Another nail in the coffin for OpenSource
 

haha, this is great.

Key points:

The U.S. military's research agency cut off grant money for helping to develop a secure, free operating system after a top programmer made anti-war statements to a major newspaper.

DARPA, which oversees research activities for the Pentagon, is best known for developing the network that evolved into the Internet.

The $2.3 million grant had funded security improvements to the OpenBSD operating system since 2001 as well as related projects.


http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2003/...rpa/index.html


The U.S. military's research agency cut off grant money for helping to develop a secure, free operating system after a top programmer made anti-war statements to a major newspaper.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency halted the contract less than two weeks after The Globe and Mail of Toronto published a story in which programmer Theo de Raadt was quoted as saying he was "uncomfortable" about the funding source.

"I try to convince myself that our grant means a half of a cruise missile doesn't get built," de Raadt told the newspaper.

Within a few days, de Raadt said he received an e-mail from Jonathan Smith, a computer science professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the grant's lead researcher, expressing discomfort over the statements.

On Thursday, Smith notified de Raadt of the cancellation.

"A tenured professor was telling me not to exercise my freedom of speech," de Raadt said.

Smith declined to comment on the matter, and DARPA did not return telephone messages Friday. De Raadt's suspicions about the cancellation could not be confirmed.

The $2.3 million grant had funded security improvements to the OpenBSD operating system since 2001 as well as related projects.

OpenBSD, a variation of Unix designed for use on servers, is touted as so secure that its default installation has had only one bug in the past seven years.

Thousands of copies of OpenBSD have been downloaded in the past six months. It's not clear, however, how many are in use.

De Raadt estimates about 85 percent of the DARPA grant has been spent, with about $1 million being used to pay for OpenBSD developers. Much of the work has been handled by a team of 80 unpaid volunteers.

Another $500,000 of the money funded the work of United Kingdom-based researchers on a related project called OpenSSL, which is used to encrypt data.

DARPA, which oversees research activities for the Pentagon, is best known for developing the network that evolved into the Internet.

dont bite the hand that feeds

Don't use it. Don't need it.

I like sticking with companies and software that actually turn profit and will be around for decades to come.

Linux has been around for awhile, and will be.

BSD has been around even longer.

And I like sticking with security, stability and quality instead. Seems like we're both getting what we want :thumbsup

Yep..

Free speech.

Its great .

pretty fucking sad.

:thumbsup

You have a very fundamental misunderstanding of Open Source.

Believe it or not, it contributes to innovation.

Wow, what a mighty ignorant statement. Do a little research and find out how many long-standing free Open Source projects there are out there.

SpaceAce

Just out of curiosity, what OS and webserver do your servers use?

Uh, 10 years? That's not long dude. I've had farts that lasted longer than that. And each version only lasts for about 2 weeks before a new one comes out again with all kinds of bug fixes.

Cant wait to see if his server is updated with Microsoft's latest security patch.

:1orglaugh

Gentlemen, get your scanners ready.

Sendmail/SMTP
Apache
Linux
StarOffice/OpenOffice
PostgreSQL
PERL


Next.

SpaceAce

As opposed to Win NT which has been around for decades and requires little to no security fixes right?

Ealabs.com is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000

Does MS still give out one of these with purchase?....

http://i.xanga.com/sillypearly/vaseline.jpeg

:winkwink:

Have you ever programmed for the military?

no but you have. :glugglug

most programmers are stupid

but stoners are generally brilliant.

Cool...

Did you use EANet to figure that out?

http://ealabs.com/studio/services/xm...net/eanet.asmx

:)

You guys are way too easy to get going...

:winkwink:

I have no control over that server, and I never keep anything on that box that I would not want the entire world to see.

:winkwink:

That is your Free Speach working for you. Land of the Free my Ass!!! :Kissmy :moon

Yeaaah... I thought so... don't you <i>have</i> a dvd player?

Perhaps you under the impression that the Constitution has some clause requiring the military to fund anyone who wants money. Sadly, you are mistaken. You don't take money from a group and then criticize them in public if you want to keep getting the loot.

SpaceAce

Freedom of speech my ass.. the guy didn't appreciate his $2.3 million funding, so fuck him. He didn't deserve it. Maybe someone who will appreciate it more can find it useful.

Fuck That! Free speach should have no limitations. Either you have it or you don't. :321GFY

Again, Fuck That! Free speach should have no limitations. Either you have it or you don't. :321GFY

He had free speech. He said what he wanted didn't he ? He isn't killed or in jail or anything is he ? No. He just doesn't get the money because didn't seem to appreciate it. I wouldn't give it to him either.

Use your brain. They were not entitled to that money. The money was a <B>gift</B>. If someone is giving you a gift and you spit in their face, you probably will not continue to receive gifts.

This is not an issue of free speech. None of his rights have been violated. He is allowed to say what he wants; no one is stopping him. However, if the military has xx dollars to give out in grants, are they going to give it to someone who criticizes them? How many people do you think would love to have that research money? Lots, I am betting. So, they give it to someone who supports them. Seems pretty simple to me.

SpaceAce

That's really the point. If I were getting grant money from, say, Microsoft, I wouldn't expect to keep getting that money if I went around telling the press that Windows sucks and Bill Gates is an asshole.

SpaceAce

If the military was supporting it, it wasn't open source...

i must have missed something - the guy said exactly how he felt. he said: "gee ... i don't feel warm-an-fuzzy the military is giving me money. i feel dirty, cheap and tawdry when i spend it.". other people have even reported this story in other places and gotten his words and message out to the masses. sounds like free speech in action.

the military then came along and removed that "dirty, cheap and tawdry" feeling. now all those other people won't have to worry about feeling "icky" either. that just sounds like that old "consequences of ones actions" thing in action ...

AMEN. Preach it bruthah.

I have a friend with a wife that always bitches and nags him about how immoral and wrong it is to be using his domain name for porn. How much she wants him to go to church and that he's going to hell. You know how this story goes already I bet. You can guess how fast she can't wait to deposit that money and spend it as soon as it comes in.