Once again, the OpenBSD project is asking for donations to keep its operations in motion. It doesn't ask for much -- U.S. $100,000 (small potatoes in the operating system development industry) -- yet it provides so much to the software world. Even if you don't use OpenBSD, you're likely to be benefiting from it unknowingly. If you're using Solaris, SCO UnixWare, OS X, SUSE Linux, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux, chances are you're using the OpenBSD-developed OpenSSH for secure shell access to remote machines. If so many are using this software, why are so few paying for it? Official responses (and non-responses) from Sun Microsystems, IBM, Novell, and Red Hat are below, but if you're one of the freeloaders who hasn't contributed to OpenBSD or OpenSSH, what's your excuse?

"Bigger than OpenBSD, our big contribution is OpenSSH," OpenBSD project leader Theo de Raadt told me in a 2004 interview. "It is now included in pretty much every non-Windows operating system made. It is included in network switches, in half of Cisco's products, and who knows where else. It is used by everything from Arrecibo to the Greek Army to who knows where else. And what have we gotten for it in return? Pretty much nothing at all."

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