[openssl-announce] Another record-breaking donation from Smartisan Technology

[Steve Marquess]

More than two years ago I was excited to announce a record-breaking
donation[1] from Smartisan (http://www.smartisan.com/). That plus two
other major donations from Smartisan, along with donations from
individuals and other commercial donors, were put to good use in
enabling an overhaul and rejuvenation of OpenSSL. The first milestone in
that process was realized with the release of OpenSSL 1.1 earlier this year.

So we've been pleased with the progress made over the past few years,
and feel that we've leveraged these donations effectively. However, now
that we're no longer newsworthy, donations have fallen off considerably
(to levels typical of open source projects in general and of our
pre-Heartbleed history).

At our second face-to-face team meeting in Berlin this year, one of the
topics of discussion was the anticipated depletion of our funding in
mid-year 2017. That funding currently supports two OpenSSL team members,
Matt Caswell and Richard Levitte, on a full time basis. With the
depletion of those funds they face a return to commercial employment and
scaling back their OpenSSL work. That loss would reduce the dedicated
OpenSSL workforce by half.

Well, I am very pleased to announce the OpenSSL project has received yet
another large donation from Smartisan Technology. This latest donation
of $212,000 (200,000 EUR, 1,500,000 Yuan) breaks the previous records
for largest single donation (also held by Smartisan). It couldn't have
come at a better time.

I would like to note that all the Smartisan donations have been made
with no strings, requirements, caveats, or quid pro quo expectations of
any kind, explicit or implied. In a recent message Smartisan CEO Yonghao
Luo noted that as a startup company, Smartisan has benefited greatly
from the open source community and hoped to contribute meaningfully in
return. In addition, he pointed out that three of the four Smartisan
donations came from ticket sales for major product launches in China,
and he emphasized that "...the participants – commonly known as “friends
of Smartisan” – fully understand that all ticket revenues will be
donated to open source projects.", and that "...many of them feel
honored to be able to contribute to great open source projects like
OpenSSL."

Thank you Smartisan, Yonghao Luo, and Friends of Smartisan.  We will
continue to strive to be worthy of that support.

-Steve M.

[1]
https://mta.openssl.org/pipermail/openssl-announce/2014-December/000001.html


-- 
Steve Marquess
OpenSSL Software Foundation
20-22 Wenlock Road
London N1 7GU
United Kingdom
+44 1785508015
+1 301 874 2571 direct
marquess at opensslfoundation.org
stevem at openssl.org