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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday January 23 2016, @06:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the we-stay-bought dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @06:26PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @06:26PM (#293668)

    "Anyone actually know what is going on?"

    One Microsoft Way.

    Beware those who want to wrap their version of [virtual] reality around your head!

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Sunday January 24 2016, @02:34AM

    by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Sunday January 24 2016, @02:34AM (#293781) Journal

    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

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 24 2016, @08:34AM (#293858)

      "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.