Tech giants, chastened by Heartbleed, finally agree to fund OpenSSL

[Edvard]

IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and others pledge big bucks to the project.  About damn time...

The important role OpenSSL plays in securing the Internet has never been matched by the financial resources devoted to maintaining it.
... but the Linux Foundation wants to change that. The foundation today is announcing a three-year initiative with at least $3.9 million to help under-funded open source projects—with OpenSSL coming first.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/tech-giants-chastened-by-heartbleed-finally-agree-to-fund-openssl/

from CodeProject News

[wraith808]

Well, isn't that nice of Microsoft. Considering they don't even use OpenSSL, to my knowledge.

Hmmm... not sure if we should be clapping for this...

[TaoPhoenix]

Hmm, what part of seven, multi billion dollar companies weren't bothered to deal with this?!
Story after story, "cyber security initiative", and then one nasty flaw pwns the entire internet. Really.

[Renegade]

What are the strings?

[wraith808]

What are the strings?

My question, exactly...

[Edvard]

Well, since it's all being managed by the Linux Foundation, apparently none.  From the article (emphasis mine):

The funding will not come with strings attached, Zemlin said. “We definitely want to help them, but it has to be done under their community norms,” he said. “The folks at OpenSSL are guys who have dedicated most of their adult careers to super hard software development that is, I would argue, in some ways thankless work.”
...
The Linux Foundation believes that open source developers should be their own bosses, regardless of who provides their funding. “Linus Torvalds does not listen to Jim Zemlin. That's intentional,” Zemlin said.

Sounds legit...