Bonum Certa Men Certa

To Understand Why “Inner Source” is a Cheap Corporate Ploy if Not a Free Software-Hostile 'Scam' Look Who's Behind It

Like "private" repos in proprietary GitHub

InnerSource Commons (ISC) President



Summary: It's rather easy to see that the O'Reilly-connected and Bill Gates-connected leadership of InnerSource Commons (ISC) doesn't register this fake 'charity' to promote Software Freedom but to fight against it under the guise of "open" (openwashing)

LAST year the term "InnerSource" made a temporary comeback, whereupon we looked at who's looking to gain/profit from it (and kept promoting it). "The organization may still develop proprietary software, but internally opens up its development. The term was coined by Tim O'Reilly in 2000," Wikipedia says. But behind the latest incarnation exist curious actors. It's related very closely to openwashing -- another subject we covered extensively last year.



ISC leadership
Oh! Reilly... ORLY?



"Around the same thing I took note of who had become President. It's listed in this press release."There's this thing called InnerSource Commons. Their opening statement says: "The InnerSource Commons (ISC) is a growing community of practitioners with the goal of creating and sharing knowledge about InnerSource: the use of open source best practices for software development within the confines of an organization. Founded in 2015, the InnerSource Commons is now supporting and connecting over seventy companies, academic institutions, and government agencies."

Some months ago they established themselves, as per this press release, as something akin to Linux Foundation. It is a corporate front group.

Around the same thing I took note of who had become President. It's listed in this press release. It's a person who used to work directly for Bill Gates and who crafted a licence whose goal was to be deliberately incompatible with GPL/copyleft. Have things changed? Not quite. "She also runs DaneseWorks, an open source consultancy whose clients have included the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation," it says here. So even after working directly for Gates she still worked for him at some capacity. You know where the salaries come from. Here she is speaking on behalf of "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation" 4 years earlier.

"If their true motivations are purely corporate, why are they exempted from tax?"So from a career of anti-GPL she moved on to work for Bill Gates. Now President of The InnerSource Commons (ISC).

Any further investigation into their motivation would likely be spurious. These people aren't friends of Free software but foes of it.

Mind the fact that similar issues have surfaced at the Linux Foundation, where Microsoft employees (salaried 100% by Microsoft) are now bossing Linus Torvalds and speaking officially for the Foundation. We saw an example of this as recently as days ago. We left a couple of links in Daily Links.

The InnerSource Commons (ISC) is nothing more than a think tank for proprietary software companies, even if it calls itself a charity. It's an insult to legitimate charities and it may cause the IRS to grow ever more suspicious of such "open" groups. If their true motivations are purely corporate, why are they exempted from tax? Just like the Gates Foundation, this seems like a tax dodge. The apple doesn't fall and roll far from the tree...

"There's free software and then there’s open source... there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with."

--Bill Gates, April 2008

Recent Techrights' Posts

Banned evidence: Ars Technica forums censored email predicting DebConf23 death, Abraham Raji & Debian cover-up
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Intimidation, Threats, and Bullying Not Tolerated by Techrights
When it comes to our reporting, safety always comes first
 
IBM's BS (Bait, Switch) Regarding Ways to Stay Onboard
PIPs, RTOs, and forced relocations are just an illusion of choice (or ability to recover)
Costa Rica Almost Bankrupt Because of Microsoft
the incidents in Costa Rica are Windows incidents
Gemini Links 29/03/2025: Art of Looking, Wireguard, EMacs
Links for the day
Links 29/03/2025: Attacks on Social Security and War Updates
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 28, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, March 28, 2025
A World Without Rules
We're long insisted on better laws and actual enforcement of them (applicable to all, not selectively applied)
statCounter Sees Microsoft Windows Falling to New, Unprecedented Lows in Palau
Taking Android into account, Windows is now down to an all-time low of 14%
Google News Lost the Fight to LLM Slop (While Google Itself Sells Slop, Nowadays Under the Name "Gemini")
Many people say that "Google is getting worse"; that's almost an understatement
Links 28/03/2025: AirAsia Trouble Again, UMich Culls All DEI Programs
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/03/2025: Alexa is for Gullible People, Rant About Feature Overload
Links for the day
The SLAPPs From the Microsoft Strangler (and Sidekick) No Better Than Patent Trolling
one must never settle with trolls
Something to Celebrate in Gemini Protocol
More capsules and users join in
Links 28/03/2025: Last Reminder "to Delete Your 23andMe Data", "UK's First Permanent Facial Recognition Cameras Installed"
Links for the day
Microsoft Canonical Continues Its FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) Campaign, Reveals Google Too Sponsored It
They're paid-for lies from a Chinese company that takes GAFAM money to write puff pieces about them
Android Rises Above 76% in Mozambique, Leaving Windows in the Dust
Windows may soon be measured as smaller than Apple's iOS
IBM, Red Hat and Microsoft Probably Also Manipulate Metrics (It Helps Con the Shareholders)
Wall Street's credibility will depend on enforcement of "checks and balances"
Slopwatch: trendhunter.com and Other Pure Junk From "Google News"
The need to vet sources is hardly new; anyone can spew out anything, anywhere. There's a need for vetting.
Gemini Links 28/03/2025: Rewatching The X-Files, Slop Concerns, and NOSTR Censorship
Links for the day
Links 28/03/2025: Australia at Risk, EPO Grants Illegal Patents With Illegal Effect
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 27, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, March 27, 2025
Links 27/03/2025: Obituary to a Shop, Russia Trying to Buy Time
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2025: Slop, Autosuggestions, and Nostr
Links for the day
Apparently Confirmed: IBM Layoffs in Canada Today, Hundreds Affected
Impacting "177 people", says one person, "in Ottawa"
When Windows Was Dominant (1990s) Browser Monopoly Meant MSIE, But Now Google Android is Dominant and the Web in a 'Webapps' Era Works With (or Is Designed for) Chrome-isms
We've been there before
Slopwatch: BetaNews, LinuxSecurity.com, and the Attack on Web Search Using Fake and Likely Plagiarised Pages
Changing a few words here and there won't change the fact that it's not properly authored
Links 27/03/2025: U.S. Honeybee Deaths Reach Record High, Legal Occupation Next in Line After War on Science
Links for the day
Using Courts for 'Revenge' is Always a Losing Strategy
Trying to cause someone you dislike to spend a lot of money
IBM CFO James Kavanaugh Refers to Firing of Almost 10,000 Americans as "Workforce Rebalancing" (Shifting IBM's Centre of Balance to Low-salary Contracts/Countries)
The scale of IBM layoffs is getting too large to evade WARN Notices
[Video] Dr. Richard Stallman's Keynote Speech in Kerala Finally Uploaded
In non-free format and proprietary YouTube, but perhaps that's better than nothing
Islands Are Leaving Microsoft Behind, According to statCounter
Android has had a very strong year
EPO Management Fails to Deny That the Office is Discriminating Against Women
Europe's second-largest institution isn't just exceedingly corrupt but also immoral
In Some Countries the Market Share of Vista 11 is Going Down, Not Up
despite being released in 2021
Rumour: Mass Layoffs in IBM Canada Today
Maybe later today some people from Canada will say something firmer and maybe some media will even talk about that
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 26, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Gemini Links 27/03/2025: X-Files' "Kill Switch", Orlando, and ASN (Autonomous System Number) 'Hack'
Links for the day