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Questioning the Linux Foundation's Credentials
nadamsieee writes "Neil McAllister has posted a provocative article titled Questioning the Linux Foundation's credentials. He questions the motivations behind the newly formed organization. Quoting: 'But wouldn't it make more sense to call the merged organization the Open Source and Standards Lab, or the Free Software and Standards Group? Why did they have to go and call it the Linux Foundation?' McAllister then goes on to explain why he believes that 'the Linux Foundation isn't any kind of philanthropic foundation at all[,] it's an industry trade organization.'"
Why did they have to go and call it the Linux Foundation?
Because if they called it the BSD Foundation, all you'd ever hear is about how it's dying.
Wizard Needs Food, Badly
its a nonprofit consortium
"Stallman says add to this code and you are one of us. Gates says use this code and you belong to us."
It's natural for the union between them to be called "the linux something".
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
um...it is spelled "organization" in America, Mr. PMJ2kx.
Sure its an industry trade organization. What's wrong with that? After all, we also have the BSA, the RIAA, and a plethora of standards bodies and "think tanks", "focus groups", ad nauseum and et cetera.
So, what's the issue?
C|N>K
What do credentials have to do with anything? If running some nerdy blog for a couple years is enough for people to call CmdrTaco a "journalist" then I'm sure the Linux Foundation's credentials are just fine.
Hello America!
That's the British English spelling used by most (if not, all) countries in the British Commonwealth - in this case, the article is from New Zealand so spelling is correct.
We generally use -ise instead of -ize.
"Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day!" - Alfred E. Neuman
And yet it is etymologically correct, as verbs in -ize come from Greek -izein.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Replacing the letter 's' with 'z' is a North American corruption.
No, they got this one right. "Organisation" is a British corruption which never caught on in America -- you'll also find the correct spelling ("organization") used in Oxford and other fora which use Oxford spelling (e.g., Nature, WHO, UNESCO, ISO, ITU).
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Who is Neil McAllister and why does his opinion about the Linux Foundation matter?
I'm not saying he has no point. I just don't know how seriously to take his points. A lot of it sounds axe-grindy so there must be history here.
Linux is Finnish
Engineering is the art of compromise.
yeah, that was really too easy, but matches the generally sophomoric content of TFA.
What difference does the label make? Judge the tree by the fruit.
"McAllister then goes on to explain why he believes that 'the Linux Foundation isn't any kind of philanthropic foundation at all"
Big deal. It never claimed to be any kind of "philanthropic foundation." What next - "Microsoft Windows isn't free software" or "The **AA doesn't promote file sharing"? Or "Bush doesn't eat kittens for breakfast"?
So, how again is this news?
"The Foundation has looked forward to this day with steadfast solidarity. It is a war that the Opposition cannot win. Glory to the Good! May the fields of battle run red with the blood of our suppressors. Aqa'k Barr Ma'lik!"
Shouldn't it be called the GNU/Linux group? Let's get out terminology right people!
Anonymity of the internet is responsible for the views expressed in my post.
The receptionists were having an awful time with "Joint Free and Open Technology Alliance against the Microsoft Monopolistic Monoculture Menace", and the business cards didn't look too sharp either.
You can talk, you can talk, you're brave now motherfucker. Throw his ass out. He's a brit! He's a brit! He's a brit! A brit, look, there's a brit!
> Fundamentalism is generally a bad idea.
Fundamentalism AND Atheism BOTH have their problems (and strengths.) The problem is not in debating which side to choose, but knowing how to utilize strengths to overcome the weaknesses of the other.
> a sincere search for truth must include at least some respect for other's ideas.
Try telling that to the "established" "institutions" !
Maybe Science will one day respect Religion because Science will realize that Religion has answers to the "Why" questions Science cant answer, but since one is Logical and the Emotional, I'm not counting either side working out their differences anytime soon.
I think the hippy stench and long unwashed beards would drive people away well before they could hand over any fancy looking business card...
Wow. You're the first person to reply to my sig without being a complete ass. A vast majority respond with, well, very harsh words, to say the least. Thanks. Anyway, I mostly agree with you, intolerant religion has been used to justify a lot of nasty things, but (my beliefs, here) fundamentalist Christianity should be tolerant and respectful of others and their beliefs, for example, when referring to Islam, using the term The Prohpet Mohammad, not something disrespectful, like 'that jerk with the turban.' As for seeking truth, yes, I do, though what I have found may be different than yours, it is the conclusion that I have reached. Example, the overly hot topic of evolution: I do not believe macro-evolution, that is to say, that species developed from a single cell, I find it too complex to have been left to random chance, but I'd have to be an idiot not to acknowledge micro-evolution, like traits being passes down from parent to offspring for the benefit of the offspring. Anyone with a culture of bacteria can see that happen. I also reach that conclusion when looking at fundamental physics. Keep in mind that there is a difference between a real and a self titled fundamentalist, just look at Jack 'I'm better than you' Thompson, defiantly the latter of the two. Please understand the genuine article is different from those who need an excuse to justify hatred. The reason I have that sig is because, on /., there's a lot of animosity directed toward my beliefs (it's uninformed bashing is trendy here), but I don't think that many realize that all religions and atheists have done bad things (in this case the eugenics movement) and that that should not reflect upon individual members. Anyway, it's amazing how big of a stir it can cause, expecially among 'free thinking' Slashdotters. Anyway, explanation in a nutshell.
Don't worry. We have dispatched 2 Jedi Knights to negotiate.
Don't you mean arse?
This was modded troll? Wtf, mate? Methinks the modder did not read the post he was responding to...
An American corruption please. Here in Canada we follow the Queen's English. Well, for the most part at least.
I come from one of the so-called "Commonwealth" countries.
What I had been taught there is that both "-ize" and "-ise" are valid in the so-called "Commonwealth" English, and that the exclusive use of "-ize" is the American English way.
Interestingly, "-ize" is given preference in so-called "Commonwealth" editions of Dictionaries (like the Oxford, which is a popular one), with the "-ise" form given as a valid variant. It must be noted that foreign variants are marked as such, e.g., "color" will be given as a "US English" variant of "colour".
"An American corruption please. Here in Canada we follow the Queen's English. Well, for the most part at least."
Sure ya do, ay.
Also, a sincere search for truth must include at least some respect for other's ideas.
[irony] Oh, blow it out your ass, Harold. [/irony]
{this post subtitled for the humor impaired}I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Replacing the letter 's' with 'z' is a North American corruption.
Ah, that's why "Whazzup my homiez?" doesn't sound British...
The problem with your signature isn't that you decry fundamentalism wrong. The problem with your signature is that you rather unfairly associate Atheism with the actions of one very maladjusted individual -- oh to hell with it, we'll just speak his name: You equate Atheism with Hitler. That's the problem with your signature. Atheism has nothing to do with eugenics. Hitler didn't target the religious, instead, he, being a deeply maladjusted individual (to put it lightly) targeted several groups that he felt were not fit enough for a 'clean' or 'pure' Germany. Please, just change that part of your signature. Don't equate Atheism with Hitler. Fundamentalism, or more correctly, the idea that people who disagree with your fundamental beliefs should not deserve to live, is wrong. But eugenics has nothing to do with it. Thank you.
- it's eh?, not ay.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some idea balls to remove from a manatee tank.
When the European Commission want to consult the industry about something, they usually try to find a diverse cross sample. So they'll talk to BSA, some union, some Linux representative, etc. One possible choice for the "Linux representative" would be FSFE. FSFE would say "software patents are incompatible with the goals of the community we support". Another choice for the "Linux representative" now will be Linux Foundation (which is IBM and friends by a new name), and they'll say "software patents are grand, there are a few glitches that let unenforceable patents through, but we'll harness the community to fix these problems for us and everything will be fine". So the European Commission will publish a dreadful recommendation and will say "we even consulted the Linux free software crowd".
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
I did mean fundementalist atheism, as well as other forms...
Wikileaks, no DNS
Er, no we don't. If you read some Austen you see that people commonly used -ize before our generation - it's been bastardized by commoners since then.
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
As this topic tend not to go very far, I'll point you to an interesting post on the topic, on the assumption that your difficulty to imagine the mechanisms for complexity is in good faith.
I consider myself a pantheist, though, so I am inclined to see evolution as a manifestation of, and a mechanism of the intelligence of the universe, much as the mind emerges from the brain.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Ugh, it's probably the same moron and troll who posted it like that before.
Still dodges the fact that it's wrong. :(
it's -ize. Oxford agrees!
I think we may be confused here. Fundamentalism, as a historical movement, was very isolationist, focusing on a "literal" reading of the Bible and was a reaction to the then developing concept we now call "evolution." It was as much of a political movement (think William Jennings Bryant, the Scopes/ Dayton trial, etc) as it was a theological/religious one (think premillenialism, William Jennings Bryant [again], the end of the Old Guard at Princeton, etc). But that movement practically died out by the 1930s in America (and even earlier everywhere else). Now, we have a nice movement some (e.g. Olivier Roy, Mark Juergensmeyer, etc) would consider neofundamentalism and is a more general concept that crosses religious boundaries (so we can see the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Moral Majority in America, as well as retroactively, Wahabbi, etc) . In that case, however, it's not about being "tolerant" to others because, from this mindset, those others are wrong and there can be no other conclusion if one "objectively" (or the other catch-phrase is "scientifically") look at the "facts." Pay no attention if the "facts" change (as they do) because the "facts" are already pre-determined by the this breed of fundamentalism's beliefs. And this is where it is most bothersome because religious faith should never be about "scientific" (i.e. observed phenomena) as it almost always posit a metaphysical reality (gods, heavens, life-after-death, rebirth, etc) that lies beyond the reaches of what can be observed and quantified using empirical methods. As Kierkegaard wrote, an approximation of history is insufficient for one's eternal happiness (it.s in the beginning of his Concluding Unscientific Postscript...vol 12.1 of the Princeton edition Hong and Hong translation).
Micro$oft isn't a for-profit organization?
The DOJ hasn't convicted Micro$oft of any wrong-doing?
Oh, wait, this must be the wrong place to post this!
Just exactly where the hell does Neil McAllister come from? Only one bet - Micro$soft funded this fanboy! Only Micro$oft would have any interest in declaring "it's an industry trade organization."
As an athiest, the part that I find insulting is the thought that Eugenics were carried out because the people were athiests. It's not, and they weren't. Eugenics and genocide weren't carried out in the name of athiesm. Rather, the genocides your sig brushes upon were committed because the people involved were amoral selfish bastards. But nowhwere did Hitler, for example, say "my non-god told me to do this." Nor did Saddam Hussein gas the kurds to prove his nongodlyness. But we did go to war in Iraq because God told Bush to (his words). In one case, the person was a fundamental nationalist. In the other, he was fundamentally self-centered. (The third, history will decide.) But in neither of the cases was their belief in god or not a factor in the behavior.
Athiesm isn't a philosophy, and it certainly isn't a neitzschean philosophy of evolutionary eugenics. All that stuff is other things one can believe, but has no relationship to whether or not someone believes in god. It's like saying that someone doesn't believe that a pure democratic society is the best form of government, therefore they must be a socialist.
Really, the problem is fundamentalism in any form. Sure, fundamentalism gives you the strength to wake up again in the morning and fight, but it also can make you blind to the humanity of those you define as "the other." Fundamentalism isn't about the conclusions you reach, but about how you percieve the world around you. You don't strike me as a fundamentalist, simply because you've put some degree of rational thought into your opinions and you seem like you'd be swayed by compelling arguments. A real fundamentalist would continue to believe in the face of counter evidence, and generally gets violent about it.
And yes, I've come across fundamentalist Atheists. It's not a pretty sight, but at least it's rare.
Oh, and if you think you're oppressed as a christian on a largely open-source web board, try explaining to every other person you meet that being an atheist doesn't mean being amoral, but rather that your morality structure is based on the less grounded concepts of intrinsic human morality patterns and your personal idealized behavior schema. It's like a regularly scheduled forced hour of navel-gazing.
The ______ Agenda
> that Religion has answers to the "Why" questions Science cant answer
Really?
I think those answers are as valid as the FSM.
The term "King's English" or "Queen's English" is a synonym for the Received Pronunciation. It has nothing to do with orthography.
In short that's probably not the comparison the OP was meaning to make. His point was more likely that excess in any thing usually ends with bad decisions being made.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
``What difference does the label make? Judge the tree by the fruit.''
I disagree. The name you give to something is important. If you call it "The Linux $foo" and it's not about Linux, it's a bad name. The badness varies from suboptimal (they could have done better, but the name isn't outright wrong) to deceptive (they chose the name to boost visibility or misrepresent their cause). I don't know, or really care, to what extent this applies to the Linux Foundation, but naming is important.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Tell that to Ali G.
So what if it is a commercial organization? Unless it's totally misrepresenting itself, I don't see the problem. People have to make money somehow, and as Linux is booming in popularity, there are more and more opportunities to use Linux to make money that people are jumping on. There's nothing wrong with that, it's capitalism, simple economics. I think it will cause some controversy for a while as the whole "Free Software" and "Big Business" ideals collide, but in the end, I think it will be good for Linux. It will put smart, powerful people in a position with a vested interest in improving Linux, like Intel and their Open Source GMA drivers or whatever. It's actually profitable for them to hire programmers to write this code and release it for free, if it wasn't, they wouldn't do it. I have a feeling that this may actually be the beginning of the second computer industry boom, a la Y2K, where they couldn't hire enough talented programmers. Am I way off or does anyone else see this?
..."Embrace & Extend" upon what originally is a grass-roots movement.
Copyleft was a nice spin on instruments of darkness but it only goes so far. No fortress can hold if there isn't enough defenders standing on its walls.
Socialist Utopists, rich philanthropists of the 19th century tried to pull something similar upon industrial capitalism but all the efforts died out after a while - either because of lack of motivation in highly competitive environment or because of benefactors caching out. Being saved from ruthless exploitation by others had appeal while memories were fresh, but soon enough your eyes turn up to those of higher stature and you long to become a "gentleman" and live a life of leisure. This is similar process - once the fun, idealistic project gets some steam and worldwide recognition, there will be people thinking about selling it out, making new friends, rubbing elbows with jet set "where we belong for our achievements". After all, "what did freedom and all those leechy freeloading users ever do for us".
This is the future of FSF and GNU, too. In their striving to make GNU software strong and easily defended, they concentrate power in a single point of failure. One day, some time after RMS's and Eben Moglen's lives expire, a small group of self-proclaimed holders and guardians will think with their stomachs and turn everything into proprietary IP, perhaps not at once, perhaps "not by their will" but finally they will go along the same path as Linux crowd is taking now.
So, what are we left with? Back to origins... write your own software... tweak, share with your friends
Corruption is an overly harsh term, it's a development, technically. In most English speaking countries the letters Z/S and their sounds /s/ and /z/ are now pretty much interchangable (ie they are Allophones), so using z vs s really doesn't matter, except to remove what some people thought of as a 'useless' letter.
There are a few other British spelling developments, like "dreamt" instead of "dreamed" (this possibly even just a different direction with another interchangable sound), and a few American spelling simplifications, like "color" vs "colour".
As a linguistics student, I know that the spelling makes absolutely no difference, since it's all completely wrong for modern pronunciation anyway (English spelling has "fosilised"), but as a Briton I seeing "color" or "realize" just makes me shudder. It's scary.
Joseph Farthing
http://josephfarthing.com
As far as I'm concerned Atheism doesn't need to be chosen as it's the natural state of human beings. Religion and Science are both learnt disciplines. They both come from that same human need to explanations for things, it's just religion is an earlier expression of those things we didn't quite understand. Like all the religions based around Sun worship for instance.
Now the philosophy of Atheism is definitely a taught thing, but from experience I'd say children are not born with any awareness of god. Or 3.5 year old son certainly has no conception of religious belief, loves stories and has a well developed sense of right and wrong for his age.
Maybe Science will one day respect Religion because Science will realize that Religion has answers to the "Why"
Are you not confusing philosophy and religion? Religion seems quite poor at a lot of the "Why" questions, frequently falling back on the "god's plan" argument when they don't know that answer. Instead of just saying "we don't know".
A foundation is a very specific entity, with very specific rules and purposes to be adhered to. Yes, they could have chosen to be a simple consortium and named themselves something different like "Linux Labs" or what not, but by being a foundation, they're basically pledging that they will never stray from what they're setting out to do, that they will donate 5% of their assets towards their "cause" on a yearly basis, that individuals and corporations can make tax-deductible gifts to them. It's a lot of extra work to be a foundation rather than a 501c3 organization, but foundations are much more rigid an transparent in how they must operate, which in essence serves as a guarantor that donations made to it will be used for the purpose that they were given.
May we also similarly cite the Linux/uClib/Busybox combination which is a very common combination for embed hardware (routers, modems, webcams, etc...) because bus box is much smaller than the corresponding GNU core utils ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Doesn't Linus have a trademark on "Linux"? Shouldn't he enforce it in this case?
Every time I hear "The Linux Foundation" my brain replaces it with "The Human Fund". Stupid brain.
Agnosticism is the natural state of human beings. There is a huge difference between the two.
Of course, natural isn't necessarily "correct" either. Without getting into a debate about global warming (hopefully) one should note that the planet has naturally gone through ice ages and warm periods which are not really good for humans. So even if we aren't contributing to global warming it still makes sense to try to control the climate.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't know what you guys are discussing or how it is anywhere near on topic(so I am anonymous), but animism/animatism is the natural 'state'(as in belief) of human beings. You have to build concepts and learn about things before understanding that the things around you aren't out to get you or are lucky/like you. No matter how logical we paint ourselves and our beliefs, we are not as such in the natural 'state'.
"foundation" is a perfect label seeing as how many users view Linux as a religion.
What I'm saying is that you are born without conceptions of how things behave because you have not experienced them. Animism can come next. When you're born, you don't know anything; agnosticism is your entire existence. Then you form opinions...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That was actually informative.
somebody who wants to call Linux "GNU/Linux"? (And, yes, some of these clowns have decided to call Solaris "GNU/Solaris" now that Sun wants to use GPLv3. Idiots.)
Who cares?
Call the organization the Lizardian Group for all I care.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
While TFA did not make the point very well, the author may have a point. To call it the linux foundation
instead of the "something linux something foundation" creates a lot of expectations that are not likely
to be met.
When someone casually encounters the name, what expectations might they reasonably have:
- That the organization is the producer of linux. The Apache Software Foundation produces
apache, for example.
- That the organization speaks for the linux community. A pay-to-play board composed of
representatives of various huge corporations can not credibly do that.
- That it owns the trademark "Linux"
- That it is they trustee of Linux intellectual property.
- That Linus Torvalds is at least a board member. There is some very ambiguous language which
suggests they may sponsor him.
- that the board includes representatives of the major distributions.
- that it speaks for or at least balances the interest the linux creators, linux users, linux
distributions, and the other open source
software that is included in linux distributions, to the extent that that is possible.
- that it promotes linux
- that it contributes to linux.
By choosing the name "Linux Foundation", they imply a far more intimate association with the linux
community than appears to actually exist. Of the reasonable expectations listed, only the last
two seem to apply.
Yeah, seats on the board is a good way to raise capitol. But this appears to be a "Computer Industry Consortium for the Advancement of Linux". Which could be a good thing, if that was what it was called.
Even "Foundation for Linux" would be a better name.
Someone pointed out that patents could be an issue where a corporate board could diverge significantly from the community at large.
The Free Software Foundation is another deceptively named organization. It absolutely does not represent
the free software community. Instead it represents the viral license fanatics who produce software that is less free than the permissive license and public domain communities and advocate that developers use the less free viral licenses for their software.
...the Awesome Foundation. Much better PR. "Do you want to use proprietary software or awesome software?"
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)