From: mattmurphy at kc.rr.com (Matthew Murphy)
Subject: RE: [ISN] DARPA pulls OpenBSD funding

"Georgi Guninski" <guninski@...inski.com> wrote:
> Jason Coombs wrote:
> >>"In the U.S., today, free speech is just a myth," de Raadt said.
> >
>
> Agree with Theo.
>
> Why doesn't he change the licence agreement of all their software to
disallow
> some lusers from using it for free or using it at all?

Come on, Georgi!  You really don't think that there would be any suspicions
about a multi-million dollar U.S. government grant going to a non-citizen
who *might* be able to produce secure code, for _some_ purpose?  You have to
realize, Theo de Raadt did not just speak for peace -- he spoke against the
agenda of the U.S. government.  While I applaud his decision to not let
money / intimidation stand in his way, he ran the risk of losing his funding
by biting the hand that fed him -- or in this case, the hand the funded
him -- the U.S. government.

De Raadt really has no room at all to say "In the U.S. today, free speech is
just a myth".  For one, he is not located in the U.S., so how in the world
would he know?  Secondly, he wasn't legally punished for his actions, he
just lost the funding of an organization he criticized.  I would think that
if Theo *truly felt strongly* about his opposition to the U.S.-led action in
Iraq, that he would not laud receiving U.S. government grants.

Picture this: you are in business, and are about to grant a firm a large sum
of money.  As you do this, that firm criticizes your agenda, calls your
policies senseless, and insults your toughest workers.  Are you going to
write that check, Mr. Guninski?

Before we evaluate "free speech", we must evaluate the difference between
"economic punishment", and "legal punishment".  The 1st Amendment of the
U.S. constitution forbids courts from sentencing, or otherwise punishing a
*citizen* (Theo De Raadt is not a U.S. citizen in the first place) for
speaking against the government.  Theo De Raadt is not in any kind of
personal danger of injury or isolation as a result of his remarks.

That said, nothing in the constitution says that government is required to
*endorse* it's opponents, only allow them to *speak*.  The DARPA funding
would have been a direct endorsement for a U.S. government opponent.  It's
being cut is not any kind of mixed signal, nor any violation of the
constitution.

I don't know Theo de Raadt personally, so I'm not prepared to make
statements about what was going through his head.  But, I am prepared to
make statements about the utter idiocy of what came out of his mouth.

To List:

These kind of discussions, while interesting to some list members, are not
why I subscribe to this list.  The list's purpose is for discussion of
security issues -- Theo de Raadt's poor cry baby routine is not a security
issue.  Please keep off-topic discussions like this to a minimum, as they
will destroy this list.  List subscribers, many of whom are looking for
actual vulnerability details (and not discussion of world ideals), will
begin to leave in droves if posters do not learn to show basic restraint.
If it isn't a security issue, don't post it.  Period.  I will adopt this
policy from this post forward, and I encourage others to do the same.

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