The Linux Foundation is like a front group for those who have long attacked and smeared the FOSS community

Summary: After a decade of fronting for FOSS-hostile interests the Linux Foundation belatedly sees and feels the dissent

YESTERDAY we wrote about prolific GPL violators (VMware primarily) paying the Linux Foundation (LF) for its openwashing services. Last week we wrote about IBM doing the same. Yesterday someone in Forbes published "VMware And IBM Go Full Circle To Dominate The Cloud-Native Ecosystem" (CNCF). It's one among several puff pieces coming from the Foundation and sometimes VMWorld 2019, where Foundation staff produces such puff pieces, sometimes for Microsoft. Companies like Microsoft, VMware And IBM aren't in it for freedom and this puff piece from Mac Asay, promoted yesterday by Linux Today, is something we've grown accustomed to. All the biggest proprietary software companies wish to be seen as "open". The Foundation profits from that.

"...the Linux Foundation gradually shows its true face. It's not about Linux. It's not even about Open Source. It's about openwashing PR."The upside is that the Linux Foundation gradually shows its true face. It's not about Linux. It's not even about Open Source. It's about openwashing PR. People do notice and weeks ago someone left this comment:

I’m ready to take a stand. We will be there as guests of the hotel and holding community events (The Sweet Ladies of Free Software lunch in the same restaurant as the “Women in Open Source” lunch) and passing around our sweet sweet swag – during their venue – not as part of the LF event but… as community leaders … with an eye toward community – in your corner.

This LF (who don’t even use GNU Linux internally) has gone too far. We must show up. We’ll be at Embedded in California next week, with our toys – for people in our community to share, code and not as part of this LF event but holding our own event. While LF holds a presentation about “get out there and have an event” – we’ll be holding one. Because in our community, we don’t just speak to listen to ourselves talk… we act.

Also, I cannot say how disgusted I am about the winner of this year’s Free Software Foundation award – giving 2 presentations during open source summit. That makes me SICK. Not a few months ago Deb won this award and is already speaking for the Linux Foundation events. Give… back.. the FSF award!

See you in San Diego!

For those who wonder, this wasn't composed by some anti-feminism person but a female who recognises corporate hijack of social movements.

"I did crash the LF party," this person told us afterwards (Embedded Linux, San Diego, an LF event). "Oddly, my reservation for the hotel was cancelled."

One wonders why...

"I did pass out stickers, did tinkering show and tell, and made some new connects. Had fun. Altogether productive." ⬆