“Who controls Open Source?” is a fascinating topic.

Some of the largest “Open Source” foundations are primarily funded by corporations which, by most estimations, have not historically been fans of “Open Source” or “Free Software”.

Case in point, The Linux Foundation — which brings in roughly a Third of a Billion dollars per year — is heavily funded by corporate sponsors such as Microsoft, Hitachi, Meta, & Tencent. All of which derive most of their revenue from proprietary systems. Likewise Mozilla (bringing in over $600 Million annually) is almost entirely funded by Google.

As the saying goes, “He who controls the purse strings, controls how the money is spent.”

And, of course, we must consider the political control (and influence) over Open Source. Many large Open Source Foundations and Organizations have deep, often financial, ties to political activism organizations — both Mozilla and Wikimedia being some of the more well known examples.

Well.

Buckle up, Buttercup. Because all of this is about to get a whole lot worse.

Enter the United Nations

Back in March, the United Nations announced that 16 organizations had signed on to the “United Nations Open Source Principles”.

The “UN Open Source Principles” is a set of 8 core principles which Open Source organizations are vowing to adhere to. 5 of those 8 principles being fairly obvious and, considering the topic, not at all surprising.

Expected things like “Make Open Source the standard approach” and “Encourage active participation in Open Source”. Oh, and “Make security a priority”.

Ok. Sure. Fine.

I can understand why an Open Source organization might choose to pledge to follow such ideals. In theory, they were possibly doing those things anyway.

But three of the “UN Open Source Principles” raise significant red flags.

 

The Red Flag UN Open Source Principles

Let’s go over those three, red flag raising items. Which every signatory has agreed to.

“4. Foster inclusive participation and community building: Enabling and facilitating diverse and inclusive contributions.”

Inclusive. Diverse.

Over the last several years these have become code words for “discriminate against people we don’t like”. We’ve seen this time and time again — with companies like Red Hat and IBM building entire corporate policies around what skin color they want in their employees.

All hidden behind words like “Inclusive” and “Diverse”.

And the United Nations wants Open Source organizations to commit to that form of systemic discrimination.

Already, this is not great. But it gets far, far worse.

“7. RISE (recognize, incentivize, support and empower): Empowering individuals and communities to actively participate.”

If you don’t know what RISE is, that sentence reads like a bunch of corporate buzz word mumbo jumbo. But it has a very real, very sinister meaning.

What is “RISE”, you ask? It is a codified framework for encouraging exactly the type of discrimination we just talked about — it has become an increasingly widely used tactic among DEI advocates.

RISE is an acronym:

• Recognize the contributions of “underrepresented or marginalized” groups. Highlight the achievements of “diverse” employees over “non diverse” employees”.

• Incentivize “underrepresented” groups (with internships, promotions, scholarships, bonuses, etc.) to encourage “diversity”. (read: discrimination)

• Support “underrepresented or marginalized” groups with tailored resources to ensure “equitable” outcomes. (read: no meritocracy)

• Empower “diverse” individuals with leadership roles in order to promote DEI.

Sometimes discussion around “RISE” specifically includes language regarding “DEI” and “Diversity”. Other times that exact language is left out — but the core goals and motives remain consistently DEI focused.

It is, in essence, a corporate-speak, checklist for encouraging discrimination.

Which brings us to the last “UN Open Source Principle”. The one which, quite possibly, raises the largest red flag of all…

“8. Sustain and scale: Supporting the development of solutions that meet the evolving needs of the UN system and beyond.”

Did you catch that?

Open Source organizations, which sign on to this compact, are pledging to “support the development of solutions that meet the needs of the United Nations”.

Or, put another way, those organizations are pledging to do the bidding of the UN. Whatever that might be.

The UN is asking these Open Source organizations to pledge fealty to them.

The Open Source Orgs Pledging Fealty

Which Open Source organizations are we talking about? Quite a few of the big names — names which will be very familiar to Lunduke Journal readers — including:

• The Linux Foundation

• The GNOME Foundation

• Eclipse Foundation

• The Document Foundation (LibreOffice)

And so many others. Heck, even Nextcloud and Matrix have signed on.

 

Many of these organizations (and others) recently met, in person, at the United Nations in New York to discuss — among other things — this formal agreement. This… compact.

The UN Global Digital Compact

In June of this year, the United Nations hosted “UN Open Source Week” — and invited a who’s who of organizations which control Open Source in one form or another (along with a number of smaller organizations which are politically aligned with the UN).

This gathering was officially named “an Open Community for the Global Digital Compact”.

 

Who did the United Nations make a point of inviting to speak to those in attendance?

Let’s go down the list.

 

The Gates Foundation and Mozilla.

Of course.

 

Amazon and, I kid you not, The World Bank.

 

GitLab and Wikimedia Foundation.

 

I found the inclusion of Mastodon a fascinating one. While Mastodon is small (in most ways — even considering the size of their social media network), they align strongly to the political goals and views of the United Nations (promote Leftist Extremism, censor political opponents).

 

And, of course, GitHub. Aka… Microsoft.

In addition, representatives from most of the signatories of the “United Nations Open Source Principles” agreement were in attendance (including the GNOME Foundation).

Some of the presentations were about things like “Ethical” software, interoperability with United Nations systems, “Public infrastructure”, digital “cooperation” of governments, and (of course) “inclusion”.

Many presentations — by many organizations — which already raise significant concerns.

But, and this is important, what did they talk about behind closed doors? What was discussed out of the public eye at the (many) meetings and events where attendees were wined and dined?

That remains unknown.

The Lunduke Journal has asked. The UN isn’t talking. Neither are the attendees.

The Three Masters of Open Source

But we now know, with a high level of certainty, that many of the significant Open Source organizations and Foundations now serve three masters:

1. The Corporations

2. The Political Activists

3. The United Nations

I don’t know about you, but I sure wouldn’t want to have those three masters.

As always, The Lunduke Journal encourages representatives and leadership from any organization involved with this story to reach out — for any reason. Corrections, clarifications, or additional information. Considering the professed commitment to “openness” of every organization mentioned in this story, there should be no reason to continue refusing to speak to journalists regarding it.

Likewise, if you would like to become a whistleblower, there are multiple ways to get ahold of The Lunduke Journal.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

And this story needs a heck of a lot of sunlight.

Back in April, The Lunduke Journal broke the story of IBM “ditching DEI policies” company wide — including at their subsidiary, Red Hat. This change was announced in the wake of multiple lawsuits against IBM (for their DEI policies) and executive orders against DEI from President Trump.

At the time, activist employees at Red Hat / IBM were not happy (to say the least). Encouraging and planning protests, “raising hell”, and even “killing fascists”.

But, now that a little time has passed, let’s take a look inside at IBM and see how their “ditching DEI” change is actually going.

DEI Staying “Under the Radar”

Thanks to whistleblowers within IBM, we know that employee groups focused on DEI still, in fact, exist. They are simply changing names in order to “stay under the radar” and avoid having “a target on their back”.

 

The “diversity-inclusion” corporate Slack channel, for example, is now named “inclusion-at-ibm”. They simply dropped the word “diversity”.

The DEI Department is Still There

Employees are using that IBM DEI Slack channel to clarify corporate changes to DEI policy. Which, again, thanks to whistleblowers… we have screenshots of.

A few key items:

• The “DEI Department” has been renamed to “Inclusion” — and now reports to Kitty Chaney Reed (the Chief Leadership, Culture and Inclusion Officer).

• IBM is no longer part of the Human Rights Campaign — “the HRC no longer align with IBM priorities”.

• “People can still identify their preferred pronouns in all of IBM systems.”

• The game-ified “Allyship Badge” system has been removed.

 

As we can see, some DEI policies and programs are gone, while others remain. And IBM is making a point of renaming their DEI Department within HR.

We gain these insights thanks to Ruth Davis — an IBM Executive and who currently identifies as a “DEI Advocate”.

 

These clarifications were published by a current member of the IBM HR team… who was originally hired as a “Diversity and Inclusion Intern”.

 

In short: DEI advocates continue to control IBM HR, and DEI departments continue to exist.

IBM / Red Hat Discriminatory Quotas

Up until recently, both IBM & Red Hat had discriminatory hiring policies — including sex and skin color quotas and even rewards for executives for hiring fewer white men.

We learned, as part of the original leaks supplied to The Lunduke Journal back in April, that “diversity goals are no longer part of the executive incentive program”.

 

Which begs the question, now that a few months have passed, is IBM still discriminating against White Men?

Getting hard numbers on the demographics of new IBM / Red Hat employees is not likely to happen for quite some time — if ever. But here is a picture, posted yesterday, of new Red Hat interns.

That might give us some indication of where things are heading.

 

Well. Huh.

Finding the “White Guys” in this photo of Red Hat interns isn’t quite as challenging as a round of “Where’s Waldo?”… but it’s close.

Now for me, personally, I truly don’t care what the demographic ratios are of employees & interns within a company. Hire the best people for the job, regardless of their sex or ethnicity. Meritocracy is a good thing.

That said, considering the multiple pending lawsuits against IBM and Red Hat — specifically regarding their discriminatory policies towards White Men (and their previously stated goals of hiring less of them) — it is more than a little interesting that their latest crop of Red Hat interns is almost entirely… people who are not White Men.

Results Are Mixed

There are a few good signs in here of IBM dropping DEI related policies — including no longer being involved in the Human Right Campaign and the removal of the (rather repulsive, anti-White) “Allyship Badges”.

Unfortunately, most of the rest of what we’re seeing is less encouraging.

• “DEI” groups simply being renamed to “Inclusion” in order to stay on the right side of the law.

• What appears to be continued discriminatory hiring at Red Hat (despite lawsuits and stated policy changes).

• Executives and HR still heavily controlled by “DEI Advocates”.

• Corporate systems still using “preferred pronouns”.

While making significant changes to corporate policies can take time — especially across large organizations like IBM — some of these internal reports indicate an unwillingness to drop DEI policies on the part of key IBM leadership.

The Lunduke Journal will continue keeping tabs on both IBM and Red Hat.

Any employees looking to become whistleblowers can find whistleblower resources at Lunduke.com.

Mike Kaginski, a LibreOffice developer (who works for Collabora), has had his Microsoft-hosted email account, which he uses for open source development, locked for “activity that violates our Microsoft Services Agreement”.

 

Kaginski discovered this when attempting to send an email to the LibreOffice development mailing list (hosted by FreeDesktop). It remains unclear if that specific email (which he sent via another address and was rather bland and technical) was the reason for the ban… or if attempting to send the email was simply the first time the ban was noticed by him.

This happened just days after LibreOffice officially accused Microsoft of engaging in a “Lock-in” strategy by creating “artificially complex”, XML-based office documents.

Are the two events related? Hard to say with any certainty.

To make matters worse, Kaginski has had no success in getting Microsoft to lift his locked email account — with the company making him jump through numerous, impossible hoops (such as requiring him to sign in to submit an appeal for his account being locked… but not allowing him to sign in… because his account is locked).

You got that? Sign in to fix the account you can’t sign in with.

Gotta love a good Catch-22.

Good job, Microsoft.

The Lunduke Journal reached out to a contact, within Microsoft, who made it clear that their group was not aware of the LibreOffice Developer’s locked account, but they were aware of the LibreOffice complaint article regarding “artificially complex” XML lock-in. Adding, “wow that looks bad”.

The Lunduke Journal’s Analysis

The odds of locking a LibreOffice developer’s email account being an official Microsoft corporate decision seems highly unlikely.

Microsoft, as a company, makes a lot of bad decisions — but this would just be too stupid for words. A massive PR blunder.

But could a single employee, feeling grumpy, have done it on an impulse? As some sort of revenge for LibreOffice’s “harsh” words about Microsoft? Sure. That seems entirely plausible?

Though, it’s also entirely plausible that some poorly designed AI-driven “naughty activity” detection bot flagged his account. Or, perhaps, the developer was reported by some random Open Source hooligan who likes to cause chaos (there’s a lot of those).

Either way, the fact that Microsoft requires people to log in — on accounts which cannot log in — in order to file an “appeal” is incredibly amusing. And is very, very typical Microsoft.