Comment Um, fund a non-profit, Uncle Sam (Score 2, Insightful) 7
The simple truth: Wirex is out to make a profit.
They've already had their DARPA contracts, and what have they contributed? No-exec patches for Linux. That's about it.
If the government had done their homework, they would have seen there are plenty of other companies that are NOT trying to capitalize on the security hype, and have a much greater pull and understanding of the community than Wirex. This project will fail, simply because Wirex cannot maintain and engage the community to an extent that it will become the premier bug-squashing center of the open source universe. If that is not the point of the project, then the money is wasted anyway.
I'd much rather see the US funding non-profit software-security initiatives. It needs to be non-profit, and not affiliated with any one vendor. They need to be actively involved in the security community; not just post a message when they get funding. I think we'd see much greater success.
They've already had their DARPA contracts, and what have they contributed? No-exec patches for Linux. That's about it.
If the government had done their homework, they would have seen there are plenty of other companies that are NOT trying to capitalize on the security hype, and have a much greater pull and understanding of the community than Wirex. This project will fail, simply because Wirex cannot maintain and engage the community to an extent that it will become the premier bug-squashing center of the open source universe. If that is not the point of the project, then the money is wasted anyway.
I'd much rather see the US funding non-profit software-security initiatives. It needs to be non-profit, and not affiliated with any one vendor. They need to be actively involved in the security community; not just post a message when they get funding. I think we'd see much greater success.
