by theGimp on 1/21/16, 3:11 AM
Wow. Thanks for noticing and bringing this to our attention, Matthew.
I, for one, am ready to drop my membership and stop supporting the foundation. Not that they care. A single platinum sponsor is worth 5,000 individual "supporters" to them, but it's a matter of principle -- it's a withdrawal of endorsement.
What options do we have to give the community a voice as far as Linux governance goes?
by rogerbinns on 1/21/16, 2:26 AM
I happened to be on the page for GPL violations by AllWinner today. That page also mentions AllWinner recently joining the Linux Foundation, and how their violations are getting worse!
http://linux-sunxi.org/GPL_Violationsby makomk on 1/21/16, 10:29 AM
Ah. From reading the comments, the would-be community representative Karen Sandler is the former Gnome Foundation executive director who caused them to run out of money by running outreach programs for women on behalf of far bigger organisations like Google and Mozilla, charging them less for admin than the actual costs incurred, and agreeing to pay participants upfront and get paid back later until it completely depleted the Gnome Foundation's financial reserves. As a result they could no longer fulfil their role of supporting Gnome development, had to go begging for more money, and Gnome developers who were expecting to have their costs paid for attending Gnome events got paid months late because they had to prioritize the non-Gnome payments. (I believe this also screwed over women who were involved in Gnome too.)
Of course, mjg59 is a pretty loudly outspoken feminist activist, so I guess he's hardly going to object to all that.
by vezzy-fnord on 1/21/16, 3:11 AM
by jwildeboer on 1/21/16, 12:25 PM
One (now supposedly former?) individual member from the Linux Foundation received a message from Paypal(!) indicating that the Linux Foundation is not going to take his membership fee any longer. No further explanation given, no communication from the Linux Foundation.
"Dear <name redacted>,
The Linux Foundation canceled your automatic
payments. This means we'll no longer
automatically draw money from your account
to pay the merchant.
If you have any questions, you may ask
The Linux Foundation about this cancellation."
by dvndvn on 1/21/16, 7:20 AM
Please forgive my ignorance. But does this corporate meddling in governance structure have anything to do with their recent corporations sponsored/bankrolled initiative "Designing Block chain for transactions". Which obviously calls for weeding out trouble making general public.
by emmelaich on 1/21/16, 7:27 AM
I don't care what they do, but I don't want them calling themselves the Linux Foundation and I don't want them owning linux.com
by duncan_bayne on 1/21/16, 2:20 AM
I've emailed the Foundation to ask them for the reasons for the change. I'll post any replies I get here.
by effenponderousa on 1/21/16, 11:26 AM
They clearly have a for-profit mission. Linux
means community, yet they have no community representation. Therefore, the foundation name is misleading.
"The IT Chamber of Commerce", however, isn't a misleading name.
by pcx on 1/21/16, 6:15 AM
LF is corporate entity, but I always liked and supported it. I think I will drop my support for them if this is what it seems like it is. I want to wait till I hear LF's response to these claims.
by Animats on 1/21/16, 6:22 AM
First the Wikimedia Foundation, now the Linux Foundation. "Membership" in a nonprofit is now about as meaningless as being an "AOL Member" was.
by rndmind on 1/21/16, 1:37 PM
I don't think I know what the "linux foundation" is . . and I've used linux for 7 years.
by sqldba on 1/21/16, 7:43 AM
Terrible. I was about to make a donation because I read that other article saying they fund NTP and other critical free software projects.
by linuxkerneldev on 1/21/16, 9:10 AM
by daveheq on 1/23/16, 4:45 PM
Is one person with $5000 more valuable than 5000 people with $1? If you're a person without $5000, no; if you're a foundation, apparently.
by chinathrow on 1/21/16, 11:44 AM
Reads like a well planned, step-by-step executed (hostile?) takeover of the full power over the board.
Why am I not suprised?
by oneJob on 1/21/16, 2:31 PM
Can someone else please write up a substantial comment so that the top comment is not a bigoted feminist bashing, logical fallacy ridden comment. It's embarrassing.
by AstroJetson on 1/21/16, 3:06 AM
People have asked for years, when will Linux be a real OS, when it gets on the desktop?
No, when it part of underhanded dealings by large multi-national corporations. So Linux has finally arrived! Sorry to see it was the Linux Foundation, I've always had high hopes for them.
by myztic on 1/21/16, 3:16 AM
I am sorry that I have to say this, but large parts of the GNU/Linux community are just irrational idealists hard to work with. Read the GPLv3, it's a great political document, and somewhere in there there also is a software license, hidden between the lines.
Linus always said: He cares about the code back and otherwise not what vendors do with it. He is not in any sense one of those GNU-people about Software Freedom everywhere and for all. When the Free Software Foundation (FSF) created the GPLv3, indeed during the process, Linus already spoke out against it and said he would never ever use it[1]. He cited reasonable use-cases for which vendors have no other way than to not to give open access to devices, in part for example commercial license agreements.
The GPLv3 - from the perspective of the FSF - fixes some vital flaws in GPLv2, from Linus' perspective however is just too strict, forbids use-cases Linux has been used before previously and is extremely anti-business and would hurt the Linux project.
Whether this step of the Linux foundation is right or not, can't say for sure, but I totally understand it. A political anti-business pro-freedom-everywhere radical who already is involved in suing some of the companies she is supposed to work with on that said board? Sounds like a headache you would want to avoid at all costs.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU