Has the Linux Foundation Caved Totally to Corporate Interests
-
Sam Varghese of iTWire looks at recent announcements from the Linux Foundation that have eliminated all community input into the election of board members for the foundation. This has many concerned, not that corporate interests have the loudest voice, but that they have the only voice. Additionally, a foundation member seeking election has seen her funding cut after assisting a Linux kernel developer in a legal claim against VMware, a foundation sponsor, in Europe for violation of the GPL.
-
Wow that's ridiculous.
-
It is definitely not good. They only had two seats previously, that they took those two away is really a statement. Zero community input? That's extreme. That's how you risk getting things forked.
-
I wonder what Linus has to say about this? I mean, could it be any more obvious its over the SFC suing VMware. It's possible that it's not, but unlikely. Did they think no one would notice?
-
No idea, but it does not bode well. I mean the big companies have always had a huge amount of influence so this isn't as bad as it sounds, but it isn't good and is just asking for serious trouble. Were two seats really that big of a deal?
-
@scottalanmiller said:
No idea, but it does not bode well. I mean the big companies have always had a huge amount of influence so this isn't as bad as it sounds, but it isn't good and is just asking for serious trouble. Were two seats really that big of a deal?
Only if you're trying to hide something :-P. Two wouldn't be enough to overturn votes but it would be enough to run and tell everyone if they decided to do something that no one would agree with (no one but the corps involved).
-
It's a large board. They really only existed so that the community had a voice. The votes were essentially pointless.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
It's a large board. They really only existed so that the community had a voice. The votes were essentially pointless.
Right that's what I was saying. But now, not only do they not have a voice, but no ears either.
-
They might have ears, AFAIK the board is public.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
They might have ears, AFAIK the board is public.
Oh well that's good at least. I didn't realize that.
-
@johnhooks said:
@scottalanmiller said:
They might have ears, AFAIK the board is public.
Oh well that's good at least. I didn't realize that.
Public like congress with their closed door meetings....
So those ears likely have ear-plugs that get shoved in occasionally...
-
The news gets worse as the head of the Linux Foundation makes a mockery of the concerns.
Confronted by facts that show clearly that the Foundation has made changes to block out the community, Zemlin (seen above) has tried to spin and talked about irrelevant aspects of the debate around the issue.
iTWire could not have made it more plain when pointing out the changes in the by-laws; they were marked in bold. Zemlin ignored everything and instead created a few straw men and then addressed them.......
-
Reading the article, it sounds like it is time for the community to break from the foundation and take the kernel elsewhere.
-
