Matthew Garrett reports
The Linux Foundation is an industry organisation dedicated to promoting, protecting and standardising Linux and open source software. The majority of its board is chosen by the member companies: 10 by platinum members (platinum membership costs $500,000 a year), 3 by gold members (gold membership costs $100,000 a year), and 1 by silver members (silver membership costs between $5,000 and $20,000 a year, depending on company size).
Up until recently, individual members ($99 a year) could also elect two board members, allowing for community perspectives to be represented at the board level. As of [January 18], this is no longer true.
The by-laws were amended to drop the clause that permitted individual members to elect any directors. Section 3.3(a) now says that no affiliate members may be involved in the election of directors, and section 5.3(d) still permits at-large directors but does not require them[2]. The old version of the bylaws are here--the only non-whitespace differences are in sections 3.3(a) and 5.3(d).
These changes all happened shortly after Karen Sandler announced that she planned to stand for the Linux Foundation board during a presentation last September [YouTube]. A short time later, the "Individual membership" program was quietly renamed to the "Individual supporter" program and the promised benefit of being allowed to stand for and participate in board elections was dropped (compare the old page to the new one). Karen is the executive director of the Software Freedom Conservancy, an organisation involved in the vitally important work of GPL enforcement.
Roy Schestowitz at TechRights entitled his coverage
The Linux Foundation Has Become Like a Corporate Think Tank; Microsoft Influence Included
[Our extensive coverage of malfeasance at the European Patent Office] has prevented us from covering as much about the Linux Foundation as we used to, including payments from Microsoft, services to Microsoft, and abandonment of GPL enforcement efforts because GPL enforcers went after a Microsoft executives-run VMware.
Several of the places that covered this remarked about the extremely quiet nature of the process.
Related Stories
Linux Foundation chief spins to justify keeping community out
Linux Foundation chief executive Jim Zemlin has made a disappointing response to the reports about changes in the by-laws of the Foundation designed to prevent community representation. Confronted by facts that show clearly that the Foundation has made changes to block out the community, Zemlin [has] tried to spin and talked about irrelevant aspects of the debate around the issue. iTWire could not have made it more plain when pointing out the changes in the by-laws; they were marked in bold. Zemlin ignored everything and instead created a few straw men and then addressed them.
His statement began with a straw man: "The same individuals remain as directors, and the same ratio of corporate to community directors continues as well." Nobody has said anything about a change of directors, but the latter part of Zemlin's statement is just plain wrong. How can the ratio be the same when the community was earlier allowed to have two directors and now cannot have any? Zemlin then went on to claim that the Linux Foundation's move is in keeping with other FOSS organisations that are also cutting down on community representation. This again is incorrect, another straw man. Would he care to name the organisations he claims to be trying to emulate?
The major part of his statement talks about the abuse directed at Karen Sandler, the head of the Software Freedom Conservancy. Zemlin's changing of the by-laws was widely seen as a move to keep Sandler off the board as she is a passionate supporter of the GPL. The Conservancy is funding a GPL enforcement action against VMWare, a silver member of the Linux Foundation, and this is seen as a major reason why Zemlin has concluded that the fewer community members on the board the better.
In discussions around the web, there has been mention of the way the GNOME Foundation ran low on funds when Sandler was its head. Some claim that this was because more money was diverted to the outreach programme for women. Sandler has earned some flak for this. And so Zemlin became a knight in shining armour to defend what he characterised as a damsel in distress. Wow, he really went heavy on this.
The fact that most of the code for the kernel comes from developers employed by this company or that appears to have turned Zemlin's head and made him determined to ensure that only non-controversial people occupy the decision-making spots on the Foundation.
This is the relevant blog post by Linux Foundation chief Jim Zemlin responding to the controversy.
Previously: Linux Foundation No Longer Allows Little Guys in on the Election of Directors
(Score: 4, Interesting) by opinionated_science on Saturday January 23 2016, @06:23PM
I read this elsewhere first , and got the impression there was some revolution in place, or at least a coup.
Of course, this is what the politically minded do, change the paperwork when noone is looking, and then enforce a new regime.
I have seen it done at least once in my professional career by an HR dept.
I imagine this is along the same lines...
Anyone actually know what is going on?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @06:26PM
"Anyone actually know what is going on?"
One Microsoft Way.
Beware those who want to wrap their version of [virtual] reality around your head!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Sunday January 24 2016, @02:34AM
It ain't got squat to do with MSFT, who are too busy shooting themselves in the foot with Windows "oh hai, I be spyware lulz" 10 to care.
You mark my words and mark them well, its gonna come out that its being done by Red Hat to cut down on the dissent when Linux is made a second class citizen wrt SystemD. Anybody who has bothered following the posts by Larry Potter knows he has made it VERY clear that his ultimate goal is to make SystemD the dominant OS like a souped up hypervisior with Linux being nothing but a VM running on top. This fits in with RH's "Cloud Everywhere" computing initiative but I'm thinking the Linux faithful? Are really not gonna like being kicked to the curb for Larry Potter and the ever expanding SystemD.
I'm telling you its all gonna come to a head in the next year to year and a half and it'll be VERY nasty, I'm betting RH and the devs they have placed in high places (look how many of the key positions at Debian and Ubuntu are former RH employees) are gonna try to just straight up take control of the whole shebang and by getting as many dissenting voices out of the way as possible they are getting things ready for the move. Its no different than what they did when they first pushed SystemD, you had devs that up until that point would bury you with stats and technobabble for why this or that change would be best suddenly throwing ad hominems and insults like "luddite" while damned near taking every single talking point from the Windows Metro guys like "embrace the innovation" and "its the way of the future".
Something stinks in Denmark guys, and me thinks it be Red Hat and Larry Potter.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 24 2016, @08:34AM
"It ain't got squat to do with MSFT,"
Sure it does!
"who are too busy shooting themselves in the foot with Windows "oh hai, I be spyware lulz" 10 to care."
Yeah, like it was all an accident.. the eyes of m$ are everywhere, especially anywhere open source has any chance of hindering their power.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @06:56PM
The continued war against open systems. Corporate control is necessary, can't have a bunch of people running around without approved software systems.
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Saturday January 23 2016, @07:34PM
"Thank you for coming Mr Jones. We just wanted to let you know that your status has been changed from "employee" to "consultant". You now have the satisfaction of knowing that your value to the company has been maximized. Please sign here, here and initial here to indicate that you understand these changes."
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 4, Informative) by http on Saturday January 23 2016, @07:38PM
The second thing to do after "follow the money" is see who moved for the change and who seconded it.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday January 24 2016, @02:22AM
Can you please elaborate a little on your anecdote about an HR department taking over a company? That sounds like an interesting story.
It reminds me of the company "Extron Electronics" that I had an interview scheduled with. I read the reviews on Glassdoor.com and was so horrified I called up the recruiter and canceled. There were so many stories about how the HR department ran the place, and even had cameras watching the bathrooms so they could time how long employees spent in there.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Sunday January 24 2016, @11:24AM
Can you please elaborate a little on your anecdote about an HR department taking over a company? That sounds like an interesting story.
Anybody who has spent any time in any large organisation can describe it (it's a standard empire building technique).
It reminds me of the company "Extron Electronics" that I had an interview scheduled with. I read the reviews on Glassdoor.com and was so horrified I called up the recruiter and canceled. There were so many stories about how the HR department ran the place, and even had cameras watching the bathrooms so they could time how long employees spent in there.
Dilbert is semisatirical entertainment; it is NOT meant to be a fine manual. But it is interesting that so many HR types (or "People Services" in some places) take it so.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday January 24 2016, @05:33PM
Anybody who has spent any time in any large organisation can describe it (it's a standard empire building technique).
I completely disagree. I've worked at several very large organizations (including two huge semiconductor manufacturers) and the HR departments did not run those companies in any way.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Sunday January 24 2016, @11:53PM
I completely disagree. I've worked at several very large organizations (including two huge semiconductor manufacturers) and the HR departments did not run those companies in any way.
I really wish my experiences had been the same as yours.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday January 25 2016, @05:40PM
Well, are you going to elaborate as I've requested before? Or am I supposed to believe your vague charges of "HR running the company"? How exactly did HR "run" the company at your workplaces?
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday January 26 2016, @12:06AM
Well, are you going to elaborate as I've requested before?
I understood you were responding to opinionated_science, post #293666.
How exactly did HR "run" the company at your workplaces?
Generally the object was to gain political power within the organisations; the worst situation was where all sections were having their budgets drastically cut except HR which had theirs increased (even though staff numbers were decreasing). I don't know the actual mechanics of how they did it, but the proportion of upper management who came from HR was very high.
In each case, the point was to increase the size and power of the HR empire. The overall running of the organisation was only affected as necessary to achieve that goal. HR weren't the only empire builders, but they were the most efficient.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @07:04PM
Wow, discriminating against midgets? I know Linus isn't the most P.C. guy around, but this is too far!
Wait, let me read the article.
Oh.
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Saturday January 23 2016, @10:28PM
On behalf of Warwick Davis, I'll remind you that dwarf is an extremely short adult who is less than 58 inches tall. The word midget is considered derogatory and offensive.
More background here. [rickygervais.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @11:04PM
"Midget" has been used for ages to denote someone who is simply much smaller than the average human.
"Dwarf" is someone who is small but who additionally has body parts that are noticeably out of proportion compared to most folks.
The collective politically correct term is "Little People".
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @11:26PM
Fisher-Price® Little People.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Sunday January 24 2016, @06:05AM
"Midget" has been used for ages to denote someone who is simply much smaller than the average human.
"Dwarf" is someone who is small but who additionally has body parts that are noticeably out of proportion compared to most folks.
The collective politically correct term is "Little People".
Of the three, I think I'd prefer to be called a dwarf if I were short enough for any to apply. It brings to mind images of badass short folk with a love of strong alcohol, while the others sound more like the munchkins in Oz.
(Score: 3, Funny) by deimtee on Sunday January 24 2016, @06:46AM
You can be a dwarf if you want. If anybody says you are too tall just tell the heightist bastard to stop discriminating against you.
(r.i.p. pterry, you are missed)
.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @10:43PM
My 1st try was "Non-Corporate Members" but that wasn't really accurate in all cases.
"The Impoverished" would have been melodramatic.
"Individual Members" and "Affiliate Members", while accurate, would have been less comprehensible to most folks.
I went with the least-bad notion I could think of.
Sorry if I offended anyone. (Unsure of which emoticon to use here.)
...and Randy Newman's tune was about calling out prejudices--not trying to enable those.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @11:28PM
Sorry if I offended anyone. (Unsure of which emoticon to use here.)
The correct emoticon is :^)
Unless you were serious, in which case the correct emoticon is 'hahaha, disregard that, I suck cocks'.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday January 24 2016, @10:52AM
Was reading TFA part of your plan?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 24 2016, @12:25PM
Of courshe not! Nothing, I read nothing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by M. Baranczak on Saturday January 23 2016, @07:17PM
(Score: 3, Touché) by isostatic on Saturday January 23 2016, @07:49PM
So under the old rules, the regular people elected 2 out of 16 board members? There's not a huge difference between that and 0 members. Sounds like the corporate takeover already happened a long time ago.
So why get rid of the last 2?
(Score: 2) by M. Baranczak on Saturday January 23 2016, @08:17PM
(Score: 5, Informative) by HiThere on Saturday January 23 2016, @09:07PM
Do remember, however, that "The Linux Foundation" is the name that the creators of the foundation chose for the organization, and does not now and did not ever speak for the community. It only pretends to. Sometimes its goals align with those of the community, but frequently they don't. I think this was one of the groups behind trying to make RPM the official way to update software packages, and refusing to accept debs. So they published their official guidelines, and some people paid attention, but many didn't.
I've been skeptical of them since I first heard about them. This is just the last step making it plain were their allegiences lie, but it was already pretty clear. They aren't necessarily "bad guys", but when they use that name they're sailing under a false flag.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday January 23 2016, @10:41PM
...They aren't necessarily "bad guys", but when they use that name they're sailing under a false flag.
Which isn't unevil.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @07:17PM
Fork it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @07:50PM
Google already forked it, and now everyone uses Android instead. Only neckbeards use Linux.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Sunday January 24 2016, @01:10AM
I am a crackpot
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @07:45PM
Money talks, bullshit walks. [youtube.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by mmcmonster on Saturday January 23 2016, @08:09PM
Read on /. that this was because someone wanted to get elected to the board to propagate their feminist agenda?
If that's the case, I'm all for closing the board.
The Linux Foundation isn't the place for that sort of thing. Let the best person do the job and not pay attention to gender, sexual preference, etc.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @10:06PM
...but thanks for playing our game.
Your consolation prize is a reading comprehension starter kit.
FTFS:
The problem is Microsofties and their continual abuse of licenses (while M$ protects its own licenses with weapons that wouldn't pass muster in Geneva).
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Saturday January 23 2016, @08:16PM
It seems likely that this is simple self-defense. When Karen Sandler became head of the GNOME foundation, she nearly bankrupted the organization with her pet project, the Outreach Program for Women. This is just like the people trying to impose political "codes of conduct" on OSS projects, and fighting against a politically neutral code of merit [code-of-merit.org]. Their priorities are not with the project; they want to use the project to further their personal, political goals. Not the sort of person you want on your board.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @08:25PM
The first programmer was a woman. Perhaps you've heard of Ada? There's a programming language named after her, but nobody uses it. Sexist fratboy brogrammers took over, forced women out of a field that a woman pioneered, changed the name from "programming" to "coding" and act like they're God's gift to the universe. Coders are the problem here. We need to get rid of them.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @09:01PM
I studied computer science. There were 10% women enrolled. For the "technical hardcore" subjects (e.g. compilers 202) we usually had 0% to 5% women (i.e.: up to one female in a class of twenty to thirty humans).
But hey, fine with me. I'm a man, and I can also be a fulltime ski instructor. By all means do get rid of the male coders! Fast as you can!
And I'll sit by in the snow, happily watching *your* business slide into chaos for lack of software maintenance, while contemplating your smirking "You're fired, John".
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @09:19PM
You're fired, John. Not because you're a man. Because your job is being outsourced to adequately unskilled workers. Because your job is less "hardcore" than you think it is. Because mindlessly copying and pasting code snippets from Stack Overflow is less "technical" than you think it is. Women know coding is a dead end career. Women know when to leave.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @09:24PM
So wtf is it then with all the "girls can code" bullshit being forced down kids throats?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 24 2016, @04:25AM
Why do you care? Some will like it, and a small percentage of those may choose to pursue it professionally. Most won't. It's not like the office will be flooded with women coders.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Sunday January 24 2016, @04:43AM
Twice the competition for jobs. Less people looking for handouts (read: reasonable wages).
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @09:31PM
*clacks ski boots into bindings*
*smiles at attractive businesswoman in cold-weather attire*
Come on, 30 more minutes to the lodge for tonight, 10 more and I'll have a good fire going for us :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @12:08PM
If it didn't require skill you could have computer do it for you. No need for outsourcing.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday January 24 2016, @12:14AM
She also had merit. Your point?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday January 24 2016, @02:28AM
That's a big pile of crap. I graduated college before the Millenial "brogrammers" took over the industry with their ugly, flat, anti-skeumorphic UIs, and before the term "coding" replaced "programming", and there were almost no women in CS and engineering back then either. It wasn't because of sexism, it was because women weren't interested. Women only had programming jobs back in the really old days when women weren't allowed to do "man's work", and programming was somehow considered on par with secretarial work. After the sexual revolution, women were allowed into lots of "men's" jobs like lawyering, doctors, etc. (instead of just legal assistants and nurses and aides), so smart women went into those professions, and mostly ignored engineering and CS, which were seem as the domain of geeks.
(Score: 1) by Deeo Kain on Sunday January 24 2016, @02:26PM
Programming never ever was "considered on par with secretarial work" in the past. Please provide any reference to prove your allegation.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday January 24 2016, @05:30PM
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/?no-ist [smithsonianmag.com]
From the article: "Now, it’s not that managers of yore respected women more than they do now. They simply saw computer programming as an easy job. It was like typing or filing to them and the development of software was less important than the development of hardware. So women wrote software, programmed and even told their male colleagues how to make the hardware better."
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @08:36PM
Their priorities are not with the project; they want to use the project to further their personal, political goals.
[Citation needed]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 24 2016, @03:15AM
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Look at what Sandler has done earlier in her life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 24 2016, @08:02AM
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Look at what Sandler has done earlier in her life.
Not all of us are as well informed as you obviously are. Please provide some details and documentation about "what Sandler has done earlier in her life."
Pretty please!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 24 2016, @12:34AM
I'm trying to find any reason to care.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 24 2016, @03:15AM
They "sponsor" Linus Torvald's paycheck, and could well give him unwanted advice. I look forward to his public reaction in that event.
(Score: 1) by Deeo Kain on Sunday January 24 2016, @02:18PM
They simply decide what is Linux and what is not. And they dictate the rules. They might even decide to change the license.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 24 2016, @07:18PM
The name is something they grabbed up.
It is purposely deceptive (and, accordingly, you got snookered).
The GPL is managed by GNU.org. [google.com]
As noted in TFS, the Software Freedom Conservancy has been doing license enforcement (filing lawsuits against abusers).
The Linux kernel is Torvalds' baby and he controls under which license it is released.
He communicates to the public via the Linux Kernel Mailing List.
Distros and desktop environments and FOSS apps each has its own site/ecosystem.
What they do with licensing is subordinate to upstream decisions.
The Linux Foundation is a johnny-come-lately self-appointed advocacy group, founded in 2007.
In the past, they have spread the gospel of the advantages of Linux and associated projects.
They also give seed money to FOSS projects that they deem worthy.
They have been mentioned here before, [soylentnews.org] notably in the context of the for-profit edX education program.
The kinds of membership fees mentioned in TFS is a good indicator of what the organization is about. (Money.)
This latest move further demonstrates that the Linux Foundation is increasingly an incestuous group of Capitalists whose main concern is making a buck--not Software Freedom.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 24 2016, @07:13AM
Free Software Foundation is about people.
(Score: 2) by arulatas on Monday January 25 2016, @04:05PM
The same way Soylent Green from the movies was about the people?
----- 10 turns around