The Linux Foundation, earlier today, released their 2024 Annual Report.  And, hoo boy, is it a doozy.

The short-short version: Massive increase in revenue (now close to $300 Million Dollars), with spending on Linux continuing to drop to historically low numbers.

And, in a dramatic departure from previous years, almost zero discussion of politically charged topics (such as Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Climate Change).

Let's start with the numbers.

Skyrocketing Revenue

First and foremost, it's worth pointing out that -- as of this year -- revenue for The Linux Foundation is closing in on 1/3rd of a Billion Dollars annually.

While The Linux Foundation may technically be a "non profit", those numbers would make many "for profit" corporations blush.  Massive, steady income growth.

Where does the largest bulk of that revenue come from?  Corporate "membership" dues, naturally.  To the tune of over $125 Million USD.

With the highest paying corporate members being the likes of Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, Samsun, Red Hat (IBM), Huawei, and the like.

These corporations pay a premium to have a seat on The Linux Foundation Board of Directors.  Which, it should be pointed out, consists of over 70% GPL violators.

Spending on Linux

One of the peculiar facts about The Linux Foundation is how surprisingly little of their income they spend on... Linux.

And, perhaps even more peculiar still, is the fact that the percentage of their revenue spent on Linux appears to decrease every year.

In 2021, The Linux Foundation spent roughly 3.4% of their revenue on their namesake project.  As of 2024... that number appears to be down to 2.3%.

And this isn't simply a matter of overall percentages going down (while revenue rises).  Spending on the Linux Kernel is down, year on year, in terms of actual US Dollars as well.

In fact, the amount currently spent on "Corporate Operations" for The Linux Foundation... is roughly 3 times that of what is spent on the Linux kernel.

As time goes on -- and spending numbers become finalized -- we are gaining an increasingly clear picture of the spending priorities of The Linux Foundation.

No Diversity in 2024?

In the previous annual report (2023), "Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion" were a critical component.

In the 2023 report:

• "Diversity" was mentioned 34 times
• "Inclusion" 17 times.
• With the general "DEI" topic -- including "LGBTQ" issues -- being a critical component throughout the report.  Page after page of DEI.

This year, in the 2024 report, the words "Diversity", "Equity", and "Inclusion" are never used.  Not once.

Well.  Once.  Barely.  On the second to the last page, in a footnote, you find the following statement: "75% of [travel] funding went to diverse community members."  That, right there is the sum total of discussion around "diversity".

In fact, the "LGBT" acronym is also never used in the most recent report (another significant change from previous years).

This appears to mark a dramatic shift, away from "DEI", for The Linux Foundation.  At least in terms of messaging.

No Climate Change, Either?

The 2024 Linux Foundation annual report also contains absolutely no reference to "Climate Change".

"Wait, why would the Linux Foundation be talking about Climate Change," you ask?

Well.  Last year, in 2023, the annual report was filled to the brim with Climate Change -- with 37 distinct references and over 10 pages focused on the topic.

That focus appears to no longer be a priority for The Linux Foundation.

The Right to Fork

One of the most prominent new topics of the 2024 report was "the right to fork".  Something previous annual reports stayed clear of almost entirely.

“The right to fork open source code is at the core of open source licensing. All open source licenses grant the right to fork their code, that is to start a new development effort using an existing code as its base. Thus, code forking represents the single greatest tool available for guaranteeing sustainability in open source software.

 

In addition to bolstering program sustainability, code forking directly affects the governance of open source initiatives. Forking, and even the mere possibility of forking code, affects the governance and sustainability of open source initiatives on three distinct levels: software, community, and ecosystem.”

This is particularly interesting, given the stated intention for Russia to hard-fork Linux over the recent ban of Russian programmers from being official kernel maintainers.

Other Oddities

A few other facts which are worth noting from the 2024 Annual Report:

• Neither the Executive Director, nor the Board Chair -- in their several pages long opening messages -- mentions the Linux Kernel.  Nor desktop, server, or mobile Linux.  Strange, right?
• The 2024 Annual Report is only 45 pages long.  Compared to the 2023 report, which clocks in at 160 pages.
• There is absolutely no mention of the mass banning of Russian developers during 2024.
• Nor of the various other developers banned from the Linux Kernel this year.

What does all of this mean?  Will the decreasing spending on Linux continue into 2025?  Will the decreased emphasis on messaging around "DEI" issues translate to real-world changes?  Will the "right to fork" emphasis continue if Russia follows through with their proposed Linux kernel fork?

Lots of questions.  Lots and lots of them.

The Massive Free Lunduke Journal Archive

Looking for a particular video or article?  Below you will find a sampling of Lunduke Journal content, all of which is free for the world to enjoy (subscribers and non-subscribers alike).  

The following list is nowhere near complete -- and is being added to constantly.  If you're looking for a searchable, sortable index of every article and show, you'll want to go to The Lunduke Journal Content Archive at Lunduke.Locals.com/content (which is an added benefit for Lunduke Journal subscribers).

Lunduke Journal Articles

(You won't find these many of these stories covered anywhere else.)

• Firefox Money: Investigating the bizarre finances of Mozilla
• The IBM / Red Hat Leaks
• The Wiki Piggy Bank - Wikimedia grows rich as Wikipedia donations are used for political causes
• Linux Foundation now spends only 2% of their revenue on Linux
• 70% of companies on the Linux Foundation Board are GPL violators
• GNOME Foundation hires "Professional Shaman" as new Executive Director
• The GNOME 5 Year plan: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Nonexistent PowerPoint Slides
• Google Drive censors files of Pfizer whistleblower
• The Internet Archive's last-ditch effort to save itself
• MS-DOS 4.0 Source Code Fails to Compile
• Red Hat vs Hyprland: Silencing political "undesirables"
• The Internet Archive Loses Appeal. As Expected.
• Is the GNOME Foundation Going to Go Bankrupt in 1 Year?
• The Worst Part of Open Source: The Community
• Pop!_OS Lead: Linux Developers are “Patronizing Pedantic Megalomaniacs”
• Remember when "GIMP" was declared an offensive name, and it was forked?  What ever happened to that?
• Yet Another Lawsuit Against IBM for Racial Discrimination
• Total Linux Desktop PCs Now Over 56 Million
• GNOME Foundation Helps The Lunduke Journal Hit Record Subscription Numbers
• Mozilla Faces Financial Uncertainty After Google Loses Lawsuit
• Python Bans Prominent Dev for Enjoying the Wrong Old SNL Sketch
• Is Intel No Longer a Safe Place for Jews? New Lawsuit Details.
• Netflix managers "will not hire this white guy because we have too many white people"
• GNOME Ousts Elected Board Member in Secret... and Tells Nobody for 2 Months
• GNOME bans Manjaro Core Team Member for uttering "Lunduke"
• Open Source AI Definition: Not Open, Built by DEI, Funded by Big Tech
• Editor of OSNews calls for the murder of a Conservative, Jewish Tech Journalist
• Fedora (Red Hat) Holds "Diversity" Event. Nobody Shows Up
• GNOME's Shaman Departs as Executive Director after 9 Months on the Job
• Mozilla Firefox Goes Anti-Privacy, Pro-Advertising
• Microsoft Lays Off Some DEI Staff, Keeps DEI Policies

• Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1 Million from GitHub Founder

• Don't wave the LGBT flag?  SUSE & openSUSE says you are "Rotten Flesh"

• Elementary OS & Asahi Linux declare war on "Right Wing" nerds

• NixOS commits a "purge" of "Nazi" contributors, forces abdication of founder

• Ladybird Web Browser Developer Attacked by Unhinged, Dishonest Activists

• Crazy Tech People Who Hate Lunduke - Part II

• IBM Sued by State of Missouri for Racist Hiring Practices

• Mozilla Sued for Discrimination by Former CEO-To-Be

• Mozilla Firefox blocks anti-Censorship and pro-Privacy extensions in Russia
• The CIA, NSA, and Pokémon Go

• The Club Penguin Leak

• Google Drive censors files of Pfizer whistleblower
• The GNOME 5 Year plan: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Nonexistent PowerPoint Slides

Lunduke Journal Computer History Articles

• Microsoft's Biggest Product in 1980: the Z-80 SoftCard for the Apple II
• The (very real) history of :-)
• Myth: Bill Gates said "640k ought to be enough for anybody"
• The True History of vi (and vim)
• The History of the Graphical User Interface -- 1945 to 1980
• Who is the (real) first Computer Programmer?
• Myth: "HTML was invented by Tim Berners-Lee"
• Browsing the World Wide Web via E-Mail -- 1990's Style
• Wendin-DOS : The forgotten multi-tasking, multi-user DOS clone from the 1980s
• The story of the 1991 HP DOS Palmtop
• Quick and Dirty: The story of 86-DOS & MS-DOS
• Who really coined the term 'Open Source'?
• The Fork Bomb: What it is, how it works, and where it originated
• Aug 9, 1991: The First E-Mail... FROM SPACE
• Remembering MUD1 - The first multiplayer role playing game on the Internet
• The story of the first "computer bug"... is a pile of lies.
• The last programming project from Bill Gates: Microsoft BASIC for TRS-80 Model 100
• Traf-O-Data: The company before "Microsoft"
• W: The Window System before X... that nobody seems to remember
• The Unlikely Story of UTF-8: The Text Encoding of the Web
• The History of BSD - Part 1 (1974 - 1989)
• The History of the First Computer Shell
• Intel 8008: The wild tale of the first 8-Bit CPU
• The Story of Otrona -- The Colorado Computer Company of the early 1980s.
• Why is Firefox called Firefox?
• Who (really) created the "Byte"?
• The History of Ctrl-Alt-Delete
• The creator of UNIX built a Trojan Horse which let him log in to any UNIX machine
• The Definitive History of Screensavers: 1961 - 1990
• 1950s Sci-Fi Style Computers, Powered by a Z80, Built in Holland

• A tour through computing in 1961... over 60 years ago

• Microsoft Write - The First Word Processor for Windows (ported to Mac... and Atari ST)

• RoboCop runs on DOS, Terminator runs on MacOS & Apple II

• AppleWorld 1987: When the Mac got color and expandability

• Ground Zero for the Personal Computer Industry: 1977's West Coast Computer Faire

• The very first interview about Linux with Linus Torvalds - Oct 28, 1992
• Browsing the World Wide Web via E-Mail -- 1990's Style
• Microsoft's Biggest Product in 1980: the Z-80 SoftCard for the Apple II

Other Very Nerdy Articles

• Watch the planes in the sky near you... from your Linux terminal.
• Mount a drive image from a remote server... on DOS.
• Happy Blue Screen of Death Day!
• 6 cool looking top (& htop) alternatives
• Instantly Become an Elite Movie Hacker

Lunduke Journal Regular Shows

• Linux has Real-Time now. What the fart does that actually mean?
• Oracle, Microsoft, BlackRock Building Dystopian AI Future
• The Next Kings of Linux: Shannon & Steve
• Nextcloud Releases Version 9 of Self-Hosting Platform
• MIT Uses AI Chatbots to Brainwash You
• Exploding Pagers & The Case for a Secure Supply Chain
• EFF: Calling for Genocide of Jews is OK, but Republicans Protesting is a Crime
• Google AI Notebook Turns Documents into Fake Podcasts with Fake Hosts Having Fake Discussions
• FreeCAD 1.0: The Most Important Linux Release of 2024
• Internet Archive Takes Another Step Towards Death
• The Self-Destruction of Open Source Software
• Mozilla Bets the Future of the Web is A.I. Generated Content
• The Worst Part of Open Source: The Community
• The Register Runs Cover for CIA-Backed Smartphone Game
• A.I. Now Convincingly Replicates a Person's Handwriting... and it's Just as Creepy as it Sounds.
• The Specific Charges Against the Telegram CEO
• Is A.I. Programming Really the Future?
• Zuck Regrets Censoring Facebook at Request of Democrats
• Pop!_OS Lead: Linux Developers are “Patronizing Pedantic Megalomaniacs”
• Procreate Dev: "I really BEEPing hate generative AI"
• Yet Another Lawsuit Against IBM for Racial Discrimination
• Total Linux Desktop PCs Now Over 56 Million
• Inclusivity Activists are Destroying Open Source
• Python Bans Prominent Dev for Enjoying the Wrong SNL Sketch
• Is This The End of Mozilla? If So, Is That a Bad Thing?
• Intel Assigns Jewish Israeli Employee to Manager Who Publicly Calls for His Murder
• New Downsizing from Dell, Intel Push 2024 Tech Layoffs Over 150,000
• Netflix managers "will not hire this white guy because we have too many white people"
• Python is 71x Slower, Uses 75x More Energy, Than C
• Wine Fixes Bugs in Windows 3.1 Software Running on Linux
• Lunduke's Nerdy Q & A - July 31, 2024
• Official GNOME Policy: Link to Lunduke, Get Banned
• Lunduke Does Not Ban Any Tech Organization or News Outlet
• GNOME Ousts Elected Board Member in Secret, Tells Nobody for 2 Months
• GNOME bans Manjaro Core Team Member for uttering "Lunduke"
• Open Source AI Definition: Not Open, Built by DEI, Funded by Big Tech
• Editor of OSNews calls for the Murder of a Conservative, Jewish Tech Journalist
• Fedora (Red Hat) Holds Diversity Event. Nobody Shows Up
• Lunduke's Nerdy Q & A - July 10, 2024
• The Only Tech News Outlet Covering the Woke Tech Activists
• Tech Journalist publicly hopes for another assassination attempt on President Trump
• GNOME Shaman Out as Executive Director After 9 Months on the Job
• Firefox: The Data Collection, Advertising Browser
• No. Microsoft Did Not Lay Off All DEI Staff.
• Don't get cocky: CrowdStrike can happen to Linux & Mac too
• Watch Out Firefox & Chrome: Here Comes Ladybird
• NixOS commits "purge" of "Nazi" contributors, forces abdication of founder
• Crazy Tech People Who Hate Lunduke - Part II
• Ladybird Web Browser Developer Attacked by Unhinged, Dishonest Activists
• How much RAM will you need in 5 years?
• Lunduke's Nerdy Q & A - June 26, 2024
• Open Source is not Socialism (or Communism)
• IBM Sued by State of Missouri for Racist Hiring Practices
• Connecting the Dots: What the Heck is Happening at Mozilla?
• Mozilla Sued for Discrimination by CEO-To-Be
• Internet Archive: The Largest Software Piracy Website
• Lunduke's Live Apple WWDC 2024 Keynote Coverage
• Mozilla's War on the Open Internet
• Open Source A.I. Definition to include Closed, Secret Data
• Mozilla Caves to Criticism, Unblocks Firefox Extensions in Russia

• New York Times Source Code Leaked (and verified)

• Leaked documents from Disney's Club Penguin (Over 800 MB)

• The Tech Industry Hates You

• Let's talk about Google censoring a Pfizer whistleblower

• Lunduke reads YouTube Comments
• The GNOME 5 Year plan: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Nonexistent PowerPoint Slides
• EFF says: Don't stop kids from looking at porn!
• In the Hotseat: Black Python Devs Founder
• Lunduke's Nerdy Q & A - May 23, 2024
• End of the Internet? Dead Internet Theory + Disappearing Content = Rut Roh
• The Future of Computing: A.I. and Advocacy. ...Seriously?
• The Open Source Community is Neither "Open" nor a "Community"
• Titus in the Hotseat on "Lunduke: The Alex Jones of Linux"
• What the Fart is a Byte?
• Did Lunduke just scare The Register off Twitter?
• The Register spins to protect Red Hat in discrimination lawsuit
• Godot Game Engine Enacts Mass "Cleansing" of Non-Woke Supporters
• Godot Responds to Mass Banning - No Apology, Blames Banned Users
• DOOM Now Runs on a Quantum Computer (Which Doesn't Even Exist)
• A Code of Conduct... That's GOOD?!
• The Redot (Godot Fork) Launch X Space -- with Q & A
• Yes. Mozilla is an Advertising Company Now.
• Linux on C64, 8086, & Intel 4004
• Trump vs Harris on Computer Tech Policies
• Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon & the Nuclear Powered Data Center
• Window Shopping for Retro Computers
• New California Law: Digital Stores Cannot Say "Buy" When They Mean "License"
• The "9.9" Linux Vulnerability Revealed: It's The Printers
• Rust Compiler Not Stable Enough for Linux Kernel Development
• Privacy Watchdog Group Attacks Mozilla for Firefox User Tracking
• Newly Open Sourced Winamp Forbids Forking, Already Forked Hundreds of Times
• Severe (9.9 / 10) Linux Vulnerability Announced, Details Kept Secret
• Telegram Will Now Give Personal Data to Governments & Use AI to Moderate
• Linux has Real-Time now. What the fart does that actually mean?
• Oracle, Microsoft, BlackRock Building Dystopian AI Future
• The Next Kings of Linux: Shannon & Steve
• Nextcloud Releases Version 9 of Self-Hosting Platform
• MIT Uses AI Chatbots to Brainwash You
• Exploding Pagers & The Case for a Secure Supply Chain
• EFF: Calling for Genocide of Jews is OK, but Republicans Protesting is a Crime
• Google AI Notebook Turns Documents into Fake Podcasts with Fake Hosts Having Fake Discussions
• FreeCAD 1.0: The Most Important Linux Release of 2024
• Will Voting Machines Get Hacked? Almost Certainly.
• Mozilla Foundation Mass Layoffs, Axes Advocacy
• GIMP 3.0 RC Released!
• Notepad.exe Goes AI
• Four Months After The NixOS "Nazi Purge"
• Mozilla Hosts "Feminist, Decolonial, LGBTQIA+, Climate Justice using Al" Event
• Sanctions Hit Linux Kernel, Russian Programmers Banned
• Why Were Russian Programmers Banned From Linux, But Not Huawei Employees?
• Will Russia Hard Fork Linux?
• Long Term Linux Maintainer Banned After Protesting Removal of Russian Programmers
• Remembering When Obama Declared Linux Users "Extremists"
• Wikipedia's War on Israel, USA, & Truth
• No, Microsoft Did Not Fire Employees for Holding "Vigil for Palestinians"
• The Lunduke Journal Does NOT Endorse Kamala Harris
• Author of "Stallman Report" Hit Piece Collects and Publishes Child Porn?
• Open Source RISC OS Now Has WiFi and Modern Web Browser on Raspberry Pi
• 25% of Google Code is AI Generated
• Did The Internet Archive Hack Themselves?
• Like the Library of Alexandria, the Internet Archive Will Burn.
• Wayback Machine & Google Website Cache Go Offline Weeks Before 2024 Election
• Twitch Bans All of Israel, Un-Bans Anti-Jewish Terrorists
• Apple Removes Ability to Run Unsigned Apps in macOS 15.1
• Debian Linux Doesn't Want Straight White Men
• The Road to Skynet: Nuclear Powered, CAPTCHA Solving AI
• The Stallman Report - A Hit Piece on the Free Software Founder
• Drew DeVault Behind Stallman-Report.org Hit Piece
• Winamp Source Code Repo Deleted
• Lunduke's Nerdy Q & A - Oct 17, 2024
• Police Reports Written by AI... Seriously.
• Framework Laptop LEGO Expansion Card?!
• Firefox & Thunderbird Collect User Data by Default (in Violation of European Law)
• GNOME Foundation Broke, Lays Off 33% of Staff
• No, You Don't Need Telemetry Data to Make Software
• Best Alternatives to Woke Software
• Top Level Domain .io Will Die in 5 Years
• Google May be Broken Up as a Result of Lost Lawsuit
• Facebook Developed Custom Portal to Help Biden Administration Censor Americans
• Internet Archive Got Hacked... and Did Nothing When Told About It
• The "Code of Conduct" Must Die
• Firefox Maker Rebrands as "Global Crew of Activists"
• Lunduke v. ChatGPT - "Cease Making Defamatory Statements"
• KDE Goes Nagware (And Income Skyrocketed)
• Notepad++ Has "Anti-Elon Musk" Release
• The Quest to Remove My Name From ChatGPT
• Solved: Why ChatGPT Will Not Say "David Mayer"
• Banned C++ Contributor Speaks Out
• C++ Standards Contributor Banned For Using Word "Question"
• Linux Code of Conduct Board Officially Bans Developer for "Insufficient" Groveling
• elementary OS 8 is the DEI Linux Distro
• Deno v. Oracle: JavaScript Trademark Dispute
• Google Accuses Microsoft of "Dark Patterns" with Edge Browser on Windows
• Firefox Has 9 Months of Income Left (Possibly Less)
• Linux Code of Conduct Board Blocks File System Changes
• The Pokemon Go Spying Conspiracy Theory? Yeah. It's Verified.
• DOJ: Google Must Sell Off Chrome
• Mozilla's "Dreams" Do Not Include Firefox ... or Even Web Browsing
• Red Hat: Linux is the Past, AI is the Future
• Lunduke's Nerdy Q & A - Nov 11, 2024

"Linux Sucks" Shows (in order)

• 2009 - "Linux Sucks"
• 2011 - "Linux Sucks"
• 2012 - "Linux Sucks (as usual)"
• 2012 - "Linux Does Not Suck (not even a little)"
• 2013 - "Linux Sucks"
• 2013 - "Linux Doesn't Suck"
• 2014 - "Linux Sucks"
• 2015 - "Windows is AWESOME"
• 2016 - "Linux Sucks"
• 2016 - "Linux Sucks: The Commentary Track"
• 2017 - "Linux Sucks... for the last time"
• 2018 - "Linux Sucks.  Forever."
• 2019 - "Linux Sucks: The Lost Recordings"
• 2020 - "Linux Sucks"
• 2021 - "Linux Sucks: The End of Linux is Nigh"
• 2022 - "Linux Sucks: This time it's personal."
• 2023 - "macOS Sucks"
• 2024 - "This is going to suck more than anything has sucked before."

The Lunduke Journal is 100% ad-free and 100% free from the influence of Big Tech.

To pull off this feat, we run the occasional mini-fundraiser.  A couple days of fundraising and sales to keep every show and article completely free of ads.  Which is pretty sweet.

As of right now -- after 2 days of fundraising last week -- we are just a little short of hitting our December funding needs.

To help push us over the finish line -- and keep the lights on here at The Lunduke Journal -- we're running a super quick sale with two sweet deals:

• $10 off on yearly subscriptions
• $200 (normally not available) on Lifetime Subscriptions

These deals are available through end of the day, Monday, December 9th.

Want to support truly independent Tech Journalism?  Scroll down.  Pick the subscription deal that's best for you.  Every single penny goes directly towards keeping The Lunduke Journal running (and sticking it to Big Tech).

$10 Off Yearly Subscription

Now through end of day Monday (Dec 9), you can grab a yearly subscription with a $10 discount.

• Use coupon code "DEC10" (or click this link)

The Famous Lifetime Subscription

The "World Famous Lunduke Journal Lifetime Subscription" is exactly what it sounds like. Pay once and get full access to The Lunduke Journal (with all the perks). For life.

New Lifetime Subscriptions are available, for $200, from now through Monday, December 9th. Then this option goes "back into the vault".

Here's how to grab one of these coveted bad boys for yourself:

• Go to Lunduke.Locals.com/support.

• Select "Give Once".

• Enter "200" into the amount field.

• After checking out, Lunduke will toss you an email once your account is set to full lifetime status. (This usually happens within a few hours.)

The Famous Lifetime Subscription (with Bitcoin)

You can also obtain a Lifetime Subscription via Bitcoin.

• Make sure you have a Lunduke.Locals.com account (a free account works just fine).

• Send $200 worth of Bitcoin (or more) to the following address:

bc1qyjakve8fywm8pz2v99v57yhjj0vzr2vjze6fcq

• Email "bryan at lunduke.com" with the following information: What time you made the transaction, how much was sent (in Bitcoin), and the email address you use (or plan to use) on Locals.com.

Every subscription is appreciated!  You amazing nerds make The Lunduke Journal possible!

-Lunduke