Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Corporate Linux Foundation as Agent of Microsoft and Other Serial GPL Violators

As if the principal goal of this foundation or its entire purpose is to embellish and improve the image of those who attack Linux the most



Summary: The Linux Foundation does a disservice to those whom it claims to speak for and represent; unless of course the Linux Foundation is the trade group whose goal is to outsource Linux to the foes of Linux

IT'S NO SECRET that we do not trust the person who last year said (see video above) that "Open Source loves Microsoft," which is an intentional lie (on par with "Microsoft loves Linux"). He, Jim Zemlin, had also said we need to "respect Microsoft" and he compared Microsoft to "a puppy" (the context being, Microsoft critics being the moral equivalent of people who violently assault baby dogs). Wow, you really aced it, Jim! You don't even use Linux and you didn't really know about it until almost a decade after it had come out (and approximately 17 years after GNU!), so revisionist and highly distorted history can be understood, albeit not tolerated. You claim to represent Linux, but your actions conform to something else. The people who generally manage the brand (or trademark) "Linux" barely use Linux. Some never used it at all! The person who tells us "Linux" is so great (Zemlin) actually rejects it himself. This is the person who we're led to assume will 'guard' Linux. A sobering reality check makes one wonder if he does exactly the opposite. The people entrusted to run Linux.com are also not full-time Linux users. What on Earth is going on?!

"The people entrusted to run Linux.com are also not full-time Linux users."For 12 years we kept mostly quiet about it; we worried that speaking negatively about Zemlin et al would hurt Linux as a whole. But earlier this year we broke the silence, motivated in part by two ladies who had grown fed up with what they had seen. We were shown examples and started our research last winter. The deeper we look, the worse it gets. Then, back in April, all staff of Linux.com got fired. All except one, Swapnil, who typically wrote the paid-for (by sponsors) staged 'interviews'. Commercials in article form...

"We sat down with Heather Kirksey VP, Community at LF Networking to deep dive into the advancement of networking technologies."

"LF Networking (LFN) and the Corporate Linux Foundation have once again outsourced everything to Microsoft (GitHub)."So said Swapnil yesterday in his blog post. It's an ad for LF Networking (LFN). Swapnil is now -- as before -- openwashing 5G with help from the Corporate Linux Foundation (of course 5G is very proprietary and also a patent trap). This is just their business model; as a marketing front...

LF Networking (LFN) and the Corporate Linux Foundation have once again outsourced everything to Microsoft (GitHub). In their own words from the official statement:

LF Networking (LFN) and the GSMA today announced that the Common NFVi Telco Taskforce (CNTT) has reached its first major milestone with the publication of its initial common Reference Model and first Reference Architecture. Jointly hosted by the GSMA and the Linux Foundation, CNTT operates as an open committee responsible for creating and documenting an industry-aligned Common NFVI Framework.

“This initial release represents the first tangible output of CNTT,” said Heather Kirksey, vice president, Community and Ecosystem Development, the Linux Foundation. “In the short time since ONS North America, the community has already reached milestones around creation of the Reference Model and first Reference Architecture. We have also initiated significant discussion around Reference Implementation along with commencement of enhancements to OVP within OPNFV. I am very pleased to see the focused delivery of this group and our ability to align the industry and accelerate innovation, especially in the advance of 5G. It’s incredible to witness such deep collaboration and integration among operators and vendors from across the globe.”

“The speed with which this group has been established and produced its first tangible results are testament to the close cooperation and collaboration of its industry members,” said Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer, GSMA. “A common framework and approach will accelerate adoption and deployment in the 5G era and we look forward to aligning further with our partners on this important project.”


It is a GitHub repository. So Microsoft controls it. Swapnil didn't stop there. He then used Linux.com to prop up Dan Meyer from partner publishers of the same employer. Marketing as 'news' (their business model is just that). To quote: "The Linux Foundation’s LF Networking group and industry trade association GSMA unveiled the first data release for their Common NFVi Telco Taskforce (CNTT). This initial tranche includes a common reference model and the first reference architecture."

"It is a GitHub repository. So Microsoft controls it."And this project is -- you've guessed it -- controlled by Microsoft now. The Corporate Linux Foundation has meanwhile formed another surveillance group (awful members with spying agenda) and outsourced everything to Microsoft, as usual. In their own words: "Presto was developed at Facebook in 2012 as a high-performance distributed SQL query engine for large scale data analytics. Presto’s architecture allows users to query a variety of data sources such as Hadoop, S3, Alluxio, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Kafka, MongoDB and move at scale and speed. It solves the problem of having to choose between having fast analytics that use an expensive commercial solution or using a slow but “free” solution that require excessive hardware."

What bothers us a great deal is that the Corporate Linux Foundation has outsourced everything to Microsoft yet again. It's doing this all the time. As another site put it: "An SQL query engine developed by Facebook and moved earlier this year to a non-profit development group is now being hosted by the Linux Foundation."

"What bothers us a great deal is that the Corporate Linux Foundation has outsourced everything to Microsoft yet again. It's doing this all the time."It is being used for surveillance. Here's another one: "The open source Structured Query Language engine Presto is getting its own project within the Linux Foundation. [...] Presto was designed as an SQL query engine for performing interactive queries on data from sources such as Hadoop, S3, Alluxio, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Kafka and MongoDB. It’s capable of querying multiple data formats, no matter if it’s in a relational, NoSQL, proprietary or unstructured format. Data is queried where it’s stored, without needing to move it to a separate system first."

And yes, of course Swapnil just had to promote that in his own site as well.

But wait, it get worse...

Swapnil from the Corporate Linux Foundation does openwashing for Microsoft... yet again (he did this many times before). He literally refuses to see Microsoft as a rival. They pay him to attack GNU/Linux, so why worry?

"Go work for Microsoft," I told him. "So at least more people know whose agenda you really serve..."

His Microsoft openwashing came in multiple parts on Monday [1, 2] and he then sucked up to Microsoft, which reciprocates with links to his site.

"Swapnil from the Corporate Linux Foundation does openwashing for Microsoft... yet again (he did this many times before)."There was some more openwashing for VMware on the same day, in multiple parts (sponsored by the Corporate Linux Foundation, which is paid by VMware to do this PR stunt); he just can't help himself, as if the only way to make a living is by lying for these corporations. GPL violators; serial violators...

Quite frankly, this isn't even the exception in Swapnil's site, which is nowadays promoting Amazon's listening devices (not for the first time). Earlier today it wrote about surveillance coming to nature/parks too. Microphones, listening devices and tracking by wireless signals. Marketed to us as "smart cities" and marketed to us by Swapnil's site (Corporate Linux Foundation). We've seen similar openwashing and surveillance propaganda -- some of it for listening devices -- from Zemlin or the Corporate Linux Foundation. This is their vision of our future. These people of the Corporate Linux Foundation are toxic. This is the kind of vision of the world the sole Linux.com editor has. Listening devices, openwashing and surveillance; lots of propaganda towards those ends. Mass conditioning and indoctrination help weaken resistance.

"Listening devices, openwashing and surveillance; lots of propaganda towards those ends."The Corporate Linux Foundation is drowning itself (and us) in a swamp of buzzwords and other nonsense. Connor Jones and Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols 'report' (puff pieces) on LF Edge this week [1, 2]. "According to Arpit Joshipura," one article says, "edge computing will overtake cloud computing by 2025."

Buzzwords' battles.

As one person put it: "Is the Linux Foundation where failing projects go to die? That's sad."

And one reply said, "yeah indeed linux foundation has gone downhill."

"It's also killing Linux," I responded, "feeding it as lunch to hostile corporations..."

"The Corporate Linux Foundation is drowning itself (and us) in a swamp of buzzwords and other nonsense."Check out today's article from Decrypt. To quote: "The internet-of-things cryptocurrency IOTA, and the Linux Foundation, the team behind the developer-friendly operating system, have joined forces, according to a blog post. Combined, they will work to integrate IOTA into LF Edge, Linux’s platform for edge computing. Edge computing is tech’s latest buzzword. The sales pitch is that cloud computing relies on centralized storage in big data warehouses, owned by Amazon, IBM and other blue chip giants. The issue, apparently, is that these data warehouses are often far away from the customers who use them. Edge computing however, promises to use computing power at the ‘edges’ of the network—physically much closer to customers—offering a host of benefits including reduced latency time and less bandwidth."

In this particular case the Corporate Linux Foundation is acting/serving as little but a marketing agency. Not only in this case (it's licensing the "Linux" brand for PR); they're just outsourcing things to Microsoft via GitHub...

Notice how all/most of the above announcements come from KubeCon. Who runs it?

Let's see...

It turns out that the Linux Foundation isn't liked even by Microsoft (which 'bought' it). As one of them put it: "Wow didn't realize sponsoring Kubecon Shanghai was the amount of sending a kid to an ivy league... Those pay-for-play keynotes sure don't come cheap [...] I'd much rather sponsor the open source firmware conference, no pay-for-play. All community. All people helping one another. And a hackathon. The Linux foundation events, on the other hand, just scream disingenuous. [...] "my kid couldn't get into college based off their own merit so I paid for them to be accepted" "my project couldn't get a keynote on it's own merit, so I paid for one"..."

There's a screenshot there too, from the brochure.

"In this particular case the Corporate Linux Foundation is acting/serving as little but a marketing agency."More people now realise that this thing called "Linux Foundation" is a scam that sells keynotes, tweets, "thank yous" and so on.

"Got feeling that kubecon is hijacked by big sponsors to move their agenda," one person has just remarked. Jim Zemlin and his 'nonprofit' are profiting big time (about $100,000,000 per annum) from this attack on Free software (which they help companies raid and privatise). As one senior Red Hat employee has just put it: "So the #OpenCore summit, where Open Core companies complain about Cloud providers using their code but not paying or giving back enough, has AWS as platinum sponsor."

There's a screenshot there as well.

People are at least beginning to pay closer attention to these things. Red Hat would be rather hypocritical to say the above given its practices with trademarks, systemd etc.

We've noticed a sharp increase in site traffic lately, marking perhaps growing interest in these issues we've been covering for many years. The departure of Stallman is another wake-up call.

As one reader put it in an E-mail message, "I want to give them a chance to do us right, but after the farce that took him down, of course -- and before we even get to the “diversity” angle, because this statement still holds true if we only talk about the white males that apply..."

"People are at least beginning to pay closer attention to these things.""The biggest tragedy of the Stallman replacement process is going to be that its going to come down to a decision between someone who would devote their entire life to the role, and someone who would just treat it like a job. And there are too many people who would choose, even prefer, the person who would just treat it like a job. That's what we are most likely to lose, apart from Stallman himself. And it's a triumph of corporate cynicism if we do – a triumph of weak devotion over lifelong dedication."

That's a correct way to put it, too...

Several people from Red Hat and even Red Hat's Web site played the “diversity” card against Stallman this past week. It's like they don't want someone to replace him based on devotion to Software Freedom but based on other criteria.

Microsoft, suffice to say, couldn't be happier. Stallman's last speech as FSF President was ironically enough at Microsoft.

Microsoft is already surging ahead with the E.E.E. offensive; earlier today we saw under the "Linux" RSS feed of the CBS tech tabloid, ZDNet, this article; yes, ZDNet has just shelved Visual Studio, which is proprietary software that doesn't run on GNU/Linux, under the Linux feed. "Loves Linux" lies let them get away with it...

"Corporate takeover of Linux has entered 'warp speed' (or drive)."Phoronix has also just helped Microsoft's openwashing of .NET (Open Core). It's those same stunts again. Earlier today and earlier this week (for the second day in a row) Red Hat was pushing Microsoft .NET, only about a week after issuing a rather disturbing press release about Stallman.

Corporate takeover of Linux has entered 'warp speed' (or drive).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Smolweb and Alhena 5.1.7
Links for the day
XBox is Rapidly Turned Into a Slopfarm by Microsoft
Slop isn't about efficiency and saving money
Microsoft's Halloween Documents and systemd, Wayland, Etc.
Maybe one day Wayland will be widespread. Or maybe not.
 
Reboots Should Never be Necessary
"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"
There's Still Hope for the World Wide Web
Let's hope that the trajectory of the Web won't be leading us to over-reliance on Google, nor will it reward worthless slopfarms
The Danes Want GNU/Linux
David Heinemeier Hansson recently moved to GNU/Linux
Cory Doctorow Explains Why Software Freedom Matters, Whereas "Open Source" Misses the Point and Helps Monopolies
It's a very long article
BillPR (EpsteinGate-Bribed NPR) is Turning Into a Partial Slopfarm that Promotes Slop
"I went on a date with a chatbot!"
Two Weeks Passed Since Latest Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, More Expected Next Month
Blaming the debt on "AI" is just self-serving storytelling
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 14, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 14, 2025
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Gemini "Style Sheets" and Switching From Microsoft GitHub to Codeberg
Links for the day
Coming Soon: Another OSI Scandal, This One Implicating Molly de Blanc
OSI has been fairly quiet lately
Outreachy & Debian pregnancy cluster, Meike Reichle evidence
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Again, "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
Microsoft Lunduke is not trying to "protect" Linux
One of the Most Hilarious Things About the Microsoft SLAPPs
It's so ridiculous
Financial Support for the Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project
The FSF has extended until Friday its fund-raising campaign
Illegally Hiding (or Demanding Secrecy Around) Illegal Requests or Attempts at Extortion
unlawful communications like threats
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: BOFH Archive, Updating Old Palm PDAS, and Nginx vs Slop Bots
Links for the day
Ubuntu is Becoming GAFAM-Like
What does that say about Canonical and Ubuntu?
Slopfarms Which Take Real Articles About GNU/Linux and Turn Them Into Copycats Which Are False
Even before the LLM hype those were quite common
The Firm That Picks on Techrights is Accustomed to Working With Criminals
Techrights never did anything illegal. So why is it being picked on by people who work with criminals?
Microsoft Said the Mass Layoffs Were for "Investment" in "AI", But It's Also Laying Off the "AI" and "Copilot" Staff
Months ago we showed many so-called "AI" people were getting the boot and this time it's the same
DryDeadFish is Dead, Long Live DryDeadFish
We kept checking, hoping it can recover from some temporary technical issue
For Quite Some Time Already Microsoft Attracts Crackpots, Scams, and More
Occasionally we talk about the situation at IBM as there are many parallels
Links 14/07/2025: Chatbots Broken Again, McHire LLM Shows Limits of the Hype
Links for the day
Changing One's Name Won't Change One's Past
People who have earned a bad reputation are not magically "entitled" to reset
People Who Assault Women Are Not Victims of "Distress"
It seems like an American tradition. In a country with almost 50 presidents, not even one was a female.
Slashdot Media Turned Linux Journal Into a Slopfarm and Now Slashdot Actively Promotes Anti-Linux Slopfarms
Yes, "no-nonsense" apparently means actual nonsense
Adoption of Gemini Protocol Still Growing
Gemini Protocol is being obscured by the media - it doesn't help that Google 'hijacked' the word "Gemini" - but people still manage to find out about it, download a client, and use it
Links 14/07/2025: Arresting Photographers, Threats to Revoke US Citizenship Over Criticism
Links for the day
More EPO Leaks on the Way
We hope that Mr. Rowan will actually try to refute what we say and show, not merely point the finger at the messengers
Decommodification is a Corporate Strategy Against Communities
systemd is led by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft
copyleft.org 'Hijacked' by the People Who Attack the Person Who Created Copyleft
So far there's nothing "tasteless" in copyleft.org, but that can change at any time in the future
Asking People to Take Down Articles and Videos Only Makes These More Popular and "Viral"
If you do something bad, one of the worst things you can possibly do it try to silence those who speak about it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 13, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 13, 2025
Two-Thirds Towards FSF Goal, Richard Stallman to Give Talks in Europe
There are 67 left before reaching the target
Brett Wilson LLP "Takes it Personal" (Character Assassination, Not Professionalism). Everybody Can See That.
On behalf of violent men
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: Politicised Tech and "Leaving GitHub"
Links for the day
Pissing Contests and Pissing Off Everyone
people who came from Microsoft are trying to vex and divide the community
Microsoft Repeats the Mistakes Made by the EPO After We Exposed a Major Microsoft/EPO Scandal 10 Years Ago
That scandal was all over the media, not just in English
The Demise of LLMs
We've just checked BetaNews again. They've dropped all the slop and went back to human authors.
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Sonpo Museum of Art and FCEUX
Links for the day
Links 13/07/2025: UnitedHealth's Censorship Campaign, Australia Wary of China
Links for the day
Firing Away With Nonsense
Or fighting fire with fire
Links 13/07/2025: Climate Crisis, GAFAM Poisoning the Water
Links for the day
Turns Out LLMs for Code Don't Save Time and Don't Improve Quality
Neither legal nor useful
The Microsofters Will Have an Obligation to Compensate Us
This story isn't just about Microsoft. It's also about corruption, there are many women victims, there is abject "abuse of process", and many more scandals to be illuminated in years to come.
Reproducing at the EPO Instead of Producing Monopolies for Foreign Monopolies With Their Price-Fixing Cartels
Does the EPO recognise the need of well-educated Europeans to bear kids?
Valnet Inc. Dominates Real (Not LLM Slop) GNU/Linux Coverage in 2025
And likely in prior years, too
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Fund Raiser Goes on
Later this month we'll expose another OSI scandal
EPO Staff Representatives Issue a Warning About Staff's Health and Inadequate Care
Even the EPO's own stakeholders (money sources) are openly protesting against what the EPO became
Links 13/07/2025: Partly Assorted News From Deutsche Welle and CBC
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Board Games and Battle Styles
Gemini Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 12, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 12, 2025