One month ago: Diversity and Inclusion: When Corporations Hijack or Co-opt Social Causes

Dual-licensed proprietary software + openwashing = attack on free speech as well as on Software Freedom (source)

Summary: Thin-skinned people are being weaponised against opposition to one's views, just like blasphemy law is brought up to defend fiction/lies and censor/self-censor one's critics (because truth is sometimes "offensive")

The "GNU/Linux community" -- a rather loose and somewhat vague term -- doesn't have a sexism problem (not any more than proprietary software have such a problem); it has a traitor problem and it's typically due to greed. People are lured to betray and to attack their fellow people/developers. They defect; they decide to malign and rob the Commons as that certainly can be profitable (in the short term at least; their reputation soon collapses).

It's rather troubling to see the rhetoric employed by these defectors; forget about old stigmas like "communists" because now they weaponise more modern types of politics. Rejecting someone/something from a particular company isn't prejudiced if that company is evil and corrupt. However, if that company can self-identity differently, then that might at least seem (on the surface) as intolerant. Intolerant companies try to portray their critics as the sole source of intolerance or "equally intolerant" (hence hypocrites). This type of political method has long been leveraged against Free software.

"This type of political method has long been leveraged against Free software."The IBM-owned Red Hat now says that the FSF should have more diversity in its Board; if by that it alludes to gender, then the FSF's Board and management team is, at present, vastly more diverse than the general GNU development community. Which should make that suspect (and us sceptical of motivations here). The representation seems apt enough already (10 males, 3 females in management; 6 to 1 in the Board of Directors), and this was said in light of Stallman's pushed/forced resignation. We'll deal with IBM separately in our next post.

Sorry to say this so bluntly, but the Corporate Linux Foundation has taken this agenda to new extremes. Female readers of ours complain about it, noting that the Corporate Linux Foundation does not care about diversity; it only claims that. They keep up appearances this way. Adding insult to injury, the Corporate Linux Foundation turned diversity itself into a product. It literally sells things like "diversity lunch" for a high fee to large corporations. It tells them (in the brochure) that for a fee it'll credit these companies, verbally or in tweets, for their 'support' towards diversity. When a female reader told this to us we could barely believe it, but then we saw the original brochure/prospectus for ourselves. Here's one example:

From the Corporate Linux Foundation's sponsor prospectus. "Page 14 shows there are 3 tiers to get a tweet by Jono Bacon," a reader alerted us.

Yes, that's Jono Bacon right there. Selling tweets. These are 'corporate pimps'...

"Yes, that's Jono Bacon right there. Selling tweets."We should note that many Corporate Linux Foundation associates are also Microsoft associates. There's growing overlap that's beyond disturbing. Take Jono Bacon for example. In his latest blog post Jono Bacon reveals just how well connected he is to Microsoft and the Corporate Linux Foundation (not even hidden; see endorsements).

What Jono Bacon calls "People Powered" is actually "Corporations Powered"; it's like the old Microsoft slogan (from around 2006 when Microsoft got caught paying/bribing bloggers to say "People-Ready"); "People Powered" is about corporations stealing from people, from the public, to make a profit. Are those inseparable now? Are corporations themselves the 'communities'? They want us to believe so.

"My wife unsubscribed from Linux.com a few days ago (after 6+ years). She says it's complete rubbish now; worse than useless."Speaking of the Corporate Linux Foundation, after it had fired all writers and editors back in April it turned Linux.com into somewhat of a cesspool. My wife unsubscribed from Linux.com a few days ago (after 6+ years). She says it's complete rubbish now; worse than useless. The Corporate Linux Foundation pulled the trigger on that site and put in charge one of the defectors. This morning he did yet more VMware openwashing in his site. He's paid for this propaganda campaign with Dirk Hohndel et al (the Corporate Linux Foundation, funded by VMware, pays him to do this).

This person administers/edits Linux.com where similar openwashing lies are being promoted and he blocked me in Twitter as well. Why? Because I politely criticised his openwashing output. I didn't even mention his Twitter handle! Also see the screenshot above; this is how these people 'cope' with polite criticism which in no way breaks any laws or even resorts to strong words (sometimes reality itself can be 'painful' or 'hurtful'). ⬆