What is OpenSSL? Is it true the organization developing OpenSSL is in a bad economic situation because OpenSSL is totally free?

What is OpenSSL?

Imagine this. You want to send a message to John. You don't know where he is or what his other contact details are. You pass the message to Jane, who knows someone who knows John. The message then is sent to Jane, who then sends to this unknown party who passes it on to John. If Jane cannot connect to that party, she will try to find another person who can then take the message to John. 

Internet was designed in a way for data from any part of the network to reach any other node in the network in a very fault tolerant way. The data passes through multiple nodes in the network. By default the data is all plain text and insecure. Jane and unknown others whom you pass the message to, can read your message. If it is something confidential, you are screwed. 

As the World Wide Web started getting used for banking transactions, corporate communications, shopping and other important stuff, you needed something to reduce the risk of information getting stolen. 

SSL is a protocol designed to reduce this risk. It encrypts the message, so only John and you can read the message and also makes sure that John knows that he is getting this message from you and not some other person pretending to be you. 

OpenSSL is a free software that implements the SSL protocol and enables servers across the Internet to securely communicate with their clients. Majority of the servers in the world use this software. From Google to NSA to WhiteHouse to Amazon, you can find this everywhere. 

Lack of Contributions

For such an important component that enables billions of dollars of transactions and thousands of major corporations benefiting from, there is only one guy involved full-time and about half-dozen volunteers doing part-time work. They get a few thousands of dollars in donations and sponsorships to continue doing this thing. This is insane. 

They make money in the same way Wikipedia does, but they are so deeply hidden that most of us pay little attention to them. 

It is not that they are free that they are troubled. Wikipedia and Linux are free too and can managed to get by. Just that it is a curse for security related things - you are screamed at when something goes wrong and totally forgotten when everything works well.