When a boss buys FOSS

Summary: With more and more projects being 'scooped up' by giant proprietary players (or developers/project leaders being hired for domination over these projects' direction) we must reassess the shared goals of Free software users (and how they can be protected from such mischiefs)

AN ASSOCIATE of ours sent us this quip from Andrew Yang (early this morning). "We need to stop confusing human value with economic value. We don't exist to serve the market. The market exists to serve us," he wrote two days ago.

As we noted a couple of hour ago, money has become toxic -- not a boost -- to some institutions associated with Free/libre software or Open Source software. Hours ago we also remarked on Microsoft's payments to the OSI. They seem to have become very corrosive, rendering the OSI an enabler of openwashing just like the Linux Foundation. Wasn't it supposed to be a brand enforcer? As opposed to force of 'dilution'?

"It's extremely important to guard organisations of public interest, maintaining their resistance to corrupting influence of money and thus keeping them unaffected or immune or safe from outside interests. Otherwise we all end up having FOSS groups that actually help proprietary software giants or patent offices that protect lawyers, not scientists (e.g. by disregarding €§ 101)."A lot of what we're seeing in the world of Free/libre software or Open Source software (FOSS) resembles what happened to SUEPO over the years. Some readers tell us that there were people there who had acted like career-climbing 'moles', rising up to high management of the European Patent Office (EPO) instead of protecting staff. That was before Battistelli and Campinos, albeit back when software patents were creeping into Europe. It's extremely important to guard organisations of public interest, maintaining their resistance to corrupting influence of money and thus keeping them unaffected or immune or safe from outside interests. Otherwise we all end up having FOSS groups that actually help proprietary software giants or patent offices that protect lawyers, not scientists (e.g. by disregarding €§ 101). We will have a lot more to say about that in days to come. ⬆