Quote:
Originally Posted by rpindy
I'm wondering if anyone knows specifics on the matter.
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All any of the regulars here will know is what we read on
misc@. Searching through the
misc@ archives is your best bet if you are truly curious.
Of the major *BSD variants, OpenBSD is the smallest. At one time, Theo had a DARPA grant several years back, but this was revoked after he boldly stated some anti-military opinions. In general, the project gets by asking for specific donations from the user base when specific hardware is needed
(just as some developers are asking for donations now to purchase some HP laptops which appear to implement suspend/resume outside of the ACPI specification...) or additional funds are needed for hackathon reasons
(flying specific developers). This also follows the project's goals placing the developers in complete control not having to kowtow to any particular benefactor.
There was a period of time when
-stable ports were held hostage by stating that developer resources were few, & keeping the
-stable ports tree up-to-date was stopped in the name of continuing development on
-current. The hope was that someone(s) would pony up funds. It didn't really work. Updating
-stable ports has resumed to a degree as more people have joined in the porting effort. This is still a sore point with the community, & more information can be found in the
misc@ archives.
Would it be nice if major corporations contributed for such efforts as OpenSSH? Perhaps, & on occasion there will be some grumblings on
misc@ about it, but by remaining small & by flying beneath the consciousness of most, the developers can do as they please, & that appears to be perfectly fine by them.
The developers are not particularly interested in world domination, nor stamping out the competition. In fact, OpenBSD isn't for everyone, & by remaining small, the developers don't have to answer to demands for new features, policy, or spoon-feeding. The developers understand the ramifications of the BSD license philosophy, & this allows them to do as they please. They set their own agenda.
OpenBSD is an engineer's operating system where engineers call all the shots. The project's policies aren't agreeable to many, but there are other alternatives. OpenBSD isn't the only game in town, & the developers will freely point the disgruntled to other operating systems.