The Fall of the Open Source Initiative (OSI): The OSI Election is Rigged, Biased Against People Who Oppose the Openwashing of GPL-Violating Bots Operated by Microsoft for Profit (OSI Gets Paid to Promote This)
Excuse me, can I make a complaint, OSI? Or are you paid to excuse "Open Source" violations by Microsoft?
IN THE last part we gave an incomplete outsider's outline of the series, noting that the OSI's secrecy leads to catastrophe because disgruntled insiders will inevitably speak out.
In the introductory part, part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4 (plus addenda [1, 2]) we made it clear that the OSI's problems aren't limited to elections and it's not a coincidence that the OSI's blog has been unusually quiet lately. They know they got caught, they know there's a lot of backlash on the way, and they reckon that pretence of calm would serve them best, helped by puff pieces from Linux Foundation mouthpieces, operatives of the GAFAM openwashing/PR machine.
They seem to have run out of puff pieces by now (we saw one 4 days ago), so let's start with some concrete information. We'll anonymise as well as possible, knowing that the OSI has been attempting to censor/libel critics [1, 2] (the goal is to prevent their critics/criticism getting any attention or perceived credibility).
A source told us: "While my journey in this community started as an outspoken freedom advocate, I see so much censorship today. See this post by Bryan Lunduke for more information."
To be clear, this source isn't male and isn't Causation. And yet, the above struck a nerve. If Lunduke can get sympathy from women and people of colour (or minority groups), then the organisations/firms he criticises must be doing something rather sinister. Put aside his style...
We don't want particular people or names to be "the story", so we'll just refrain from naming anybody.
"Recently," the source said, "I noticed on Linkedin, I was tagged by [redacted] about the status of an application rejected for the Affiliate election. After being tagged by [redacted] on LinkedIn, I thought first "Oh no, my identity as an OSI member has been compromised! Thanks, OSI." I was a member during the election debacle in 2021 because I wanted to vote. It's embarrassing, yes, but, I wanted to do my part as well as get a first-hand account of the election process at OSI."
The source continued: "Then I wondered, "What is going on over at OSI this time?!" When I started chatting with [redacted], I realized the answer was, a lot."
The following names (below) are a matter of public information already, so redaction isn't needed.
"An article by Christine Hall described a situation where Luke Faraone applied to run for the Affiliate election. According to the article, OSI did not accept the application due to missing the deadline. However, according to several sources and research, there was no indication of time zone publicly available on the website."
"Some believe this was a way to exclude Luke because of his OSAID opinions. However, it also could be seen as inconsistency, incapability with no accountability on the part of OSI.
"Take for example the deadlines listed now online for the OSI election."
"Individual and Affiliate are based on the "community's votes". Well, the paid community, that is."
In the next part we'll show how much deeper this goes. It's not just about Faraone. It's more about what Faraone thinks and it's about what anyone else thinks, more so if Faraone's views are ubiquitous and the general consensus, except the driver at OSI isn't community but openwashing mobsters. Less then 3% of the OSI's income is derived from members' dues; about half the money comes from Microsoft to promote proprietary GitHub while making excuses for the biggest GPL violations in history - a highly-sensitive subject related to demonstrably failed SLAPP against us, led by debt-saddled "guns for hire" who receive Microsoft money to issue threats to me on behalf of a "former" Microsofter who strangles women (they do reputation laundering for him). Need we add that this firm does this for foreigners from another continent? One of them is having second thoughts about living in the US today. Maybe he should move to the UK, where he faces several serious lawsuits at the High Court [1, 2]. That's just bound to be the outcome when taking onboard objectionable and abusive clients. █
