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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

#181

Post by noselasd »

justin66 wrote: post #95
astrodust wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're asking for help and you have constraints, you better qualify those constraints in a way that builds confidence. The more transparency you have in your discussion, the more supportive people will be.

> 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.

Which is the point exactly. People DO have confidence in the nonprofits they donate to. It might not be warranted at all, but the nonprofit has actively built confidence for their audience.

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

#182

Post by crististm »

takeda wrote: post #45
jdludlow wrote: post #23

> The OpenBSD project uses a lot of electricity for running the > development and build machines. A number of logistical reasons > prevents us from moving the machines to another location which might > offer space/power for free, so let's not allow the conversation to go > that way. I don't understand this comment. If the choice came down to moving versus shutting down entirely, why is moving an unacceptable answer?

I've seen a picture posted on Slashdot how they server rack looks like. There are many very old machines, I am sure that at least one reason is fear that they break during transportation. Found it: http://www.openbsd.org/images/rack2009.jpg

The AC instructions note made me smile.

It reminded me of a post-it I left in the company lab with a diagram for how to do proper gigabit cross-overs. I could still find it there five years later after they rearranged the lab several times.

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

#183

Post by Fomite »

vinceguidry wrote: post #161
Fomite wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Don't be a dick to people giving you money - customers or donors. If you can't turn it off, don't be donor facing.

Sure, they should totally just get their PR person on it. Oh look, now they're asking for $40,000

Is there no one at OpenBSD who can't not be a dick? The situation is more dire than I thought.

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

#184

Post by sliverstorm »

chrissnell wrote: post #153
sliverstorm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the shortfall on the electric bill is inexplicably $20k Quick back-of-the-envelope: At $0.12/kWh, the shortfall is about 20kW of continuous power. Do they have significant HVAC requirements? I don't think I see 20kW of iron in the two racks that get pictured.

For every watt you put in, you need to cool that watt, which requires a high percentage of a second watt. Some of that equipment is almost 20 years old, maybe more. One those old machines could warm an office back in 1994. On top of the electricity for the servers and for cooling, there is also maintenance: replacing ancient drives and other system components when they fail (which may require paying out the arse for…

$20k is not inherently unreasonable, but I won't donate if I don't have a better idea of what is going on "behind the curtain", which is why I'm idly musing.

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

#185

Post by bjelkeman-again »

pwenzel wrote: post #99
gommm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, just donated, I use openssh every day so it just makes sense.

Just donated to support the project as well.

Yes, did too. We need things like this to counter the evil clowns that try to take over our internet.

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

#186

Post by rch »

hythloday wrote: post #135
nailer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenBSD's main value is high security standards. - Is there a significant amount of people with high security standards and an interest in SGI workstation hardware? - What about people who have high security standards and Sharp Zaurus hardware? If these groups aren't as important, as say, ARM and x86 users, perhaps it could be worth dropping some of these platforms?

From Theo de Raadt, on-thread: On a regular basis, we find real and serious bugs which affect all platforms, but they are incidentally made visible on one of the platforms we run, following that they are fixed. It is a harsh reality which static and dynamic analysis tools have not yet resolved.

I was trying to think of a good way to say exactly this, but he says it better (and more authoritatively) than I ever could. Broad platform support is a significant factor contributing to overall quality in products like *BSD, and it's apparent in looking at the source.

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

#187

Post by weland »

tptacek wrote: post #90
calpaterson wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why is moving an unacceptable answer It seems likely that they don't trust anyone else to have physical access to the machines for security reasons. Their threat model probably includes national governments.

A somewhat related note about branding. My first "real" job was in the mid-90's; I was the first technical hire at a small Chicago ISP (EnterAct) that grew into a relatively large ISP (when I left, we were default-free peered to several tier-1 providers and had more POPs than I can name). It was great, and the team that started it --- two Big-5 accounting firm programmers --- was inspiring, particularly when it came…

I know OpenBSD's reputation is primarily security, but I use it for a different reason. It's simple, stable, and doesn't break.

Back when I was in high school and I had a lot of free time and all that, the various incarnations of Linux were a delight. Even after that, I still went with it out of inertia and spent many evenings tweaking Gentoo.

I eventually just goddamn gave up. I got sick of every upgrade breaking something in my system and then especially got sick of deciding between figuring out how to use wpa_supplicant and installing NetworkManager which screws up my network settings as soon as I plug in the Ethernet cable while I'm still on my wireless. In a flight of rage I thought ok, I've had enough of this crap, and went the OpenBSD route.

Seriously, it has all the nice parts of Plan 9 while still actually being able to run all the tools I need. I still have Linux and Windows boxes for the odd tools that don't work on anything else (I do embedded systems for a living, and there's a lot of vendor lockdown there), but for my day-to-day workstation, I found nothing better.

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

#188

Post by weland »

sliverstorm wrote: post #56
takeda wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen a picture posted on Slashdot how they server rack looks like. There are many very old machines, I am sure that at least one reason is fear that they break during transportation. Found it: http://www.openbsd.org/images/rack2009.jpg

Why not move the machines, and if the Amiga breaks down and they can't find a replacement, end Amiga support? I mean, that's not a wonderful outcome, but what would you prefer to see given the following options? a) Shut down OpenBSD b) Shut down Amiga support in OpenBSD I mean, is it even a hard choice? Besides, if there are many developers who like developing for Amiga, surely they would be able to find a replacemen…

The Amiga port isn't live. It hasn't been maintained for a while IIRC.

There are two important points that shouldn't be forgotten about aggressively pushing cross-platform: it retains developers and exposes bugs. There's a great deal of usefulness behind it, beyond simply making it obvious that the workstations we get today are shit.

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

#190

Post by lsc »

sliverstorm wrote: post #65
4ad wrote: post #3

Useful (non-slashdot) links: Initial ask for help: http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=138730448307723&w=2 How much it costs: http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=138972987203440&w=2 Why old hardware platforms matter: http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=138973312304511&w=2 Why not kickstarter: http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=138973837906139&w=2 And most importantly, the donation link: http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/…

I really love how we keep getting advice. Anyone want to suggest we hold a bake sale? It's funny to hear this sort of thing from someone trying to accrue $20k in donations. Yes, many people will give bad advice. No, you don't really get to complain about it when you are asking them for large sums of money.

>No, you don't really get to complain about it when you are asking them for large sums of money.

Attitudes like this are a big part of why I am far happier to run a for-profit business at near-breakeven than I am running a not-for-profit or cooperative enterprise.

$20K is... rather less than what my RHEL bill would be if I was using RHEL and not CentOS.

I mean, I'm a pretty small shop, and $20K is a lot of money for me (thus I'm using CentOS and not RHEL.) - but by the standards of a whole operating system? twenty grand is small potatoes. Hell, /my/ power bill is rather more than $20K a year.

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