This is your regularly scheduled reminder that the Linux Foundation is not an open source or free software organization. It does not exist to promote knowledge or a public good. It is a trade organization which exists to support the businesses that are a part of it.
the Linux Foundation is not an open source or free software organization. It does not exist to promote knowledge or a public good.
This part is wrong. LF provides funding for hosting and development of a bunch of open source projects that otherwise might not exist but for the good graces of one particular company, or at all. The LF directly employs many of the top kernel maintainers including Linus himself. The LF hosts multiple Linux-related conferences. I could go on.
Whatever gripes you have with them (which may be valid), it’s hard to see that as anything but promoting open and free software.
To be clear, I’m not saying that it doesn’t promote open and free software, as a side effect. I’m just saying that by law, that’s not its purpose. (And anecdotally, I recall someone well-known in the free software community describing to me how the Linux Foundation denied him… entrance to a conference? Something like that? This was ~a decade ago so I can’t remember the details, but it wasn’t that trivial and made it obvious what their structural priorities are.)
It might be in preparation of demands by regulators to move Chrome out of Google. All those “Chromium-Based Browsers” are toast if that happens without a contingency plan.
This is your regularly scheduled reminder that the Linux Foundation is not an open source or free software organization. It does not exist to promote knowledge or a public good. It is a trade organization which exists to support the businesses that are a part of it.
This part is right.
This part is wrong. LF provides funding for hosting and development of a bunch of open source projects that otherwise might not exist but for the good graces of one particular company, or at all. The LF directly employs many of the top kernel maintainers including Linus himself. The LF hosts multiple Linux-related conferences. I could go on.
Whatever gripes you have with them (which may be valid), it’s hard to see that as anything but promoting open and free software.
To be clear, I’m not saying that it doesn’t promote open and free software, as a side effect. I’m just saying that by law, that’s not its purpose. (And anecdotally, I recall someone well-known in the free software community describing to me how the Linux Foundation denied him… entrance to a conference? Something like that? This was ~a decade ago so I can’t remember the details, but it wasn’t that trivial and made it obvious what their structural priorities are.)
Ah good more monopolistic behavior from the market leader
It might be in preparation of demands by regulators to move Chrome out of Google. All those “Chromium-Based Browsers” are toast if that happens without a contingency plan.
Oh, good. A fund where people can pay to openwash Google’s advertising monopoly platform.
could be merged with https://lobste.rs/s/gpoygp/google_linux_foundation_launch
Poor Firefox. Yet another corporate push for a chrome only web experience.
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As a Chromium developer I’m excited about this, I think it could improve a lot with the project.
Interesting, can you expand?