09.14.19
Proprietary Software Giants Tell Open Source ‘Communities’ That Proprietary Software Giants Are ‘Friends’
Summary: The openwashing services of the so-called ‘Linux’ Foundation are working; companies that are inherently against Open Source are being called “Open” and some people are willing to swallow this bait (so-called ‘compromise’ which is actually surrender to proprietary software regimes)
“HOW did we get here?”
Many people ask us such questions…
Ask Jim Zemlin instead.
The “Registrant Contact” for Linux.com is “Jim Zemlin”. So a person who never uses GNU/Linux… owns Linux.com. Great!
A whois lookup shows that “Domain Name: LINUX.COM” has “Creation Date: 1994-06-02T04:00:00Z”
“The “Registrant Contact” for Linux.com is “Jim Zemlin”. So a person who never uses GNU/Linux… owns Linux.com.”So the site turned 25 only 2 months after Zemlin and the Golden Boys (gold, as in money) had fired all the staff. They ended up sacking all Linux.com journalists and editors — actual users of GNU/Linux — without prior notice (lack of funds was definitely not the problem!), only to be replaced by obedient openwashing pros, making the site more ‘in tune’ with the Openwashing as a Service (OaaS) business strategy of the so-called ‘Linux’ Foundation.
The Linux Foundation has been thoroughly and almost entirely captured by inherently-monopolistic corporate interests from the Board downwards, which means it cannot be salvaged or repair itself, only replaced. Entryism kills institution by undermining their goals. This is what happened here. The Linux Foundation’s chiefs (what’s left after many got removed) would likely tell us GPL is a “cancer” (if they could). We were shocked when someone recently told us, based on research he had done, that the last project released by the Foundation with a GPL-like licence was Xen. That was ages ago and since then the Foundation actively attacked the GPL, as we noted some days ago. This is the licence of Linux, which Torvalds loves. The “Linux Foundation” is against the license of Linux.
“The Linux Foundation has been thoroughly and almost entirely captured by inherently-monopolistic corporate interests from the Board downwards, which means it cannot be salvaged or repair itself, only replaced.”We’re meanwhile watching, with increasing levels of concern, SUSE’s retreat to its (or Novell’s) proprietary roots. It’s getting down on its knees again for Microsoft (Friday’s Azure promotion). It’s basically a Microsoft ad in SUSE’s official blog. “This blog was written based on the SUSECON 2019 presentation given by Stephen Mogg, Technical Strategist for SAP and Public Cloud and Mark Gonnelly, Senior Consultant for SUSE Consulting,” it says.
Notice SAP in there as well. SAP has too much control over SUSE these days and one must remember that SAP has long been close to Microsoft (it was almost bought by it) and it attacks Free software behind the scenes, sometimes even publicly. See old posts such as “Shai Agassi, SAP, and Open Source Software” or “Open-source community hits back against SAP“. The insults they threw at Open Source match those Microsoft had thrown before them. Cancer, socialism, you name it…
These companies are looking for ways to portray themselves as “open” without actually changing in any concrete way; same business models, same development paradigms.
“We’re meanwhile watching, with increasing levels of concern, SUSE’s retreat to its (or Novell’s) proprietary roots.”Swapnil made the openwashing image at the top. He actually made this phony nonsense. These liars for hire of the ‘Linux’ Foundation aren’t even using Linux. It’s all Microsoft and Apple stuff in his Twitter feed.
“The thing about the Linux Foundation is,” I wrote yesterday, “many have known for a while that it went awry, but 1) they didn’t say anything and 2) they didn’t understand just how bad it had become…”
One critic of the Foundation (for quite some time) responded: “Was when I was in Seattle on a Moodle gig… There was a foundation [Linux Foundation] event. There was a free pass to the security talks… So mysel+my gentoo friend went. They gave us full passes because they claimed there were no security passes left. Then I saw. Not community! And saw..and saw…”
“Saying that Linux needs Big Corporations to “succeed” is like saying that feminism needs financial support from wealthy white men who dominate the “rich lists” owing to the status quo feminists are looking to tackle…”She has been in the Linux community for decades and her site bemoans a corporate takeover disguised thinly as ‘social issues’. In her own words: “There is a poison spreading within our community. From my perspective, this is coming from people who do not code, who do not understand an inkling of what it is like to be a programmer, a maintainer, and put your heart and soul into a project.”
Some people saw that coming a long time ago. Remember that those looking to cause trouble aren’t critic of the Linux Foundation but of actual Linux developers (vastly different things). Saying that Linux needs Big Corporations to “succeed” is like saying that feminism needs financial support from wealthy white men who dominate the “rich lists” owing to the status quo feminists are looking to tackle…
What would GNU/Linux be if it was 100% dominated and controlled by the companies that compete against it technically and philosophically (as explained in our previous post)? █
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