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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Can the Linux Foundation Speak for Free Software?:

[Emphasis in original. --Ed.]

Although the Linux Foundation seems to represent Linux and the entire Linux user community, many community members have complained for years that the organization has defaulted to representing only the interests of its corporate membership.

This situation might not matter so much if organizations representing the community were strong enough to act as a counter-balance. The trouble is, they are not. In the last decade, the Free Software Foundation has backed away from its former activist tradition, while the Software Freedom Conservancy is almost unknown outside a small circle. Even Debian, while the dominant force among Linux distributions, makes fewer position announcements than it once did. As a result, the Linux Foundation has become the accepted public face of free software without any attempt to represent any except corporate interests.

The kindest interpretation of this situation is that the Linux Foundation has a public relations problem that it is unaware of and is overdue to correct. A more cynical interpretation is that, from its very start, the Linux Foundation has been a slow coup, gradually usurping an authority to which it has no right. Ask me on alternate days which one I believe.

Whatever the case, the solutions are the same. A concerted effort to get community members elected to at-large positions might help, although they would still be a minority. Many, too, might not want to legitimize the foundation by participating in it. A more promising response might be to see that community organizations are strengthened to provide a counter-balance, but that would be a slow solution if it worked at all.

Original Submission