Bonum Certa Men Certa

When Linux Foundation Says "Community" It Means Mark Zuckerberg and the Intelligence Community (Spies, or Companies That Put Back Doors in Billions of Chips)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Dec 27, 2023,
updated Dec 27, 2023

Free vintage retro WPA poster.

The Linux Foundation has this new puff piece this week. It speaks of "portfolio" (Wall Street vocabulary), not "community". "The Linux Foundation Connectivity grows portfolio with ISP Toolbox" says the headline. Nope! Not about Linux, as Magma is for M.A.G.M.A. (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta, Apple, aka G.A.F.A.M.) et al; you get the idea....

To quote: "LF Connectivity (LFC), a Linux Foundation open-source project focused on advancing technologies to accelerate emerging network and connectivity applications, announced Magma and ISP Toolbox have become LFC sub-projects."

The official site speaks of "Supporting Community", revealing the mis-comprehension if not deliberate misappropriation of this term.

LF communitywashing

The new article says:

Magma communitywashing

This is classic communitywashing. And if you're not an employee of those large companies, they won't care about you and your patch. Heck, they don't even expect you to participate (except as a free labourer or an overambitious slave) and might be very surprised if you, as an outsider, come and offer some help. Some of these companies work with the state and hand over Internet usage information.

This is an extension of openwashing. Several companies pooling resources and collaborating on some code is not what makes Free software communities. Plus, you need a Microsoft account.

Of course their code is being outsourced to a proprietary platform (GPL-violating jail) controlled by Microsoft, e.g. (first in the list):

Terragraph

Give your code to the "Microsoft community" and then boast about being a socialist?

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