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posted by takyon on Monday January 25 2016, @11:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the let-by-laws-be-bygones dept.

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


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @01:58AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @01:58AM (#294718)

    They were running short of money, and so came up with Linux classes and such, didn't do much for their bottom line. Along comes MS, injects some money, and now they dance to MS' tune.

    Linus? He will keep his mouth shut cuz guess who signs his paycheck?

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 26 2016, @02:05AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 26 2016, @02:05AM (#294722) Journal

    Now, that's funny. Linus keep his mouth shut? You may be posting from an alternate dimension, where Linus is a timid little pussy, but in this reality Linus is very outspoken.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @03:43AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @03:43AM (#294766)

      When did he ever shoot his mouth off his paymaster?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @12:07PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @12:07PM (#294867)

      Linus is an outspoken little pussy. If he had balls he's purge the blobs from Linux.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @02:42PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @02:42PM (#294912)

        If you had any brains you'd know that Linux is the kernel, and Linus cares about the kernel. If you want to fuck up your desktop with however you want to package it, that's your problem. If you want to make your own binary modules to work with the kernel, that's just fine, just don't fuck up the kernel. You're complaining is like complaining that Stroustrup doesn't "do something" about libraries people write for C++.

        • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @02:44PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @02:44PM (#294913)

          What Stroustrup should do is to uninvent C++.

      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday January 26 2016, @03:02PM

        by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday January 26 2016, @03:02PM (#294917)

        Linus isn't about freedom; he's the pragmatist. You're thinking of RMS.

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
  • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday January 26 2016, @10:57AM

    by TheRaven (270) on Tuesday January 26 2016, @10:57AM (#294852) Journal
    I don't think that's true. If there's one thing that the Linux Foundation is good at, it's raising money. If you're a company that wants to use Linux in a product and you want any face-to-face time with the senior kernel maintainers then you need to hand over 6-7 figures annually. And, without that, good luck getting patches into mainline. It may happen, but the odds are that you'll be maintaining a fork for a long time. In contrast, the FreeBSD Foundation (for example), has no control over who is allowed to attend DevSummits or over who has commit access to the FreeBSD source tree.
    --
    sudo mod me up
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @11:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @11:34PM (#295065)

    How much funding is the foundation getting from Microsoft? I don't see the figure mentioned in Jim Zemlin's blog post.

    In 2013 they took in around $22 million [foundationcenter.org]. A few hundred million dollars from Microsoft would let the foundation branch out, confidently, in a new direction.