THE Linux Foundation and several other so-called 'foundations' don't exist to serve the purposes they claim to support. We recently wrote several articles about how the "Linux Foundation" -- Linux only in name -- had been reduced to openwashing as a service (example here).
"We're quite troubled to see a bunch of people enriching themselves by abusing and selling away the perception of "open"; it's misleading marketing, it's reputation laundering or -- as we like to call it -- openwashing."That's just proprietary software; merely paying membership fees to the Linux Foundation and Eclipse Foundation won't change that. We're quite troubled to see a bunch of people enriching themselves by abusing and selling away the perception of "open"; it's misleading marketing, it's reputation laundering or -- as we like to call it -- openwashing. Cheapening of the term "open source" (sometimes with a dash as in "open-source") shows that it isn't the same as Free software. See "DigiFi Launches the World’s First Open-Source Loan Origination System" (notice the dash). This has nothing to do with open source and it is a clear if not deliberate distortion of the term. It was published days ago. So was "Sustainable beauty brand Beauty Kitchen says open-source collaboration must happen" (dash again). How about this one. An "open-source T-shirt design," it says (again with a dash). The term open source (or "Open Source") has never been so broad! Almost completely meaningless. Here's another nonsensical buzzwords salad that includes openwashing, AI-washing and cloudwashing: "BlazeMeter Continuous Testing Platform harnesses power of multi-cloud, open source, AI-enabling organisations to achieve agility at enterprise scale" (BlazeMeter threw lots of buzzwords into this title/headline).
Where are we going? Where is "Open Source" headed? The brand doesn't seem to mean very much anymore. Real FOSS is lost in a cloud of noise.
"The Open Source Initiative doesn't seem too bothered by this."Last but not least, it turns out that Datical pays sites to post this spammy press release [1, 2] in which Datical presents itself as "open source" while pushing proprietary software ("enterprise edition"); misuse and distortion of the term "open source" (or "Open Source") is a case of openwashing and it has stretched the de facto definition to the point of being pretty meaningless. The Open Source Initiative doesn't seem too bothered by this. ⬆