back to article Microsoft rains cash on OpenBSD Foundation, becomes top 2015 donor

Microsoft has handed a pile of money to the OpenBSD Foundation, becoming its first-ever Gold level contributor in the process. "This donation is in recognition of the role of the Foundation in supporting the OpenSSH project," the Foundation said via a post to the OpenBSD Journal website on Tuesday. The exact amount of the …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    PESI

    (acronym): Principle of Enlightened Self-Interest. Seems appropriate on their part although the goal is to embrace OpenSSH and bring it into the Microsoft remote administration domain.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Jack of Shadows - Re: PESI

      You're unfair to Microsoft. They could simply pilfer the code as they did a very long time ago and they would still be OK according to BSD license. But in a surprise move and unlike Apple, Microsoft this time sent some encouraging words written on the back of a check.

      Even though I'm not one of the Microsoft fans, this time I'll have to raise my hat to them.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @Jack of Shadows - PESI

        Are you suggesting that Apple do not contribute to the FreeBSD or OpenBSD projects? Do you want to provide proof of that?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @Jack of Shadows - PESI

          Apple's contribution to FreeBSD in 2015 is somewhere between $100 and $249 according to:

          https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors (see "Apple Matching Gifts").

          I can't find any mention of Apple contributing financially to OpenBSD.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @Jack of Shadows - PESI

            So we're going to ignore the code contributions?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: @Jack of Shadows - PESI

              "So we're going to ignore the code contributions?"

              Well the article is entitled "Microsoft rains cash on OpenBSD..." so we are talking about money. Code contributions are lovely of course, but they aren't much use if you can't pay the bills to keep the server running.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: PESI

      "Seems appropriate on their part although the goal is to embrace OpenSSH and bring it into the Microsoft remote administration domain."

      Seems unlikely as Microsoft already have support for options like Powershell remoting that are more powerful and solve the same problem. More likely Microsoft are just providing integration options for those that still want to use legacy tools like SSH. After all, it doesn't really threaten any Microsoft preferred technologies.

  2. ratfox
    Pint

    I'm surprised by how small the sums are… but at least, I don't think we need to worry about them really being in trouble. If ever they don't reach their goal, this is the kind of expenses that a company like say Google would cover without a second thought using the change found under the sofa cushions.

    Nice that there are organizations that can function on a tight budget!

    1. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects

      Money is no object.

      They have so much of it and are intent on keeping it. I recall moving to Linux for similar reasons. An ardent supporter of all things selfish (Black Viper) received a copy of Vista or something of that ill (k?) for all the hard work he put into his Microsoft support website. And he thanked them!

      What a bunch of shmuck.

  3. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Meh

    Wow, these companies which make billions every year are really pushing the boat out.

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      For the amount of press and publicity MS are probably celebrating at what can be achieved with a contribution from petty cash.

  4. Proud Father

    Microsoft...

    Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

    1. P. Lee

      Re: Microsoft...

      re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

      Hardly. BSD simply isn't a threat, which I think that's a bit of a pity. I haven't done much with BSD but I found Nokia's IPSO to be the most robust thing ever.

      1. JLV

        Re: Microsoft...

        >BSD simply isn't a threat

        Errr, it's a $700B threat, in the form of Apple ;-)

        Albeit partially based on Next technology and not sure which flavor of BSD OSX most derives from.

        1. dogged

          Re: Microsoft...

          The form of Apple, and in particular OSX has been around for a long time now without threatening Microsoft in the slightest.

          Just because journalists like shiny Macbook Airs doesn't mean everyone - or anyone - else does. Especially without the journalist discount.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Microsoft...

            iOS is BSD too numbnuts. And I bet you have the chutzpah to call people "fanbois"...

        2. Handy Plough

          Re: Microsoft...

          Originally, most userland stuff derived from 4.3BSD, then FreeBSD.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Microsoft...

          "Errr, it's a $700B threat, in the form of Apple ;-)"

          Apple themselves are quite effective at keeping that threat out of contention in most of Microsoft's core corporate markets. Well over 2,000 known vulnerabilities so far in OS-X....

        4. dogged

          Re: Microsoft...

          have we been invaded by cultofmac.com?

          Seriously, are people honestly arguing that Apple are a threat to Microsoft? Specifically that OSX is a threat to Microsoft?

          You need to be a totally insane rabid fanboi to believe that kind of tripe.

          1. JLV

            Re: Microsoft...

            >totally insane rabid fanboi

            You need a special kind of mental filter to believe that all those shiny macbooks that you see around would not, in a another universe entirely, have been Windows-running laptops.

            In that sense, yes, Windows has suffered quite a loss on the consumer side of things. It hasn't lost much on the business side because Apple is pretty darn incompetent in the corporate world (upvoted that person, he makes sense, you don't).

            To flip it around. This would be like arguing that Windows has not suffered from Linux because you don't see any Linux desktops/laptops in common consumer use. You don't but the hurt is coming from the server side and the phone/tablet side. It's still there and ask Ballmer, it hurt plenty.

            This has zilch to do with whether or not one likes Apple or Apple's technical merits or lack thereof. It has to do with market share on the consumer side of things. I know, market share == totally horrible word to some techies, but for some of us it it has some relationship to our paychecks continuing.

            15 years ago, consumer computing was Windows, Windows, Windows. Now it is considerably less so on PCs. Let alone phones & tablets.

            If I had phrased my remark more specifically as in "BSD, thru OSX, is a threat to MS in the enterprise space" then, yes, you would be correct to state I was a drooling idiot. Did I do that?

            Should I type more slowly, dogged? Going too fast for you on a Friday?

      2. lightweight

        Re: Microsoft...

        MS is trying to cloud the waters - they don't want to really support Linux, because it's GPL licensed. They want to encourage FOSS projects to adopt more "business friendly" (read "most easily exploited by proprietary software company) open source licenses. If I was an MS shareholder, I'd expect this... but then again, I am no fan of MS shareholders, so I see this as a crafty way to undermine copyleft and user freedom.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Strange bedfellows

    Not your father's Microsoft, that's for sure. Donating to OpenBSD? for OpenSSH? It's like Amnesty International getting a check from Dick Cheney.

    Congrats to all. Nice to see Microsoft growing up under the Nadella regime.

    1. JLV
      Angel

      Re: Strange bedfellows

      Nadella had a low, if somewhat corpulent, bar to improve on, true.

      I agree that they are making a lot of fairly nice moves lately. Whether or not Windows 10 will be success is another thing, but them coming to the realization that there will always a place for not-MS tech and not being so defensive about it is a good start to mending fences.

      The world can surely accommodate Windows, Linux and BSD family. In fact, it'd be nice to see new OS paradigms, these 3 are really old tech though I don't mean that in a bad way.

  6. kryptylomese

    Windows, will be Linux when it grows up.....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Hopefully not. GNU/Linux is a clusterfuck of bad engineering decisions and overzealous millitants. Far better to emulate the BSD model. While were at it, let's drop the ant-freedom handcuffware that is the GPL. Freedom my arse.

      1. Teiwaz

        I got you clusterfuck right here...

        Not that I have anything against BSD (the licence or the OS(s)), there are all, after all, plenty of good reasons to licence your code on this and similar licences should you so choose.

        The GPL ensures that shared code remains shared (if used and the result distributed), and no poncy a-hole 'Dr. Frankenstein' is going to come along and build an itunes 'monster' on top of it (at least without returning the code to the community, and benefiting all).

        anti-freedom, me arse!

  7. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    I remember an old BBC radio sketch

    A loving couple were discussing whether they really were telling each other everything...

    She says: 'Osmium is the heaviest metal known to man."

    He says "But... I thought it was iridium..."

    This leads to a terrible row...

    1. Teiwaz

      Re: I remember an old BBC radio sketch

      That very much reminds me of the Monty Python Meaning of Life sketch about the couple trying to hold a conversation on philosophy with each other they ordered from the waiter...

      'waiter, this conversation isn't any good at all.'...

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