Thirty pieces of silver

Sam Varghese
Friday, 19 January 2007 04:48

Opinion and Analysis

Microsoft Office 365

 He noticed that Novell was one of the lowest-level sponsors, something which I pointed out last week. One look at the sponsors page was enough.

"And since Novell is sponsoring at the lowest level, with a great many higher-level sponsors about, I can't think that money was the concern. They might as well accept SCO and Microsoft sponsorships now."

Of course, some people would call him weak in the head. But then principles should not be for sale. When Theo de Raadt criticised the invasion of Iraq he was receiving a grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); the agency promptly pulled the remainder of the funding.

De Raadt's sin was to make statements which could be considered anti-war to a Canadian newspaper. Most of the $US2.3 million grant from DARPA, the research and development arm of the US military, which in 1970 set up what evolved into the internet, had already been used by de Raadt though he was not very happy about the source.

What was remaining of the grant was about 15 percent - not a sum to be sneezed at. It meant about six months' work - again not a period to be scoffed at.

At the time, the Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail quoted him as saying: "I actually am fairly uncomfortable about it, even if our firm stipulation was that they cannot tell us what to do. We are simply doing what we do anyways - securing software - and they have no say in the matter. I try to convince myself that our grant means a half of a cruise missile doesn't get built."

OpenBSD is still alive and kicking. De Raadt simply went back to depending on donations as he did before the grant was provided. Last I heard from him - and it wasn't that long ago - he wasn't in the welfare queue.