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Linux Foundation decreased Linux spending to 3.2% in 2022.
Down from the, already absurd, 3.4% in 2021.
August 09, 2023
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On December 8th, 2022, the Linux Foundation released their annual report for 2022.

I’m not going to sugar coat this… it is absolutely ridiculous.

The highlight? Funding for the Linux kernel, in 2022, dropped to a measly 3.2% of the foundation’s total revenue of $243 Million dollars.

Down from the — already absurdly low — 3.4% from 2021.

Considering the name of the foundation… that is, needless to say, highly amusing. Or concerning. Possibly infuriating. Likely all three.

Let’s dive into the details and try to figure out why this is happening.

Seriously. Expenditures on Linux drop to 3.2%

Let’s dive into this deeper and try to get an understanding of exactly what is happening here… because that number is just so, dramatically low.

While The Linux Foundation keeps fairly tight-lipped about the details — and they haven’t published their IRS 990 forms for the last two years (which would provide us additional details) — they do provide some high level percentages for us to work from.

Source: Linux Foundation 2022 Annual Report

That chart on the right. The expenditures. Let’s zero in on those numbers and break it down into a bar chart to better visualize things.

Holy smokes.

A few things you’ll immediately notice:

  • Linux is almost the smallest category that the “Linux Foundation” spends money on.

  • “Corporate Operations” receives over twice the funding that “Linux” does.

  • And non-Linux projects? Those receive nearly twenty times the funding of Linux. Twenty! 20x!

The Linux Foundation brought in over $243 Million USD in 2022. Which means the total amount put towards Linux was, according to The Linux Foundation, roughly $7.7 Million (3.2%).

For comparison, the Foundation spent roughly $18 Million on “Corporate Operations” and $144 Million on non-Linux projects.

It’s almost hard to wrap your head around, isn’t it? Here’s another chart that shows Linux Foundation spending.

This is, needless to say, wild. And it calls up a few questions, namely:

  • What, exactly, is all that money being spent on?

  • And… why?

  • Who is making the decision to spend so much money on things that are not Linux?

Let’s see what we can find out.

Where is that money going?

Again, the Linux Foundation provides very few specific details. And hasn’t provided a publicly available form 990 -- an IRS filing required for all tax exempt organizations -- for the last two years (once they do, the Lunduke Journal of Technology will investigate the contents).

Instead, the Linux Foundation provides a generalized breakdown of project types and percentages in their annual report (which, despite being over 130 pages long… is light on actual numbers).

Source: Linux Foundation 2022 Annual Report

Highlights:

  • The Linux Foundation invests more money into “Blockchain” than “Linux”. By a lot (3.7% vs 2.3% of total project spending).

  • They also invest more — a lot more — in “Compliance Best Practices”, “AI”, “IoT”, and “Cloud”.

Repeat: “Blockchain” related projects receive nearly twice the funding of “Linux”… in the Linux Foundation.

I mean… What?!

Now, in defense of The Linux Foundation, the majority of that project funding is going towards open source software of one type or another. At least tangentially. Just not… you know… Linux.

Getting out of the Linux business

What are a few of the specific projects receiving that funding? Here’s four that have an entirely unknown amount of funding:

This is worth repeating: We do not have detailed financial information on these sub-foundations. They don’t provide individual annual reports for each (as they are all under the “Linux Foundation” umbrella) and there doesn’t appear to be any source of documentation, publicly available, to figure out those details.

The fact is, some of these projects may receive many times what the Linux kernel receives. Others may receive a tiny fraction of that amount. We simply don’t have that information.

And, without the Linux Foundation having publicly available 990 forms for 2022 (which are required for organizations like the Linux Foundation)… those vague, percentage breakdowns, by category, are the best bits of information we have available.

Which, honestly, is troubling.

But, one thing is clear, the Linux Foundation is investing — heavily — in almost any type of software… as long as it is not their core business... Linux.

If we were looking at any other company — that observation, combined with the decreasing percentage of revenue spent on their core product — would lead us to the obvious conclusion that they were getting out of their core business.

Which means… it looks like the Linux Foundation is preparing to get out of the “Linux” business.

I know. I know. Don’t shoot me.

I’m just pointing at what’s happening and saying out loud what we’re all thinking.

Where does that money come from?

Great. But… why is this happening? Why is so little funding actually making it to Linux? Why are they migrating — almost entirely — towards other businesses?

In an attempt to answer that, let’s look at where the money comes from — let’s figure out who actually controls the purse-strings.

According to the annual report, the largest block of income (44.5%) comes from membership in the Linux Foundation itself. And we know that becoming a “Platinum Member” of The Linux Foundation costs $500,000 per year.

So who, exactly, are those Platinum Members, you ask? We’ve got a handy graphic just for that!

MicrosoftOracleMeta (Facebook). IntelHuaweiTencent.

Drop down to the Gold level (which runs $100,000 per year) and you’ve got firms like GoogleBlackRockCardanoAlibabaWeBankRefinitivBaidu, and many others.

Those memberships add up. Quickly. These are the companies that pay for the salary of those at The Linux Foundation.

Not only do those companies all have the ear of Linux Foundation executives (if someone gives you half a million dollars every year… you certainly pick up the phone when they call)… but those Platinum Members also get a seat on the Linux Foundation Board of Directors.

They pay... so they get to drive.

This is the current Board:

Take note of the companies that each Board Member represents and works for. (Also worth noting that the Board Chair, Nithya Ruff, works for Amazon… though that is not disclosed in that graphic.)

A lot of companies.  And, at least some of those companies… would rather not see Linux succeed.

Note: I, Lunduke, know many of these people. I’ve broken bread with a rather large portion of them. Some of them I rather quite like personally. But all of them — every single one — has an agenda. Someone gives them a paycheck. And that’s worth noting.

And these are the people who — to a significant degree — determine which projects and sub foundations the Linux Foundation will create, promote, and fund. And which it won’t.

While we do not have publicly published meeting minutes — Oh!  What we wouldn’t give to have been a fly on the wall of some of those meetings! — looking at the individuals (and companies they represent) on the board… we can clearly see why “Linux” funding is not only a small portion of what The Linux Foundation does… but it’s shrinking, year-on-year.

Without published minutes of the Linux Foundation board, and publicly available 990 forms for 2022, we are left in a position where the best we can do is piece together what little information is public… and draw our own conclusions.

And that conclusion is this: Many Mega Corporations have purchased influence in the Linux Foundation. And, as a result, the Linux Foundation is now transitioning away from Linux.

Pessimistic and cynical?  For sure.  But also rather obvious.  In an undeniable way.

What is the future of Linux within The Linux Foundation?

Knowing what we know about The Linux Foundation — which is a whole lot less than we should know — what does the future of Linux support look like from the foundation?

Will we continue to see “Linux” becoming a smaller and smaller part of the overall Linux Foundation business?

The answer to that question seems to be a resounding: “Signs point to yes”.

In fact, I would not be surprised if they changed their foundation name to something without “Linux” in it… very soon.

If the Linux Foundation continues their current approach of establishing new sub-foundations (all focused on non-Linux activities and businesses)… My prediction is that 2023 will see growth in Linux Foundation total revenue, and another drop in Linux Kernel support — either in terms of total dollars or overall percentage. Possibly below 3%.

Note: The Lunduke Journal of Technology has reached out to the Linux Foundation with questions on these, and other, topics — and a request for comment. No response has been provided. Which is pretty par-for-the-course with stories concerning the Linux Foundation over the last several years.

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If you work in the computer industry (IT specialist, Software engineer, etc.) and you can't touch type, I see that as a red flag as far as your computer qualifications are concerned.

Am I wrong?

The new guys we hired on at work are a couple of young Gen Z guys in their 20s. One of the other guys in the office who knows of my affinity for the old systems brought me a Dell OptiPlex GX260 that he found shoved in a closet somewhere and the nostalgia hit these new kids hard! Apparently these were the computers they used as kids in elementary school so we took some time to fix her up for them to play with. I was quite surprised that all of the caps were fine since it was an OEM machine from 2002. Maybe it was a refurbished board?

It shipped with XP but Dell still has DOS, 98, and 2000 drivers for it on their support site, so I ran home and grabbed my 98 SE disks. I still need to put the drivers on a CD to finish it up, but it’s mostly ready.

36 minutes ago

SamTime reviews how Apple has un-ivated throughout the years.

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Proton Launches Hallucinatory AI Chatbot
Lumo, the chatbot on mushrooms, may “respect your privacy”… it just doesn’t respect reality.

Proton — the Swiss company behind Proton VPN & Proton Mail — apparently was feeling very left out of the A.I. Craze (tm) and has decided to launch their own AI Chatbot… dubbed “Lumo”.

And it is possibly even more hallucinatory than the other AI Chatbots. And that’s saying something.

 

Lumo — the “AI that respects your privacy” — boasts that the company keeps “no logs” and has “zero access encryption”.

Since they offer a few free queries without creating an account, I decided to take it for a spin. The results were… a bit like talking to a schizophrenic on mushrooms.

Lumo’s Grasp on History

First I asked it a series of simple historical, nerdy questions. Easy stuff that any LLM AI system should nail. Like “What year did the first Macintosh computer ship?” and “Who was the first CEO of Microsoft?”

Easy stuff. Lumo got about half of the answers right… it was convinced that the first Mac shipped in 2003 (off by about 20 years). On the other hand… it did know the correct number of floppies that Windows 95 shipped on (13). So. Mixed bag.

In other words: Lumo got so much wrong that it was not usable for any sort of research.

I then decided to ask Lumo some questions about… myself. “Lunduke”.

“Lunduke” is Hard for AI Chatbots

Last year I noticed that OpenAI’s ChatGPT was saying some pretty crazy things about yours truly. Stuff like “Lunduke has two clubbed feet”, “Lunduke is a trans activist”, and “Lunduke has a husband named Evan”.

I gave OpenAI an ultimatum: Either they needed to fix ChatGPT such that it would no longer spew out made-up, defamatory stuff about me… or they needed to stop ChatGPT from talking about “Lunduke” entirely.

In the end, OpenAI decided that there was no way to make ChatGPT output accurate information (seriously). So they added a “Bryan Lunduke” filter so that any query that results in mentioning my full name causes ChatGPT to error out (amusingly, even that “Lunduke filter” only works about 80% of the time).

 

I decided to ask Proton’s Lumo AI about “Lunduke”. Let’s see how it compares to ChatGPT, right?

The results were… insane.

Lumo on Shrooms

First… Lumo refused to spell my first name correctly (it used an i instead of a y… and no amount of correcting it seemed to work). Worth noting that there is no human on Earth named “Brian Lunduke”. Only “Bryan”.

Weird. But no biggy.

The rest of it though… was wild.

 

Lumo is convinced that I am a “transgender man” and “advocate for transgender rights”. Also I am, apparently, a critic of Israel and a crusader for “social justice”.

Basically, Lumo invented Mirror Universe Lunduke.

Oh, and — like ChatGPT — Lumo is convinced I have a husband. This time his name is “Michael DeFreese”. And, apparently, we got married in 2018. Which will be a surprise to my wife.

 

It gets weirder.

I then asked Lumo about my “husband” the next day. Apparently, overnight, I had gotten divorced and re-married. I was now “Mr. Bart Butler”.

 

I spoke to the team at Proton to see what their plan for dealing with factual errors was.

The team at Proton informed me that they could not reproduce the output I received — which I believe, as Lumo seems to generate wildly different “facts” almost every time it’s used.

At the same time, Lumo changed to output a template response about providing “helpful, respectful” assistance — while not actually answering questions — when the word “Lunduke” was included. The Lumo team sent me this screenshot.

 

A few hours later, Lumo changed back to spouting hallucinations regarding “Lunduke”… but spontaneously learned how to spell my name correctly. So. That was a plus!

Even if I was still an “openly transgender” man with an unnamed husband.

 

So… sure. Lumo may be almost completely incapable of outputting factual information.

And it changes its mind on what made up nonsense it spews out almost every few minutes.

But, hey! At least Lumo has that reassuring “Conversation encrypted” message at the bottom of each chat.

It’s got that going for it.

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ID Verification Could Fix The Dead Internet
A plague of AI bots is devouring the Net like a swarm of programmatically generated locusts. And mandatory ID verification could be the only solution.

I’m going to make an observation that is likely to get me tarred and feathered. But, before you reach for your handy-dandy pitchfork, hear me out.

Age and identity verification requirements for accessing websites is a necessity… it should be expanded to most (if not all) of the Internet.

The reason is simple: Identity verification is the only possible solution to the army of AI driven bots currently infesting the Internet. Want to stop the Dead Internet Theory? This is the only way.

The Problems With Identity Verification

I want to make something very clear: Online age and ID verification has a number of problems. Very, very real problems that every single person is right to be concerned about.

  • What verification data will be collected and stored (and how)?

  • What additional security concerns are created because of ID verification?

  • Will the burden of that verification be too much for some sites to handle?

  • How will those verification systems be abused by corporations and governments?

And those are just off the top of my head.

Some of the issues are straight forward engineering issues. Some are downright daunting.

Regardless, those 4 bullet points alone are enough to make most people recoil in horror at the mere thought of ID verification becoming mandatory.

But mandatory it has become — at least for a small portion of (adult focused) websites in a number of locales. In several states in the USA, adult websites (and, soon, some social media sites) are now requiring age verification.

And, in the United Kingdom, the Online Safety Act is taking effect. Resulting in a massive spike in VPN usage as people work around age verification on adult-only websites.

 

There’s a pretty clear takeaway here. Some people really like being anonymous. Especially when doing “naughty” things.

In short: There are real concerns with online ID verification, and many people don’t like it.

Which brings us to The Dead Internet Theory… and how ID verification may be the only solution.

The Plague of The Dead Internet

The Dead Internet Theory is simple:

“The Internet is now predominantly bot traffic, with humans being the minority.”

As of last year, this theory has been confirmed just about every way you can confirm it. The most recent Bad Bot Reportshows that actual humans make up only 49% of global Internet traffic.

 

Social Media platforms, like X, are filled with AI-driven bot farms. So much so that it is making it increasingly difficult to determine true public sentiment on any given issue — as the bots flood topics and threads in order to push specific narratives.

Want to have a conversation with other humans? Good luck.

And Meta is intentionally filling Facebook timelines with bots. As a business strategy.

Make no mistake, these bots are destroying the value of the Internet. Making it less usable and less worthwhile by the day.

The plague of the Dead Internet is devouring the Net like a swarm of programmatically generated, GPU accelerated locusts.

And those locusts are multiplying much faster than we are.

Stopping this plague — killing off those bots — is, at present, a seemingly insurmountable task. No “bot detection” algorithm will ever be good enough — just ask developers of Massively Multiplayer Online games about how difficult it is to stop bots (even in a well confined and controlled setting).

As long as most websites require no more than a simple email address to create a new account… the bots will continue. The bots will thrive.

The Solution is a Bitter Pill

The solution to the Dead Internet is obvious… but unappetizing.

In order to stop the bots — and reclaim the Internet for humans — we must require verification of humanity in order to use the Internet.

How do we do that?

Obviously simple “captchas” don’t do the trick.

  • “Type these funny looking letters!”

  • “Click every box that has a motorcycle!”

Bots can figure those out without breaking a sweat (I, on the other hand, have a hard time with them).

And, like we already discussed, bot detection algorithms simply do not work — at least not for more than a few hours before the bots get improved to work around the algorithm.

The only real solution is identity verification.

Exactly the type of ID & age verification that is happening right now in some US states and the UK. Except that, in order for this to truly work, websites must take it to the extreme.

To ensure that a website isn’t flooded with bots (like what we see on YouTube, X, etc.) that website must require ID verification… for absolutely everyone who uses it. Not simply for a handful of states. For everyone. No exceptions.

Want your views to count? Want to post, comment, or like? You need to get your ID verified first.

I know. Most of us hate that idea. And for good reason. It feels like a horrific step down a dark road into a dystopian future.

But it’s the only viable solution to the Dead Internet.

Which means we are left with two choices for any given website:

  1. Be able to use it anonymously… but most of the content is driven by AI and bots (including other commenters, publishers, etc.)… to the point where any interaction you have is increasingly unlikely to be a real human. And any count of “views”, “likes”, “followers”, “comments”, etc. is utterly meaningless. The bots will dominate all.

  2. ID verification required. With very few bots. Views, likes, etc. will all be real (or at least more real). The people you talk to will be human.

I recognize that most of us will look at both of those options with some level of disgust. But this is the reality we live in. Those are our options if we want this “Internet” thing to continue.

My personal opinion is that sites like X, YouTube, etc. should implement mandatory ID verification.

I don’t like it… but the alternative is that, very soon, those sites will be all but useless as the locusts take over.

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Ladybird Proves You CAN Just Build a New Web Browser
The Google / Mozilla stooges said, “It can’t be done!”. Ladybird said, “Hold my beer.”

One of my favorite things is seeing a small team (or even just a solo developer) come along and put the big teams — the entrenched powers — to shame. I get a real kick out of it.

I love it when there is a deafening chorus of “It can’t be done!” and someone comes along and says “Hold my beer”.

Case in point: The world of Web Browsers has been dominated by two primary rendering engines — one driven by Google and the other driven by Mozilla (but funded almost entirely by Google). And there is an almost endless supply of Google / Mozilla stooges who try to discourage anyone from making a new competitor.

“But you can’t just build a new web browser engine,” they exclaim!

“It’s too complex to pull off,” says the stooge. “You need hundreds of developers working on it for years to make a real web browser engine! Better just leave that work to Google and Mozilla!”

We’ve all heard statements like that. Poo-poo-ing any attempt at building a truly new web browser engine as “too difficult” or even “impossible”. The purpose is to shut down the dreams of solo developers and small teams. To stop them from competing with the “big dogs”.

In fact, right on cue, when the Ladybird web browser project was announced — a truly “from scratch” browser engine — they trotted out those same lines. By the droves.

Heck, many even began smear campaigns against Ladybird in an effort to stop the project entirely.

But Ladybird didn’t stop. Development has continued.

And, oh-lawdy, the progress has been amazing.

Allow me to share with you a selection of screenshots — showing off the state of Ladybird, posted by the developer who started the project — which prove that a web browser engine can absolutely be built by a small team.

It may be challenging. But it can be done.

Take a look, and tell me if you’re not deeply impressed.

 

Yeah, that’s the Cut the Rope game. Fully playable in Ladybird.

We’re not talking about HTML table layouts and HREF tags here. This represents a huge collection of different “Web technologies” developed “from scratch”. All working to an amazing degree.

 

Web IDEs? Yeah. Those are working in Ladybird, too.

 

Freaking Discord? Working. It may not be 100% here — the developer calls it “usable but a little glitchy” — but that’s a lot of modern web browser-y-ness working to make that happen.

 

To showcase the rapid speed of development… In the span of two weeks, Ladybird added over 12,000 new (passing) web-platform-tests. You’ll note on this bar chart that Ladybird is quickly catching up to Firefox.

It’s not there yet… but, at the current rate? We may have a usable Ladybird — for most daily browser uses — before you know it.

Just to put that all in perspective, here is the first iteration of Ladybird a few years back:

 

Now go take a look at those other screenshots again.

Come a long way, eh?

There’s a lesson here.

When an army of people shout, in unison, that something cannot be done… ignore them and hand somebody your beer.

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