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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).
Why is this organization even relevant? Which persons involved with the Linux kernel asked for such a foundation, and what was their justification for it?
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
they're ruled by Republicans, and Republicans hate open source. Hate open source.
Wait, so the Linux foundation is now entirely corporate dominated?
How the hell is that even possible?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Unless Linus is on the board of an Linux related organization it is irrelevant to me. All hail Linus!
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).
Obviously this happened because Karen is a woman.
I really hate to say this as a long time Linux user and open source contributor, but everything about Linux is becoming a real shitshow these days.
This Linux Foundation debacle isn't even an overly important one. But it is just one of many such incidents to hit Linux lately.
The first shitshow issue is the GPLv3. The GPLv2 was restrictive enough, but the GPLv3 takes it from being somewhat workable in practice to being totally untenable. The GPLv3 has made a mockery of the GPL family of licenses. It has gotten so bad that developers are now preferring the MIT and BSD licenses.
The second shitshow issue is systemd. Whether you like it or hate it, the way that it has been forced on so many Linux users should disappoint you. Linux used to be about choice; now it's about using the software the distro maintainers tell you to use, and fuck you if you don't like it. With all of the major Linux distros forcing systemd on their users, the only options for not using it is a legacy distro like Slackware, an impractical distro like Gentoo, or by rolling your own distro (which totally defeats the purpose of using a distro in the first place).
The third shitshow issue is GNOME 3. GNOME 2 was the premiere Linux desktop environment, it worked well, and it was widely liked. GNOME 3 has been the complete opposite. Its touch-oriented misdesign renders it nearly unusable on desktops, and people in general hate it with a passion. The way users have been treated like shit is unbelievable.
The fourth shitshow issue is Wayland. We keep hearing about how it will soon replace X, but we've been hearing that since like 2009 and nothing ever materializes.
The fifth shitshow issue is Firefox. The destruction of its UI and user experience by Mozilla has rendered it unusable. Now many former Firefox users are forced to use Chrome. At least users on Windows can use IE or Edge, or users on OS X can use Safari. On Linux, the only practical choices are Firefox and Chrome. A lot of Linux users who don't want to use Chrome are left with no choice but to use it, thanks to how awful Firefox has gotten.
When I look at the current state of affairs within the Linux ecosystem, I don't know what to do. I need to buy a new computer soon. I know if I go with Linux, I'll be subjected to a lot of bullshit thanks to all of these shitshows, and I'll get an awful user experience. So as much as I don't want to use Windows 10 or OS X, they're starting to look like damn good options. At least I'll get a reasonable user experience out of them, which is something I won't get from Linux. Or maybe I should just do what so many others have done, and move to FreeBSD.
oh look, there's proud SJW and perpetual FOSS shitstirrer Mathew Garet making unsubstantiated charges of a conspiracy against a Linux trade organization. All because a parasitical lawyer who's attached herself to OSS organizations to promote her radical feminist agenda (and not free software) won't get to join the trade organization's board of directors (LF is not a charity) so that she try an influence them to donate to a organization whose function now is to sue the members of the industry which is responsible for the spread of Linux globally. Not a single line of worthwhile source code has been released as a result of GPL enforcement lawsuits, but they have generated legal fees, which is what this is pretty much about and her exorbitant salary. Hey Intel, HP, Red Hat, CoreOS, etc., when are you going to purge these enablers who only contribute nothing but toxicity and discord amongst the community?
PS.Since MG likes conspiracy theories maybe he should ask about the curious circumstances surrounding the Gnome Foundation's delayed releasing the its financials statement only after Karen secured her position on SFC. I'm sure the board members would have like to asked a few questions during her interview if they had known about the apparent mismanagement of funds that almost entirely went to supporting Karen's pet project, the OPW.
....you know it... it is coming !!!
You mean they are more than a mirror to leech distros & packages from? If you don't like it; don't give them props, money, visit their website, talk about them, etc. Let them lather up with piles of corporate goodness."Ahhhhh yeah a little more corporate goodness on my left cheek... yeaahhhh, like that...more!!! more!!!... yeah!!!!" (I'm talking about 100 bills for "consulting fees" ya'll... not sure where your minds are.)
to be such a sad, pathetic excuse of a human being that all you can ever do is degrade a good percentage of the world population in an impotent attempt at pretending that there is someone in the world that you are better than.
I am genuinely confused about who you are talking to the commenter or the person being commented on? Are you trolling like this deliberately? If so, bravo.
I didn't quit, I just studied the whole kernel in a few weeks (150 IQ). A common programmer (120 to 130) would take an entire year. I got mad, and that's course clear, You all know that. Don't make me come back to that dark place again folks, I'm now a florist just seeking for a good place to rest my bones...
For those of you who don't know who that may be:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It's bad enough that you feel the need to mention that Ensign Nemo is a new submitter, but you even had to include a link to that user's Slashdot profile?
The first of two links in the summary... Seriously.
You'd think there would be some kind of historic parallel as to why having everyones actions dictated by a single German is a bad idea.
It's not that I have any sympathies for commercial exploitation of free open source software, but any foundation is well advised to keep Karen Sandler away from it.
GPL enforcement is crucial across the board and has resulted in plenty of worthwhile code being released. OpenWRT and related firmware are great stuff that is widely used, but as I recall Linksys did not release any code until after they were threatened. These days most companies don't waste time and money fighting it, precisely because they know that it will be fought and they know they will lose.
For that reason, companies often preemptively go in the other direction and try to embrace the FOSS goodwill. Do you think Google would have dared risked shareholder lawsuits with AOSP if no one had ever bothered suing anyone for GPL violations? Do you think it's merely a staggering coincidence that Apple has made no serious effort to open source their BSD-based operating systems? (Their contributions to Darwin definitely fall under "not very serious" category.)
It's either very stupid or very disingenuous to imply that the GPL and GPL enforcement has had nothing to do with Linux's success.
(Donated money being spent on gender-specific outreach programs is another matter entirely, of course.)
"Did the Linux Foundation just drop all semblance of community representation because it's afraid of GPL enforcement? ref ref
It's the same everywhere.
Also happens in FreeBSD-land: company coughs-up code that solves a problem that is relevant to other users (includes companies that turn "FreeBSD" into a part of their product) - code get's into the source-tree (which review, of course)
I wouldn't even say that's a bad thing. After all, that's how we ended-up with ultra-stable releases recently:
Netflix doesn't want their delivery/cache boxes to crash.
Customers pay top-dollar to EMC so that their Isilon-devices are stable
etc.pp. You just have to put things into perspective.
OSS isn't a hippie love-fest anymore. Hasn't been for a while.
Best thing is to get over it quickly and move on.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
If you don't like Linux Foundation policies, communication style of Linus himself or design of systemd, you are always free to fork the project and get full benefits of work so far as well as ability to merge any future patches that you like into your own source tree. Either your fork gathers enough following to maintain it, or the original project makes changes to address the problems that triggered it - either way you win.
The fact that this has not happened with Linux tells me that current situation is acceptable to a large majority of developers and users compared to inconvenience of manually merging patches. The rest should keep trying and perhaps one day they will create a project that exceeds original Linux, just like Linux eclipsed Minix. Personally, I would love to see an OS with versioned source/binary driver interface, where backward compatibility for existing binary drivers is maintained for many years. BUT, I am too lazy to actually contribute much development time, so I have to make do with what is out there.
Nothing in openrc is c-code, nor does it use cgroups in any way. What are you smoking?
From their goddamn github page:
C 82.9% Makefile 8.7% Shell 8.0% Other 0.4%
Cgroup support is optional, as the GP stated.
Fucking clueless AC.
Good move i'd say not being a member. But; :)
for the individual Kernel hacker making their own way, how does this help?
I'll tell that without individual phantom kernel dev(?)s to read bugs and throw their uninformed 2cents in.... It can get pretty quiet
You can still code kernel and apps but I'm sure it will be a group effort of many, many different backgrounds.
Kind of the point of corporate members in the first place, who beat the trolls to the finish line.