On Fri, 2015-08-28 at 11:32 -0500, Paul Simmons wrote:
On Fri, 2015-08-28 at 10:46 -0400, William Pechter wrote:
Michael Tremer wrote:
Sure it is free software in the end and we all wouldn't do free software if we didn't know this from the beginning. We do not expect money from every single user, because other things are even more important. But at the end of the day money is needed to run the project. If someone is paying that from their own pocket and an other one is making the huge profit, something is *clearly* wrong.
Thank you for the in depth answer...
I hope there's someone out there who will leak the name of the large company so there's a change in their behavior and a loss of at least a little of their customer base.
Unfortunately, there's big money in computer security these days and some large companies have been buying up the Open Source products. I remember when Cisco replaced their sensor box under Solaris (IIRC it was Solaris, not SCO) with a Linux customized box with Snort...
Perhaps the Open Source community needs to pool resources in some kind of cooperative to keep these projects going.
At least Snort is still available after the Cisco buyout. It could have been worse and been an Oracle purchase which usually causes a pull of the open source version from the net.
Bill
I was about to suggest a "grsecurity sponsorship funding drive" for IPFire, until I found that sponsorship costs $200USD/month.
https://grsecurity.net/sponsors.php
Crappola - I can't even come up with $10USD to send to IPFire, so I suppose that's a bad idea. If I win a sweepstakes, I'll send the money :-).
I certainly like the idea to help funding the project. However I do not see any point in raising money to give to the lawyers to defend the trademark or to sue because of the GPL violation. That money could certainly be used better than being given to the lawyers.
Just donate to the projects you use and love. Every single bit does help. It will sum up soon.
-Michael
Paul