Blender 3D Tutorial - Grease Pencil, Sketching with Reference Image Planes by VscorpianC
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The world's biggest technology companies are donating millions of dollars to fund improvements in open source programs like OpenSSL, the software whose "Heartbleed" bug has sent the computer industry into turmoil.

Amazon.com Inc, Cisco Systems Inc, Facebook Inc, Google Inc, IBM, Intel Corp and Microsoft Corp are among a dozen companies that have agreed to be founding members of a group known as Core Infrastructure Initiative. Each will donate $300,000 to the venture, which is recruiting more backers among technology companies as well as the financial services sector.

Other early supporters are Dell, Fujitsu Ltd NetApp Inc, Rackspace Hosting Inc and VMware Inc .

The industry is stepping up after the group of developers who volunteer to maintain OpenSSL revealed that they received donations averaging about $2,000 a year to support the project, whose code is used to secure two-thirds of the world's websites and is incorporated into products from many of the world's most profitable technology companies.

"I think we get complacent as an industry when we see something as working well or working 'well enough.' We sort of see it as a 'maintenance job,'" said Chris DiBona, director of open source and engineering with Google. "We have to be a bit more vigilant."

The Heartbleed bug has likely cost businesses tens of millions of dollars in lost productivity as they have had to update systems with safe versions of OpenSSL, according to security experts. Also, it has already resulted in at least one major cyber attack: the theft of data from Canada's tax authority.

The non-profit Linux Foundation, which promotes development of the open source Linux operating system, organized the group, whose formation it announced on Thursday.

It will support development of OpenSSL as well as other pieces of open source software that make up critical parts of the world's technology infrastructure, but whose programmers do not necessarily have adequate funding to support their work, said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation.

Heartbleed is a major bug in OpenSSL encryption software that is widely used to secure websites and technology products including mobile phones, data center software and telecommunications equipment. It makes systems vulnerable to data theft by hackers who can attack them without leaving a trace.

Open source software refers to programs developed by groups of developers spread across the globe, who seek community involvement to improve the code. Companies are typically free to incorporate such code in their products without paying any fees to volunteer developers who maintain the code.

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Big Tech Firms Offer Millions After 'Heartbleed'

Internet and technology giants are uniting to support critical' open source projects in the aftermath of the Heartbleed OpenSSL crisis.

Amazon Web Services, Google, Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Facebook, Dell, VMware, Rackspace, Fujtisu, Qualcomm and NetApp are backing the Core Infrastructure Initiative', which is formed and run by The Linux Foundation.

The aim of the initiative is to enable technology firms to collaborate so that they can identify and fund open source projects that are in need of assistance.

When Computing questioned who was to blame for the Heartbleed bug, the consensus was that many of the big companies that were using the OpenSSL code for their own benefit weren't funding or helping to maintain and test the software.

Despite a recent Coverty Open Scan study of software quality suggesting that open source code quality is superior to proprietary code quality, it has grown in complexity and therefore needs support.

The first project under consideration to receive funds from the initiative will be OpenSSL, which to date has only received about $2,000 per year in donations. Support from the initiative can include funding for fellowships for key developers to work full time on the open source project, security audits, computing and test infrastructure, travel, face-to-face meeting coordination, and other support.

Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation, said that the organisation will now be able to support additional developers and maintainers to work full-time supporting other essential open source projects.

The importance of open source software was highlighted by several of the founding members of the programme.

Facebook's engineering director of traffic and edge, Doug Beaver, said open source "makes today's computing infrastructure possible", while Dell Software CTO Don Ferguson emphasised that protecting the work of open source developers and projects is "of the highest priority".

Meanwhile, Colin Kincaid, VP product management and architecture at Cisco, stated that supporting dedicated open source collaborators and contributors is "vital to the success and growth of innovation".

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Google, Facebook, Amazon unite in a bid to ensure Heartbleed doesn't happen again

SAN FRANCISCO, April 24 (UPI) -- The Linux Foundation announced an initiative involving major tech companies that will support open source code that underpins the Internet, such as OpenSSL.

The Core Infrastructure Initiative will include companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Cisco Systems, Dell, Fujitsu and Intel among others. These companies have agreed to provide $100,000 a year for a minimum of three years to strengthen open source software, code that can be modified by and used by individuals and companies for free.

"I thought, 'Where did we go wrong?'" said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. "There are numerous open source projects that are not in line with the same kind of support that supports Linux."

While the sum may seem paltry compared to the billions these companies generate in revenues annually, it is still sizable for developers who work on open source software, mostly for free and on their own time.

The first project for the initiative will be the strengthening of OpenSSL, which had major security vulnerabilities brought to the fore by Google and Finnish security firm Codenomicon. OpenSSL is used by so many sites that it has become the de facto spine of the Internet, and news of the Heartbleed security breach sent waves of panic across the Internet.

ModSSL, PGP and OpenCryptolab are other projects the initiative might consider supporting.

Zemlin said the foundation was only a place to hold the money and that members will decide how best to utilize it. He hopes that members will meet frequently to decide on new priorities and take decisions proactively.

Zemlin said he hopes the initiative will support encryption experts working on open source software, the same way the foundation was started to help Linux's creator Linus Torvalds work solely on the open source operating system.

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit group that advocates for the growth of Linux and collaborative software development.

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Major tech companies join forces to prevent next Heartbleed bug