"A culture of entitlement is starting to damage the open source community," Theo de Raadt, the founder and lead developer of the OpenBSD open source operating system, declared this week.
His gripe is that while his organisation is struggling to make ends meet on losses of around $20,000 a year, proprietary software companies that benefit from his team's work are making money hand over fist. The relationship is all take and no give. That's basically unfair, says de Raadt.
Fairness and capitalism have never been comfortable bedfellows, but de Raadt does have a point. The open BSDs may be less famous than Linux, but they are arguably superior in stability and security. This has made it popular in ISPs and elsewhere — Apple, for example, adopted BSD within OS X. BSD, unlike software released under the GPL, carrys no legal obligations for the adopter to provide anything for the community in return.
That should not prevent enlightened self-interest from taking a lead. Last quarter alone Apple's revenues were $4.3bn. OpenBSD made around $100,000, half from CDs and half from donations. In the time it takes to read this article, we calculate that Apple will have easily made enough to pay-off OpenBSD's annual losses, with a little left over to buy black turtlenecks for all. It's not just Apple's baby — other companies owe far more to OpenBSD — but in open source a little symbolism goes a long way.
It would be easy for Steve Jobs, and the bosses of the other commercial technology companies who benefit from open source community, to resort to hard-line capitalism platitudes such as "no one owes you a living in this world." But hopefully some introspection will reveal that at the end of the day it's they who owe some of their and their company's success to individuals like de Raadt.
Talkback
Honestly... this is misreported and poorly researched. The reason that the *BSD has been adopted by so many comercial entities is the loose licence under which it was distributed. The GPL is far more restrictive for comercial use.... The stability and security argument is very lame and I challenge you to cite sources that are independant to support your claims rather than passing off opinion as fact.
Sorry, but if you give your software away for others to use, you really shouldn't complain when or if they do.
If you think its unfair ,change your lisence. There are allready commonlyused licenses that prevent such use. For one thing, GPL comes to mind.
As for Open BSD being more secure than Linux, I doubt it. It may be more secure than some Linux distros, but probably not the ones that are built with security in mind. Statemenst like this is a little too broad to take seriously.
"Sorry, but if you give your software away for others to use, you really shouldn't complain when or if they do."
The OpenBSD team doesn't complain, they actually encourage widespread use of their code in order to increase internet security.
"If you think its unfair ,change your lisence. There are allready commonlyused licenses that prevent such use. For one thing, GPL comes to mind."
Do you understand your own GPLegalese? How does changing to the GPL help OpenBSD get more donations? The GPL doesn't offer financial protections any more than the BSD license would. If you're talking about selling out, then OpenBSD will not.
"As for OpenBSD being more secure than Linux, I doubt it. It may be more secure than some Linux distros, but probably not the ones that are built with security in mind. Statemenst like this is a little too broad to take seriously."
Keep denying it. As long as you use OpenSSH and/or other OpenBSD software such as OpenBGPD, PF, CARP, the internet is better off. Remember to donate to OpenBSD for further improvements.
http://www.openbsd.org/papers/ven05-deraadt/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBSD_security_features
Hey Theo,
When is it going to penetrate that thick brain of yours that you should have licensed OpenBSD under the GPL?
The Apple zealots strike again.
The GPL has nothing to do with the survivability of an Open Source company?
Name ONE Open Source vendor that uses the Free BSD License for its products!
Child, can you read? OpenBSD isn't a company. And just to give you a company that does, the BSD licence is used by PostgrSQL, a company which makes PostgrSQL - which is the best SQL server available.
It doesn't hurt to have a heart, if you use a free software and gain from it you sould pay respect. A lifetime is not as short a you may think and not being willing help is like biting the hand that feed you. All in all it just stagnates interlectual advance.