The OpenBSD Foundation Announces First Platinum Donor: CII

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12 pointsdbolgheroni3 comments

This is fantastic, but there is some irony in the Linux Foundation's Core Infrastructure Initiative being the first Platinum donor to the OBSD Foundation this year.

Glad to see the OBSD team getting funding however.

The first thing I noticed when looking at the "Contributors" page was that The Linux Foundation (a non-profit) just donated -- at least -- double what Microsoft (one of the largest corporations) recently gave.

It's not easy for corporations to give money away; this is why there are often foundations started to handle charitable giving "associated" with a corporation. As a non-profit, it is much easier for The Linux Foundation to give away money.

If OpenBSD (really, Theo de Raadt, the way things are currently structured) could offer a product for sale (e.g. a service contract or something similar), then it would likely be much easier to get money from e.g. Microsoft. Corporations pay for software and services, they do not give money away. Money goes to invoice-senders.

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