Voice of the Masses: Should the Linux Foundation have community representation?
According to their own website: “The Linux Foundation protects and promotes the ideals of freedom and generous collaboration established through the development of Linux, and shares these ideals to power any endeavor aiming to make the future a better place in which to live.” This is indeed a noble goal, and to assist it in this endeavor, many of the world’s largest technology companies pay tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars. All this money is first stored in a Scrooge McDuck style silo before being used to pay the salaries of some kernel developers, passed on to projects improving security in open source, and used to promote Linux in a wide variety of ways.
All is not quite as rosy as it all seems. The Linux Foundation quietly changed its bylaws to prevent individual members to elect any board members. Now the entire board of the foundation is elected by corporate members with the majority of board members coming from the Platinum supporters (organizations paying over half a million dollars per year). Kernel hacker and self-proclamed Social Justice Warrior Mathew Garret noted that the change to the bylaws happened shortly after Karen Sandler announced that she planned to stand as a board memeber. Karen is also currently working with the Free Software Conservancy, an organization that is supporting a lawsuit by a kernel developer claiming that VMware is breaching the GPL on his code. VMWare just happens to be a member of the Linux Foundation. Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation claims that Karen is a lovely person and that the timing of the change is purely coincidental.
This organisation that claims to “protects and promotes the ideals of freedom and generous collaboration established through the development of Linux” is starting to appear more like a trade association designed to protect the interests of its members rather than any ideals. This shouldn’t be surprising given that the Linux Foundation, despite it’s lofty words, is in fact a 501(c)(6) trade association. This is the designation means that it’s a legal entity that should support the business of it’s members, not a charity helping to make the world a better place.
Thanks for reading this far! We’ll now get the the brunt of this fortnight’s voice of the masses: Should the Linux Foundation have some community representation?
Does it seem wrong that it’s hugely influential in the world of Linux yet regular Linux users can’t influence it’s internal direction in any way?
Or does it seem right that it raises huge amounts of money and pays for people to make awesome open source software? The board of directors don’t influence the kernel programmers anyway, they just meet on tropical islands, drink champagne out of coconuts and discuss how many ivory back scratchers to buy. As long as the money keeps rolling in, then should we be happy with the situation?
As always, let us know your comments below and we’ll read them out on our upcoming podcast.
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About The Author
Ben Everard
Ben Everard is the co-author of Learning Python with the Raspberry Pi and hacks hardware projects held together with a big dollop of Linux and Free Software glue. He's @ben_everard on Twitter.
a linux organisation that doesn’t have representation from non profits/users/developers is never going to represent the best interests of the linux community
Is it me, or am I the only one to think that the Linux Foundation’s tounge is forked more than the OS that they profess to ‘protect and promote’?
Reading through Karen Sandler’s proclamation, Jim Zemlin’s blog post commenting on the brouhaha and Steven J. Vaughan Nichols’ summary (in addition to Ben’s) I’m left with… having done a lot of reading. Also the feeling that at the very least the Linux Foundation is at being less than open about what is going on. To quote Vaughan-Nichols:
“I fully applaud Zemlin’s stance against trolling, but it strikes me that Garrett and Zemlin are talking at cross purposes. The immediate question is: “Is Sandler still eligible to run for the board?” I’ve asked the Foundation and I haven’t gotten an answer yet.”
If they only want corporate interests represented, they should come out and say so. If they still want to claim to protect software freedom they should should provide examples to counterweigh the VMWare case. At the moment all we seem to be getting is silence and spin.
Does it really care about the community, it’s funding comes from the companies it represents. It promotes linux only for these to increase their profits by increased usage of their linux based products. A necessary evil for the linux ecosystem, even if we don’t like it.
They can do whatever they want and no one can stop them, but I won’t stick to Linux if something usable and more community orientated comes around – for me the freedom and grass root community is more important than loyalty to a project that I can’t influence.
I’m just a non-contributing user, so I don’t really matter, but how many others share my sentiment? How many of those are important to the kernel development? If the LF shunts and shuns the community, the community will repay in kind. Ultimately, Linux would lose out.
It took 25 years for Linux to get where it is. Myopic business interests can send it on the track of a “product” – a shareholder pocket grease with little engineering merit and the excitement factor of a tax return. That this would also diminish the investment of all precious-metal-named sponsors is a fact beyond the scope of the 1,048,576 lines of a spreadsheet and therefore inaccessible during a board meeting.
It doesn’t have to be this way – we can all play together, in fact even-field cooperation between all interested parties is the optimal solution for any problem.
If the LF has the best interest of Linux in mind, it will let the community become just as much part of it as the corporate sponsors are. It means embracing all of us and resolving conflicts (like FSC vs VMWare) objectively and fairly.
If that doesn’t happen, the community will fork Linux, or maybe create a BSD with a decent license or maybe join the development of the Hurd.
Ignore that at your peril, Linux Foundation.
I think that removing community representation is a wise and proactive move in today’s social climate.
I applaud the decision.
The kernel is so important it needs to be invisible. Representation of a critical core system should be meritrocratic, not democratic. Governing by consensus yields more streams of conflict detracting form the real purpose. Sure the community facing parts (the desktop environment, the applications etc) should be able to reflect the community aspirations and prejudices; but the system that must work must be free to do so. There lies the difference between the civil service and politicians.
On one hand, we’ve seen software availability and hardware compatibility rise steadily in the past few years to the degree that new installations of distros provide a very smooth experience with very few problems with drivers etc not being available. This experience has ensured software works more competently and users are less reliant on proprietary solutions. All this, because of the investment (aka sponsorship) by big organizations into kernel development, aided no doubt, by the Linux Foundation.
On the other hand, individuals, developers and free software communities have lobbied long and hard for Linux to be recognised as an important alternative to commercial offerings, and so the community’s contribution must now be recognised in a reciprocal way.
Perhaps complacency has left us in this situation – we now have the operating system of our dreams (nearly) – but it doesn’t mean we should now stand by and watch our hard work unravel. We must continue to promote Linux and free software or the long slog getting to this point will have been pointless. To quote Tron in Tron: Legacy “I support the users!”
Linux is a project made on its community, so without community represention its not going to help it be any better, but I could understand why if its to do with the people moaning about Linus not doing thing like security and being not picky
*nit picky
I worry that LF can provide a convenient product (on the work of the whole community) and dominate the new comers market because they can afford advertising etc. and then slip in malware or closed-souced add-ons
look at whats happened to cyanogenmod it comes with Google apps preinstalled now! no choice and no warning. There whole ethos WAS freedom and empowerment to the user, now I have to use a custom ROM (freecyngn) to remove the unwanted spyware but lots of users must have just put up with it
And, what a surprise, money talks. Again. As much as I hate to see corporations taking control (“the board of directors don’t influence the kernel programmers anyway”… Yeah, and bears don’t sh!t in the woods.), I have to admit this whole LF thing was a smart move. They couldn’t buy linux (no one can), so they bought many (if not all) key people. Thus they got control, so at the end of the day, they did buy linux (in a way).
And to think I just got certified by them at the end of last year…. I think I sorta “sold my soul (well, my certification) to the devil”.
In the FSF we trust!