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Linux Foundation Quietly Drops Community Representation (dreamwidth.org)
The Linux Foundation, though it's straightforwardly not a grassroots organization along the lines of the FSF or EFF, has long had a degree of non-corporate involvement by way of community-elected members on its board. Now, writes new submitter Ensign Nemo, that's no longer true. An excerpt from Matthew Garrett's blog on the change:
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. 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).
These changes all happened shortly after Karen Sandler announced that she planned to stand for the Linux Foundation board during a presentation last September. 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).
Who did this, under what authority? Rather critical information is missing.
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
Unless Linus is on the board of an Linux related organization it is irrelevant to me. All hail Linus!
Those of us whom you've wrongly labeled as "astroturfers" actually tend to be long time users of Linux, both personally and professionally.
Many of us are responsible for managing thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Linux servers or VM instances.
We've also made many critical contributions to open source software.
If you're using any open source software right now, directly or indirectly, you're probably using code written by us.
We're merely venting our frustration as we watch Linux, both the software and the community, fall into disgrace.
Linux and open source software used to be about doing things better than proprietary software.
It used to be about building a solid community where we'd help each other out.
Now the quality of the software has become shitty, and tainted with shitty licenses like the GPLv3.
Now the community has become rotten, having been infiltrated by non-technical folks masquerading as though they can contribute something of value, when they clearly cannot.
Open source software used to be about writing and sharing damn good code. Now it's about social justice, combating various perceived -isms, and everything but writing and sharing good software!
Besides, what the fuck kind of company would pay people to disparage Linux on Slashdot of all places?! This is a dying site, where it's a miracle when a submission gets over just 100 comments! The fall of this site parallels the degradation of Linux and its community.
But if we long time Linux users can get paid for merely expressing our frustration here, let us know how!
You can provide us with the contact details of the people to get in touch with at these "non-Linux companies" you speak of, right?
You weren't just making false allegations, were you? Nah, you couldn't have been. So provide us with the contact details, so we can get paid for expressing our frustration.