Bonum Certa Men Certa

Concluding the Linux Foundation (LF) “Putting the CON in Conference!” (Part 3)

Back to "Con in Conference"... (part 1 here and part 2 here)

A conference room



Summary: Conferences constructed or put together based on payments rather than merit pose a risk to the freedom of free software; we conclude our series about events set up by the largest of culprits, which profits from this erosion of freedom

WHEN we started writing about the Linux Foundation (LF) earlier this year it wasn't exactly unprecedented because we had written many articles about LF about a decade back. But this latest series deals with one particular aspect or a set of new aspects.



"Is the LF just a PR agency?"The LF staff pays itself humongous amounts of money while profiting from 'services' such as selling press coverage and tweets. Ideally, tweets would bear a disclosure, naming the sponsor and saying they're sponsored. The LF, however, does not disclose that as far as we know. Which takes us into a grey/dark area...

We still try to closely and patiently study the matter and as we go along we come across even worse things. Identifying the pertinent tweets, for instance, would require going to dates of LF events and trying to see what was tweeted and when. An enormous task and guesswork. The brochure, however (shown in full in Techrights), makes it abundantly clear that LF gets paid by sponsors in exchange for tweets. Some are posted by so-called 'influencers' rather than official LF accounts. Is the LF just a PR agency? We've never heard of PR non-profits.

A reader of ours recently remarked on Jono Bacon, one of of those 'influencers' whom we mentioned quite recently because he works for the LF and posts pro-Microsoft stuff. To quote the reader:




Here's what I have

ScaLE -

[Name omitted] and his wife seem nice enough. They are trying to keep afoot, by pushing hard on expo booth and sponsors.

[Name omitted] also is "buddies" with Jono - according to what I can see.

Every ScaLE, Jono and his band play, etc.

The ScaLE 15x I attended, included the following:

Adobe speaking about their software

A Windows user who speaks at Linux Foundation summits about "activism as open source". She has no idea... and LF did sponsor that event (no doubt this is how this speaker got her slot)

der Hans - again ... and again... and again... - He's friends with ScaLE, SEAgl and had gotten a slot at LibrePlanet when [name omitted] was doing the evaluations.

There is nothing explicitly declared with ScaLE that states you get a presentation. However, after speaking with [name omitted] from LFNW, there has been, over the years an expectation by sponsors to have a presentation slot. JS.

There is explicit expectation by LF sponsors.

It's a mess.

Final note today:

I don't think people realize the money and "sponsor benefits" of these LF events, especially. The "training" is mostly bias, in my humble opinion.

See the sponsor prospectus for more insight. I think you will see, just from that, what is going on and what I believe needs to be reported.

These 3 musketeers -- volunteering or running conferences and having an agenda -- hard to really prove, but... needless to say they all have a hand in the pot and all 3 had spoken at Linux Foundation events.

I want to see if I can find [name omitted]'s information about how he was blocked from holding a conference - and it was ugly. ... that's ancient history though.

Well, I can tell you something... The Contributor (or censorship) covenant was adopted by Intel recently because of [name omitted] pushing it and the excuse is the (I can get his name) adoption at Linux Foundation -- right. So, just after that, the Open Source Community Manager Jeffro - Jeff Osier-Mixon, another FSF alumnus, interviewed Jono Bacon -- right.

So Jono has been a longtime wingman for LF, as far as I can see. He posts swag from Microsoft and promotes for LF -- even posts tweets sponsors pay for (we have proof of this). If you read on Advogato, Jono made some rude comments about RMS about... 2001-2002... (we have that too).

The blog post from 2001 where he made comments about RMS -- like -- "he needs a wakeup call," is here (archived).

Anyway - after interviewing Jono (Jeff claims they go way back) and after adopting the contributor covenant at Intel -- a few months later -- Jeff... got a program manager job at Linux Foundation.

The timing... was interesting.

You reported on that Community Bridge [a Microsoft-led “Community Bridge”] about a week before Jono "advertised" it on his site. Notice he responded to Bradley M. Kuhn (this comment).

Jono, I was inspired that you wrote in your book, the Art of Community, that: “You should always ensure that the tools that you choose to use for your community are easy to access…and freely available.” I was therefore slightly surprised to see you endorse the Community Bridge platform so unequivocally — given that the entire platform appears to be proprietary software, secretly developed, not freely available, and not easy to access. Also, LF didn’t need to reinvent the wheel anyway, as there are many Open Source projects around working on platforms for this purpose that Linux Foundation could have collaborated with — and not just those at Software Freedom Conservancy [0] — but also at organizations like Commit Change, Open Collective, Tech Cultivation and Liberapay. [0] Full disclosure (as some readers of Jono’s blog might not know): I am employed by Software Freedom Conservancy. We published a blog post about this topic here: https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2019/mar/13/lf-community-bridge/ I have no affiliation to Open Collective, Tech Cultivation, and Liberapay. I have no affiliation Commit Change either, but they’re a major contributor to the Conservancy member project, Houdini.


Later, Jono was also promoting the GitHub/Microsoft acquisition as a good thing. He's a total LF/Microsoft "pimp".

How I started to notice something odd about Jono was when there was some Ubuntu controversy. I recalled his role and his "efforts". In addition, I recalled his Advogato post. How is this person a "leader"? It's crazy.

More detailed tldr SFC comments about Community Bridge.




While we prefer to keep it impersonal (and almost all names were removed), some people's identity can be inferred/guessed by those mentioned. We just don't want the public as a whole to see the names and harass people who don't deserve abuse.

One of our members, who has been watching these things for a number of decades, remarked: "Bacon was inside Canonical for a long time, too. I think his presence hurt the company and, especially, the Ubuntu project. At the time I objected to his top-down style as spinmeister which he used instead of interacting with the community with give-and-take. Then his Microsoft tendencies started to become apparent and Shuttleworth failed to fire him. Now Ubuntu is quite out of favor."

Meanwhile, Canonical closed bug #1 and Mark Shuttleworth started working with Microsoft. Yesterday they released a new version of Ubuntu, but there was hardly any marketing associated with that.

Our member has been studying Jono's tweets in an effort to identify sponsored ones. He "didn't spot anything but other eyes might," he said. "I guess the place to look would be about this part of his timeline, but I'm not finding anything incriminating.

"It may have taken time for any company to get going on taking up the offer of paid tweets. However, I think there are clues he went fully over earlier than that. There are some dodgy looking tweets lately."

Former Ubuntu community chief, as it turns out, does not even use GNU/Linux. He uses a Mac, just like his friend Jim Zemlin. It's right there in his tweets, alongside other problematic ones [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. If these are the people who steer the direction of the LF, then we're in trouble. GNU/Linux is in trouble.

"He spends an awful lot of time defending and admiring Microsoft in many of his tweets," our member concluded. "Shuttleworth picked a dud and that choice hurt Ubuntu badly as a result. PS: He's becoming a politician."

There are many signs, like the above, that software freedom isn't a priority at all. We need to address that.

Recent Techrights' Posts

New Article Explains How the GPL Came About and WordPress Having Copyleft Obligations
Having been involved in the WordPress development community since almost the beginning, I know why it chose the GPL and how it restricts abuse by Automattic
Dr Richard Stallman (RMS) Gives Talk in Oxford University in 4 Hours
If you live nearby, go there (it's free as in gratis)
Using a Law Firm's Licence to Exercise Politics Through Frivolous SLAPPs and Nastygrams (to Silence People, Remove Pages, Demand Fake or Forced 'Apologies')
Things must be getting really bad when lawyers act for raving antisemites
Another Site Bites the Dust: "Open Source For You" Becoming a Slopfarm (LLM Slop)
What a shame. Another dead site.
 
Slopfarms on the Web Almost Always Generate Anti-Linux FUD When They Produce "Linux" Output
Welcome to the dying Web
Richard Stallman's Oxford Talk Has Just Ended, Here Are Some Photos
he might hop over to another European country
Gemini Links 24/04/2025: Birthday and Good Work of Academia in Esotericism
Links for the day
Links 24/04/2025: EU fines Apple and Facebook, Another Microsoft GitHub Security Blunder
Links for the day
IBM Gained Almost 6 Billion Dollars in "Goodwill" Value in Just 3 Months, According to IBM
Congrats to the management!
In Belarus, Yandex is Now Measured as 50 Times More 'Popular' (by Usage) Than Microsoft
Yandex continues to gain, whereas Bing cannot even register at 1%. Last month it was registered or measured at a measly 0.65%.
IBM Cannot Lie to Shareholders Anymore
"I would not be surprised if we see a layoff every quarter this year."
We're Working to Make Full-Site Search Available
This site has over 1,000 'wiki' pages, many thousands of documents, several thousands of videos, and about 50,000 blog posts or articles. We need to make them easier to find/navigate.
Links 24/04/2025: IBM Loses Many Contracts, Intel to Lay Off Over 20% (Not Counting Those Who Leave 'Voluntarily')
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Can Explain to Oxford Artificial Intelligence Society Why LLM Slop is Not Artificial Intelligence and Why It Hurts Society
another 'crop' of LLM slop that damages GNU/Linux and facts
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 23, 2025
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Promoting Microsoft and Proprietary Software Using Microsoft Operatives
Because nothing says "Open Source" like GPL violations facilitated by Microsoft
Links 23/04/2025: Crackdowns on Dissent, Palin Loses Libel Retrial Against New York Times
Links for the day
Links 23/04/2025: Hard Times and Digital Amnesia
Links for the day
The GNU/Linux Site Formerly Known as "linoxide.com" is Back... as an LLM Slopfarm!
Better for linoxide.com to go offline than to do this
Get Rid of Back Doors, Don't Obsess Over Bounties and Other Corporate PR Stunts (or Needless Reboot Rituals)
Security as a term has mostly lost its meaning due to repeated misuse for many years
Richard Stallman to Speak in Oxford University Exactly a Day From Now
outsourced to GAFAM
Links 23/04/2025: "Hiding Corruption" and "The Cost of Defunding Harvard"
Links for the day
Microsoft 'Studies' Again? Leon Musolff is Writing Papers With Microsoft.
Even if one can see/find a link to "the study" (in the Bezos-controlled publication), most people won't look any further and just take everything at face value.
Towards GNU World Domination
The FSF led by Geoffrey S. Knauth with his friend Richard Stallman in the FSF's Board [...] Let's encourage people to adopt GNU/Linux. There has never been a better time.
statCounter Helps Visualise Just How Deep in Trouble Microsoft is (Especially in Africa)
Microsoft sabotaged efforts to connect Africans and equip them with GNU/Linux laptops
The Register is Using Linux-Hostile Clickbait in Articles of Linux Proponents
Don't be a "whore" to advertisers, team El Reg
Microsoft Windows in Cyprus Lacking a Future
Most people access the Web there from mobile
Matrix Has a Severe Problem With Illegal Images
If Matrix cannot get the CP problem under control, many projects and people will dump Matrix
Never Try to Justify Strangulation of Women (Not in the US and Not in the UK)
Joint post by Mrs. Rianne Schestowitz and Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Links 23/04/2025: Tesla Profits Plunge 71%, Intel Ready to Lay Off 20% of Staff, Microsoft and IBM Layoffs
Links for the day
Microsoft's Most Profound Issue is That People Moved to 'Mobile' and "App Stores" (Microsoft's Presence There is Negligible)
Expect a wild ride for Microsoft this year
Google News is Amplifying FUD and Lies About Linux (and OpenSSH/SSH) by Promoting Slopfarms With Machine-Generated FUD and Slop Images
Google should know better
Gemini Links 23/04/2025: Librarians, Anubis, and Refactoring a Gemini Capsule
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 22, 2025
Links 22/04/2025: Ending DEI Policies at Adobe, FTC Sues Uber
Links for the day
RMS is Done at KCL, Next Stop is Oxford
The message of RMS has long resonated well in India
US Government Already Bailing Out OpenAI/Microsoft With "Contracts", As Usual, Back Doors You Cannot Remove Becoming 'a Step Closer' on New PCs (Unless Everyone Acts ASAP)
The next "logical" step towards digital prisons
Microsoft Devises PR Stunts to Distract From Impending Mass Layoffs and Likely Bad Results Preceding Those Mass Layoffs
A "voluntary exit plan"
Gemini Links 22/04/2025: Deaths, HamsterCMS, and More
Links for the day
Links 22/04/2025: FTC v. Meta Trial and Google Remedies
Links for the day
In Turkey, Windows Down Rapidly While GNU/Linux Grows
Although Turkey is in NATO (but not the EU), it cannot quite trust computer systems controlled by the United States
GNOME, Microsoft, and GitHub: The Lack of Reporting on Abusive Colleagues Contributed to Profound Media Vacuum (or Blackout), Now Resorting to SLAPPs
This lack of morality/courage has helped enable further abuse, lining up more victims
Richard Stallman Has Updated His Article on Why "Free Software Is Even More Important Now"
Richard Stallman is about to give a talk here in the UK in a few hours
Microsoft Already Attacks the BSDs as Well (the E.E.E. Way, as Usual)
Bearers of bad news
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is in Trouble, May Soon be Out of Business
Openwashing needs to end
Microsoft's Debt Grew Over 6 Billion Dollars in the Last Reporting Quarter (Before Inauguration), Expect Worse Next Week When 'Results' Are Disclosed and Mass Layoffs Resume
Microsoft is bleeding. It does not want people to notice.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 21, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, April 21, 2025
Richard Stallman Gives Public Talk in London in 7 Hours (Need to Register as Venue Limited to 150 Seats), Public Announcements Begin to Appear
These are not announced weeks or months in advance