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OpenBSD will shut down if we do not have the funding to keep the lights on

marc.info

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Re: OpenBSD will shut down if we do not have the funding to keep the lights on

#171

Post by ajaymehta »

ibdknox wrote: post #102
jxf wrote: post #10

Just to make the call to action a little more direct, the donation link is here: http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/donations.html

If the maintainers of that page are around here, I suggest putting some visualization of how close you are to the goal on there. It's amazing how much of a psychological motivator a bar filling up is.

This is a great point. I work on tools that would be perfect for this: Crowdtilt[0] and our open-source tool Crowdhoster[1]. This situation specifically reminds me of a Crowdtilt campaign that launched here on HN after the Internet Archive burned down[2], so I would be very happy to help.

[0]: https://www.crowdtilt.com/

[1]: http://www.crowdhoster.com/

[2]: https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/please-help-the-internet...

Re: OpenBSD will shut down if we do not have the funding to keep the lights on

#173

Post by werid »

gtirloni wrote: post #165
hhw wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The developers who volunteer their time to work on it: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/sys/arch/m88k/incl... Keep in mind that OpenBSD is by the developers for the developers. That it's also useful for a lot of users is just a nice side effect, helpful for testing and funding.

At home when things get though, we cut costs and hope for better times. If OpenBSD isn't exaggerating about shutting down the project, then it seems reasonable to review their policy regarding old platforms and focus on what gives the most return.

Dropping platforms will lose them developers. Developers who also work on the main platforms, or atleast whose work crosses over.

Re: OpenBSD will shut down if we do not have the funding to keep the lights on

#174

Post by jlgaddis »

cwyers wrote: post #145
mzs wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=138973312304511&w=2 "I really love how we keep getting advice. Anyone want to suggest we hold a bake sale?"

I think if you're openly soliciting donations under the premise that they're essential to keeping the project running at all, you can put up with the people you're trying to get money out of asking questions to ensure that the money you're asking for really is as needed as you say it is.

Not Theo.

He clearly says things like "that's not up for discussion", "I'm not going into details", etc.

If anyone ever truly deserved the title BDFL...

Re: OpenBSD will shut down if we do not have the funding to keep the lights on

#175

Post by vidarh »

asdasf wrote: post #146
simias wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then re-read my comment within the context of this discussion, which is OpenBSD being on the verge of bankruptcy. If I believed all the BSD forks had a chance to live long and prosper on their own I wouldn't be saying that, but right now it seems to me that none of them have any real long time chance to remain generic OS on par with Linux (except possibly FreeBSD but it's not even certain anymore). Linux just moves t…

Your comment doesn't make more sense from reading it more often. Saying "because I don't understand how the BSDs work or their development processes, I think they should stop existing to prevent them from having to stop existing" is still nonsensical, no matter how you slice it.

It's nonsensical because you misunderstand it. He is saying he thinks two or more of them ought to combine efforts in order to prevent all of them from failing.

Re: OpenBSD will shut down if we do not have the funding to keep the lights on

#176

Post by moocowduckquack »

gtirloni wrote: post #138
jlgaddis wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody from the Foundation said on misc that they were going to do that.

from the First or Second one? Sorry, couldn't resist.

Are you working for the Mule?

Re: OpenBSD will shut down if we do not have the funding to keep the lights on

#177

Post by justin66 »

wpietri wrote: post #163
justin66 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The more transparency you have in your discussion, the more supportive people will be. I think that's total, obvious nonsense and if you need to be convinced, here's an exercise: consider how much money the average nonprofit would raise if people knew where all that money went.

You mean like publishing accounts? Maybe even including salaries for the highly paid people? Because every US nonprofit is required by law to do that. You can browse it all on line: http://foundationcenter.org/findfunders/990finder/

That is a nice tool, thanks. Someone else posted something similar recently and it wanted to charge $250 for membership or something like that.

The web is bringing a lot of good transparency to nonprofits but there's still a lot of repugnant wastefulness and avarice that often isn't captured well by a 990 form. (publishing salaries is pretty huge, though)

I stand by my point that the more a person learns about the average charity the less they're going to want to donate... transparency doesn't magically lead to supportiveness. And wanting a project to account for every watt of electricity is just completely silly.

edit: transparency is a way for better charities to look good relative to poor ones, yes, but all things being equal, it's a negative for fundraising: as with business and government, a lot of what goes on in ANY organization is ugly to look at and is bound to turn some people off. (none of that is an argument against transparency itself, let's just not kid ourselves about its usefulness for raising money)

Re: OpenBSD will shut down if we do not have the funding to keep the lights on

#178

Post by whyme »

jlgaddis wrote: post #121
whyme wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why they're proposing a all or none situation when they could choose to move and in doing so, limit the number of platforms they support. If anyone complains about a specific platform being dropped, well have them pay for the overhead associated with it.

Theo says it's because if they drop $platform, they'll lose the devs that like working on $platform who quite possibly work on @other_platforms as well.

So Theo would rather shutdown instead?

Change is hard, but I think it's worth a shot. And you never know maybe spending more time focused on real needs will create a better product from all the extra attention given to things that are work worthy.

Re: OpenBSD will shut down if we do not have the funding to keep the lights on

#180

Post by tobiasu »

JSno wrote: post #116
jxf wrote: post #10

Just to make the call to action a little more direct, the donation link is here: http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/donations.html

Asian donation is negligible?

I don't think so. The foundation probably doesn't have anyone anywhere in Asia with a bank account that can receive Paypal donations. The idea is to save transaction costs, not limit donations to certain parts of the world.
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