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.'"

because

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.

well technically....

its a nonprofit consortium

Wrong way round!

The author says:

What do you get if you cross an open source development consortium with an organisation that promotes free standards? Answer: You get a Linux advocacy group. Or so it seems.

ODSL & FSG were misnamed - ODSL employees worked on linux and the FSG worked on the linux standard base.

It's natural for the union between them to be called "the linux something".

Sure it is.

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?

Re:Sure it is.

You talk about it in the same breath as the BSA and RIAA, and then still wonder what the issue is?!

The issue is that an "industry trade organization" is interested in profit, and might be motivated to corrupt the ideals behind Linux (and Free Software in general). That might be well-and-good from their perspective, but it wouldn't be good from the community's perspective. Therefore, people in the community could have cause to be worried about it.

It could fool the European Commission

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".

Not news ...

"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?

Re:Not news ...

Since when did Linux equal Philanthropic? Linus did it for fun and is still having fun. As long as they play by the license, trade organizations are natural part of business.

Looming...

"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!"

Oh no! A Trade Organization!

Don't worry. We have dispatched 2 Jedi Knights to negotiate.

So what?

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?

why they called it "Foundation"

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.

A donation in your name...

Every time I hear "The Linux Foundation" my brain replaces it with "The Human Fund" [wikipedia.org]. Stupid brain.

Why do I suspect this guy is

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.

What's in a name?

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.

They should've calledit...

...the Awesome Foundation. Much better PR. "Do you want to use proprietary software or awesome software?"

Re:Phht

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 [wikipedia.org].

Re:Phht

And yet it is etymologically correct, as verbs in -ize come from Greek -izein.

Re:Phht

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).

Should be organisaatio

Linux is Finnish

Re:GNU/Linux

I've got this ISO here says not every Linux distro is a GNU/Linux distro... it's based on the svn tree at the site in my profile, and it's actually closer to BSD/Linux than GNU/Linux (though, FOX ain't exactly BSD either)...

-uso.

Re:Phht

An American corruption please. Here in Canada we follow the Queen's English. Well, for the most part at least.

Re:When you think about it, the newly formed Linux

``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.

Re:Phht

Tell that to Ali G.