Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Friday January 24 2020, @06:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the speak-up dept.

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

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 25 2020, @10:08PM (1 child)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday January 25 2020, @10:08PM (#948626) Journal

    Typical Stalman. Not just fucked up misogeny, but also blatantly anti - trans. And this is from 2018, with edits last year. The man is fucking clueless.

    There are those who claim that we have an obligation to refer to someone using whatever pronouns person might choose. I disagree with that position, on grounds of principle and grounds of practice. I think we should respect other people's gender identification, but which pronouns we use for any particular gender identification is a separate matter — a matter of grammar. We do not owe it to anyone to change our grammar according to per wishes.

    Society has settled on "they, them, their" for referring to a person whose gender is not specified. Nobody is going to refer to someone as "person, per, pers."

    Use the elegant gender-neutral pronouns "person", "per" and "pers". They fit into English smoothly. They are easy to remember, since they come from "person", and the last two resemble "her" and "hers". They are natural to use, since they work just like "she", "her" and "hers". "Pers" ends in a voiced consonant, just like "hers".

    Also, "per" is already used, in both "per person " , "per 1000", and "per se". "One free prize per per isn't gonna float.@

    The guy stopped evolving in the 70s. But thanks for pointing out yet another example of is poseur pseudo-intellectual crap that he has been using for decades as a passive-aggressive way of trying to look superior while only managing to be superficial. Same as his arguments on other topics. What a man-child.

    --
    SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   -1  
       Offtopic=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Offtopic' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   1  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @09:20PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @09:20PM (#949007)

    We should ship all the trannys and musrats to an island with minimal resources and forget to film what happens.