Bonum Certa Men Certa

People's Voice in the Linux Foundation

Funding still provided in exchange less benign agenda than easy printing (e.g. restricted boot, TPM, Tivoization)

CUPS



Summary: The Linux Foundation is starting another "Membership Drive", which seeks to collect money from people rather than from massive corporations

AS we have pointed out on numerous occasions before, the weakness of the Linux Foundation is that it's very open to businesses, which also makes it vulnerable to entryism, even by Microsoft and companies it takes over. Just watch this latest Microsoft marketing/revisionism from Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet/CBS, trying hard to matchmake FOSS and Microsoft.



In order for the Linux Foundation not to merely serve agencies like the NSA through Intel, IBM and other NSA collaborators (some of which receive money from the CIA to do this) we need to hope for a people-run Linux Foundation. This requires changing the financial strings. Community influence (people, not corporations) can only ever come through money, as sad as it may seem, and to the Linux Foundation's credit, it does come out with an appeal for people's money [1,2,3] (original post in [4]). Whether a donation would be wise to give is rather hard to tell; the FSF, for example, is already people-leaning, whereas with the Linux Foundation it's doubtful and it may be too late for the attached strings to be undone. Just watch how OIN, for instance (another corporations-funded front), welcomes surveillance companies into its ranks. A serious privacy violator, Dropbox, is now in there too. As a Microsoft booster put it: "The Open Invention Network (OIN) has revealed Dropbox is its latest licensee, potentially shielding the cloud document-sharing service from patent attackers."

When it comes to defending the voice of people, "Linux Voice" should be a good choice [5]. It's about service, not just profits. If "Linux Voice" is like independent press, then think of the Linux Foundation as the corporate press, appeasing and appealing to businesses in order for them to provide financial support (with strings attached of course, as businesses are not charities).

The Linux Foundation is a good organisation, but if it becomes increasingly dependent on funding from companies with weak/no ethics, then we have a real problem in our hands.

Related/contextual items from the news:



  1. Honor Thy Tux: Linux Membership Drive Is for the Birds
    In honor of the open-source operating system’s longtime penguin mascot, the Linux Foundation is taking a conservation-friendly approach to its latest membership drive.


  2. Linux Foundation’s Holiday Individual Membership Drive


  3. Of penguins and Tuxes: The Linux Foundation's holiday membership drive
    You can help two birds with one donation this holiday season. The Linux Foundation, the non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux and other open-source collaborative development projects such as OpenDaylight, announced its 2013 Holiday Individual Membership Drive. In it, the group will donate $25 to the World Wildlife Fund for emperor penguins for every new member who joins, today through 11:59 PM. PT on December 10, 2013.


  4. Join Linux Foundation, Advance Linux and Help a Penguin
    The Linux Foundation today is kicking off its Holiday Individual Membership Drive. We will be donating $25 to the World Wildlife Fund for the emperor penguin for each individual member who joins The Linux Foundation today through December 10, 2013.


  5. Giving profits back: where and how
    Our plan to give 50% of our profits back to the community has got a lot of people talking. Everyone likes the idea, but some people are wondering how it’s going to work. It’s important to note that this plan isn’t just a short term gimmick — no, it’s a crucial part of what Linux Voice will be about over the years. A thriving Linux and Free Software community is good for all of us!




Recent Techrights' Posts

SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
Garden Season Starts Today
Outdoor time, officially...
More Information About Public Talks That Richard Stallman Gave This Week in Europe
Two talks in Switzerland
Engadget is Still a Spamfarm, It's Just an Amazon Catalogue (SPAM/SEO), a Sea of Junk Disguised as "Articles" With Few 'Fillers' (Real Articles) in Between
Engadget writes for bots now, not for humans
Richard Stallman's Talks in Switzerland This Week
We need to put an end to 'cancer culture'; it's trying to kill people and it is even swatting people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries