OpenBSD Project at Risk of Closure: No Money to Pay Electricity Bills

OpenBSD is the second most popular BSD system. It supports 20 iron architectures, including such exotics as VAX or Motorola 68000. OpenBSD is widely used in network equipment, and subsidiary projects such as Packet Filter and OpenSSH are widely used in many other * nix-compatible operating systems.



The creator and chief developer of the system, Theo de Raadt, strictly adheres to the principles of radical openness - all parts of the system have free licenses, it does not use fragments of proprietary private code at all, even in drivers. System code is available under the most liberal ISC license. Unlike copyleft licenses, like the GPL, it does not impose any restrictions on the use of code, including in closed commercial systems.



Building and testing OpenBSD on all platforms requires a whole “ zoo ” of iron, including the old and very voracious. All this hardware is in the home of Theo de Raadta in Canada and cannot be replaced by standard servers in places with cheaper electricity. The electricity bill is C $ 20,000 per year.



The OpenBSD project exists solely through donations. A month ago, Theo de Raadt published a letter asking for help. He wants to attract a corporate sponsor who could regularly pay bills to keep the project afloat. Despite the fact that the OpenBSD code and subsidiary projects are used very widely, including by large corporations, so far no one has been found willing to help. As is often the case, Theo de Raadt is a talented programmer and engineer with radical views on freedom and independence, and the ability to find money is not one of his strengths. In 2006, the project already faced a shortage of funds that threatened its very existence. Then the same way it was about a very modest amount of $ 100,000.

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Donations for project support are accepted directly on the OpenBSD website or through the OpenBSD Foundation .