purchased non-refundable airline tickets and made hotel reservations. This is just plan wrong. If the US Government doesn’t want to support OpenBSD, that is fine. But to agree to funding and then to remove that funding after some reasonable expenses have been incurred is wrong.
…did, because it did not look right that your American taxes were funding foreign programmers.
PS. Aren’t you happy that you don’t get all the government that you pay for?
I’m writing this on a OpenBSD 3.1 box using KDE. It looks like it’s time to BUY a 3.3 upgrade, it looks like the OpenBSD team can use some help. Doing something is better than griping about it
I was hoping with this extra funding that OpenBSD would be able to crank out some REALLY amazing stuff. I’m a little sad that the funding was pulled.
However, if indeed it was Theo’s self-aggrandizing attitude and poorly stated remarks that killed the funding, perhaps this is just the lesson he needs in order to learn a little tact and to learn to control his penchant for self-important blathering.
realism 101
freedom of speech reigns supreme in the usa. or so i’m told.
theo is’nt an american citizen, he and a couple of other developers are in the foreign minory.
The majority of the developers for the openbsd project are american.
Theo has every god honest right to express his opinion, much as you and i sit at the coffeeshop talking about the weather or the people at the next table who have a disgusting personal style and expressing our concerns(?) about it.
This funding was pulled without prior notice And the darpa apparently had someone phone and cancel the hotel reservations.
That is not a respectfull way to handle such a deal.
the correct way had been to give the notice of this before the people had hunted down their tickets and before the bod reserved hotel rooms.
this would have given the theo and the rest some time to look over the logistics, now.. it’ll probably end up in a bloody mess.
Yes, I’m fully aware this is one of those nontechnical political soap operas.
But what’s up with you people, who can’t stand someone not toeing the political line? What kind of person do you expect to be a hacker?
This is a 6 month setback. Ok, they’ll deal. I’m tired of talented programmers being pushed to conform by higher-ups, and those who support that. Why do you think OpenBSD has achieved the slightest bit of quality? Through people who play political correctness games? Throwing out the baby with the bathwater…
However, there is a good argument about how government funds shouldn’t be used to fund competitors to commercial products. This happened with Knuth and TeX, and no doubt other times as well. However, it’s inevitable that some research will conflict with someone’s business model. It’s a matter of sliding scale.
One important fact is that the commercial world was relied on to provide good security, since gov’t funding didn’t intervene. Unfortunately, that didn’t work, so the gov’t is right to fund competition. Especially since the code is BSD, so the code is available to any company.
…people, in this case DARPA, does not necessarily have to endorse those who do not share opinions and beliefs. While I do not agree with the President of Major League Baseball, I understanw why he pulled Tim Robbins appearance from the MLB Hall of Fame commemoration of the movie “Bull Durham”. You’re welcome to speak your mind in the US but others are welcome to ignore your comments or pull support for you or your services. Ask the Dixie Chicks how this one works.
“Theo has every god honest right to express his opinion, much as you and i sit at the coffeeshop talking about the weather or the people at the next table who have a disgusting personal style and expressing our concerns(?) about it.”
Theo proves himself, once again, to be a hothead and hypocrite. If he’s so against the war, why did he even accept the DARPA grant in the first place?
Theo has a cause he believes in. Just because he doesn’t believe in one specific war doesn’t mean that he should turn down DARPA money to develop his operating system. I don’t know Theo and I don’t use OpenBSD, but I do believe that security affects all of us. Theo is doing a pretty much thankless job for what I would imagine is not the greatest of pay. I mean, if he put the time he has spent on OpenBSD into a PhD I am sure he could be making more than he is now.
I don’t really see any purpose in giving the guy a hard time when the government just ripped him off big time. He was promised something and it was taken away. The DARPA is changing ponies mid-stream. It isn’t right, and it isn’t fair to those involved. These people do work that has the capacity to help all of us, and yet most people just make stupid remarks about them getting what they deserve. It is just plain shameful.
…is about to get a $2.3 million welfare cheque to further Palladium so it becomes military-grade? Anyone know anything about this?:-)
Xenaphobia in the US. Oh, who cares if there is superior technology outside the US, lets just keep running this corporate welfare programme and keep large corporations happy. One only needs to look at the various contracts the US has which basically closes off any company that isn’t based in the US. This sounds exactly like New Zealand 30years ago when we had rabbid, conservative, xenaphobic halfwitts deciding who should get the various government contracts. Thank god in 1984 there was a change in direction and companies actually had to compete with foreign vendors rather than simply expecting to get a contract simply because they’re a New Zealand company.
Air New Zealand is the prime example of this. Every year the NZ government puts out contracts and every year Air New Zealand comes forward with the assumption that, “we’re a NZ company, there for we have a god given right to have the contract” and every year they lose the contract to Qantus. Maybe it is time for the US to wake up, smell the coffee and starting giving the US tax payer some value for money instead of having contracts given to companies to suite a certain dogma.
Power to Mr. de Raadt for expressing himself. In case anybody hasn’t noticed, there has been a lot of pressure to conform. People are expressing opinions held by many, many others and weasel managers and administrators have been cancelling speaking engagements and contracts because of it…a de facto blacklisting is going on.
In fact, DARPA probably was provoked by a competitor or sympathizer who brought the remark to the right people’s attention. Guess what now… what appeared to be a merit based decision is now something less.
Oh yeah, and those who attack Mr. de Raadt – compare your accomplishments to his and get real.
Can’t help but feel that DARPA may be making a big mistake…
What if some other interest group picks this project up? Is that in OUR best interest?
“Xenaphobia in the US. Oh, who cares if there is superior technology outside the US, lets just keep running this corporate welfare programme and keep large corporations happy.”
It isn’t that superior technology exists elsewhere (Although OpenBSD is Canadian based), its that the funding is passed on overseas. From a “benifits all” point of view, it is a shame. However, I have to say that if it was my department of defence, I’d probably want the money to stay in the hands of people in my own country.
They could have perhaps given a little warning before resorting to these extreme measures IMHO.
“However, I have to say that if it was my department of defence, I’d probably want the money to stay in the hands of people in my own country. ”
It does not stay in the hands of “the people”. It stays in the hands of the multinational corperations who have off shore tax shelters and just happen to lobby the powers that be in the US OF A.
go to any US university and you will find out how many foreign researchers and foreign students there really are. don’t get mad because foreigners are getting your research money, get your ass in school and get the money yourself.
this whole thing stinks of “republican ideals” or as I call it, “ignorance is bliss 2003!”
‘this whole thing stinks of “republican ideals” or as I call it, “ignorance is bliss 2003!”‘
I would say that it stinks of “I don’t want the money in my managed economy to slip off into someone else competing managed economy or even less a Third-World-Country!”.
The reason this even happening is because the U.S. economy is not capitalism but a heavily managed state run closed economy. Like the one that was in ..oh lets say.. Soviet Russia. Except that here we live in a free society so we don’t notice it as much. And remember, capitalism is not democracy. They are infact opposing ideals.
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. It’s stupid, worse yet, it’s bad manners.
“Maybe it is time for the US to wake up, smell the coffee and starting giving the US tax payer some value for money instead of having contracts given to companies to suite a certain dogma.”
While this sounds all warm and fuzzy, it smacks of a halfwit not thinking long term. Yes, in the short term tax payers would benefit from getting more from the money they pay in taxes. In the long term sending tax dollars outside the US would kill our economy and quite likely many other economies around the world who rely on a strong US economy; many countries in Europe for example, not just third world countries. Things like this don’t happen in a vacuum and I really wish the moronic halfwit extremist radicals (left, right and inside out) would try to understand this.
While this sounds all warm and fuzzy, it smacks of a halfwit not thinking long term. Yes, in the short term tax payers would benefit from getting more from the money they pay in taxes. In the long term sending tax dollars outside the US would kill our economy and quite likely many other economies around the world who rely on a strong US economy; many countries in Europe for example, not just third world countries. Things like this don’t happen in a vacuum and I really wish the moronic halfwit extremist radicals (left, right and inside out) would try to understand this.
Interesting that you’re making such conclusions when you still have the current administration running a strong dollar policy even at the over all detriment of the economy.
The only thing I do agree with in regards to what the Republicans say is that the US should need to be the engine of the world economy and that there should be mini-engines of the world made up of China, Europe and Japan rather than the whole world relying on one country to do the heavy lifting. The negative impact of this is long term in the fact that the average American only saves 5% of their income and this is slowly dropping, and wait the pain doesn’t stop there.
On top of this decrease in savings there is also been a rapid increase in personal debt meaning that one can reduce interest rates till hell freezes over a but until person debt goes down, and a real economy is built, that is, and economy based on a solid foundation rather than debt, which is the current situation, the US economy will never recover.
Oh, and it doesn’t stop there. Lets look at World Com, an myracle “suddenly” happens and they get a $300million lifeline, sorry, “government contract” to bail out a failed company. Companies will keep failing until the government are willing to sit back, and let natural selection take its place. Just look at United as one example, I can’t wait till I see in the next month them suddenly win a multi-billion contract with the US government to provide some much unneeded services for the public service and of course this will be labeled the “miracle turn around” when actual fact, it was corporate welfare. Atleast when Swiss air collapsed, it was called a collapse and it was called a government bail out, it wasn’t labeled the ala typical US terminology of “miracle turn around”.
” While this sounds all warm and fuzzy, it smacks of a halfwit not thinking long term. Yes, in the short term tax payers would benefit from getting more from the money they pay in taxes. In the long term sending tax dollars outside the US would kill our economy”
I disagree. What you are suggesting is protectionism – economically negative.
Using the tax example. If the (US) gov’t makes an effort to get the best deal for the taxpayer taxes can be lower. People can then spend or not spend, their money on other things be they hamburgers, SUVs or a weblog.
If the (US) gov’t insists on “buying american” whether or not the best deal available is within/without the USA then taxes are that much higher and the taxpayers wallet that much lighter.
A topical parallel here might be the “anti-dumping” levies on imported steel where the US gov’t extended protectionism to domestic steel makers to the detriment of domestic steel consumers – a far larger group.
Hmm .. america is really becoming an interesting place. Right wingers are destroying historic freedoms and threatening everything else that made the US a dreamland for many. How long will this last? Will Americans’ finally snap out of it, or will the US also go the way of Nazi Germany and the Soviets? God save America, and heaven help the rest of us.
“Right wingers are destroying historic freedoms and threatening everything else that made the US a dreamland for many”
I get tired of ignorant comments like this. Which exact freedoms are being destroyed, and how? It’s ridiculous to assume that not receiving government money constitutes a breach of free speech.
And by the way, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had extremely LEFT-wing (read: socialist) people in charge. The further right-wing America becomes, the further they are from becoming like these dead empires.
and to be complete, don’t also forget that the Revolutionary War was won by “leftists” at the time. Comparing “right” or “left” in different circumstances doesn’t help your argument, it hurts it.
by the way, Lincoln (you know, the President who enacted the Emancipation Proclamation ?) was a Republican.
breaking agreements is something the USA is becoming good at
will anyone trust it anymore?
also a bit cheeky of the USA military structure to use OpenBSD when they effectively forced it into exile over enryption strength.
a USA like this will only stagnate and suffer – thank god for market forces.
And by the way, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had extremely LEFT-wing (read: socialist) people in charge. The further right-wing America becomes, the further they are from becoming like these dead empires.
Nope, nazi germany was pretty much right wing, don’t let the name of the party fool you.
Maybe not as extemely right wing as the republican party.
If Microsoft was a Chinese product do you think the Chinese government would dream of funding OSS? Hell no. They give strong preference to in-house companies as they should.
“Nope, nazi germany was pretty much right wing, don’t let the name of the party fool you.
Maybe not as extemely right wing as the republican party. ”
The nazis were as left wing as they come, from economic control to hating Jews. You show your political ignorance when you to compare the American right, which advocates free enterprise and supports Israel, to the Nazi party.
From FrontPageMag.com:
Nazism was inspired by Italian Fascism, an invention of hardline Communist Benito Mussolini. During World War I, Mussolini recognized that conventional socialism wasn’t working. He saw that nationalism exerted a stronger pull on the working class than proletarian brotherhood. He also saw that the ferocious opposition of large corporations made socialist revolution difficult. So in 1919, Mussolini came up with an alternative strategy. He called it Fascism. Mussolini described his new movement as a “Third Way” between capitalism and communism. As under communism, the state would exercise dictatorial control over the economy. But as under capitalism, the corporations would be left in private hands.
Hitler followed the same game plan. He openly acknowledged that the Nazi party was “socialist” and that its enemies were the “bourgeoisie” and the “plutocrats” (the rich). Like Lenin and Stalin, Hitler eliminated trade unions, and replaced them with his own state-run labor organizations. Like Lenin and Stalin, Hitler hunted down and exterminated rival leftist factions (such as the Communists). Like Lenin and Stalin, Hitler waged unrelenting war against small business.
Hitler regarded capitalism as an evil scheme of the Jews and said so in speech after speech. Karl Marx believed likewise. In his essay, “On the Jewish Question,” Marx theorized that eliminating Judaism would strike a crippling blow to capitalist exploitation. Hitler put Marx’s theory to work in the death camps.
facism, which nazism is/was a form of, is right-wing:
http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/right-wing.html“ rel=”nofollow”>http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/index.html?