Last month, we learned that The Linux Foundation has continued to decrease their yearly spending on Linux -- down to just 2% in 2023.  With spending on non-Linux project skyrocketing.

But the question is... why?  Why is a foundation created primarily to support Linux -- and with "Linux" as the key part of it's name -- clearly moving away from Linux?

To help solve that question, let's look at the people who make the decisions at The Linux Foundation: The Board Members.

Who are the members of The Linux Foundation Board of Directors?

The majority of Board Member seats at The Linux Foundation are purchased by companies -- If a company pays enough, they get a seat on the board.  A pretty simple, and lucrative, arrangement.  One that has resulted in The Linux Foundation bringing in roughly a quarter of a Billion dollars in 2023.

Interesting side note: Until 2016, The Linux Foundation had two Board Member seats which were elected by the individual members (including the average Linux enthusiasts who donated to The Linux Foundation).  These were the "Community Representation" seats.  But, in 2016, those were removed entirely. -- making all Board seats now only held by corporations.

There are, within the foundation, 24 seats on the Board -- representing 17 distinct companies (some companies have multiple seats).

Microsoft, Meta, Sony, Oracle, Samsung... lots of big names in here.

I wonder... how many of those companies have violated the GPL?

Linux uses the GPL, right?  It would be interesting to see which of these companies -- controlling The Linux Foundation -- respect the license that Linux, itself, uses.  While that wouldn't paint the whole picture... it would certainly be quite... telling.

So, The Lunduke Journal dug deep and checked out all of these companies -- to see which of them are violators of the GPL.

The Results: It's not good

After an exhaustive round of research, we now know -- exactly -- which of the companies controlling The Linux Foundation have violated the GPL.  And we've outlined every single one below.  Lawsuits, complaints... the works.  And, as the kids say, "we bring the receipts."

But first, ask yourself: What percentage of the Linux Foundation Board consists of companies which knowingly violate the GPL?

What would be a reasonable percentage?  It should be small, right?  Maybe between 0% and 10%?

Well.  It's not.  It's a very, very big number.

Ridiculously big.

Over the last day, two subscriber-only exclusives have been published to Lunduke.Locals.com:

• Article: 70% of companies on the Linux Foundation Board are GPL violators.

• Video: Untitled Nerdy Chat Show - DistroTube, & Brodie Robertson - Jan 10, 2024

And, in the coming days, you’ll be seeing more articles and shows — across all three of The Lunduke Journal sites — that will be exclusively for subscribers.

Including the beginning of a series of articles on Microsoft — including leaks from Microsoft whistleblowers — over at ConservativeNerds.Locals.com. Yeah. That’s gonna be nuts.

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-Lunduke

Sometimes, a joke is so utterly ridiculous... that it becomes believable.

And sometimes -- sometimes -- that believably ridiculous joke gets repeated so often that the mass populace begins to accept it as fact.

Such is the case of "The C++ Mascot".

The story, as written on The Uncyclopedia (a satire website), is thus:

And here is the image of Keith, the "C++ Mascot":

Obviously a joke, right?  No sane person would ever take this seriously... right?

Turns out that this joke has been repeated often enough that it has begun to be believed by many.

Take a few minutes, on any major social media platform (from Twitter to Reddit), and do a few searches -- you will quickly find a pile of posts from people who appear (without irony or tongue-in-cheek-ness) to truly believe "Keith" is the C++ mascot.

Now, before we continue I need to make two statements:

1. Explaining jokes is one of the worst things a human can do.  Never explain jokes.
2. People believing that a made up bit of satire is, in fact, true... simply makes that satire even better.  It is glorious.

That said... there are several instances where jokes -- in the computing world -- have been repeated so often that people have begun to accept them as truth.  As a verified, factual part of computing history.

One great example is the mythical story of "The first computer bug" -- that the term "bug" was named after an actual moth that flew into a computer.  A joke story which, despite being disproven, remains firmly entrenched as a "fact" in the minds of computer enthusiasts and journalists everywhere.

So, in an attempt to get ahead of yet another joke becoming an accepted "fact" in computer history, The Lunduke Journal is here to set the record straight.  Begrudgingly.

Keith is not the C++ mascot

That diseased rat?

He's not the C++ mascot.

In fact, C++ has no mascot at all.

Diseased or otherwise.

Richard Stallman did not draw Keith

And that line where the C++ mascot was "drawn by Richard Stallman"?

That's not true either.  Funny, to be sure.  But not true.

Just to make sure -- because, hey, maybe Stallman actually did draw it, right?  Who knows! -- I reached out to Richard and asked him directly.

This is, word for word, what he told The Lunduke Journal:

"That is incorrect -- it was not drawn by me.  (I would be unable to draw that; I am not very good at drawing.)

I have a low opinion of C++, but I don't hate it.

 

Dr Richard Stallman"

Does Stallman like C++?  No.  No, he does not.

But he did not draw the diseased rat.

I know.  I just ruined the joke.

Trust me, I feel bad about being that guy.  The guy that reads a great bit of satire and proceeds to hop on the Internet to tell folks, "Well, actually, that is factually incorrect."

Man.  That guy is annoying.

But, in this case, it had to be done.  Too many people were believing it.  This diseased rat was beginning to reach a point of factual acceptance by a large number of nerds.

Before long, it would become as widely accepted as that story about the first computer bug -- and the true history of computing would continue to erode ever further.

Sure.  The notion of people -- years from now -- reading how "Keith, the diseased rat drawn by Richard Stallman is the mascot for C++" in their textbooks... well... that's just funny.  One heck of a solid joke.

But the Computer Historian in me just can't let that happen.

So I'm here.  To be the party pooper.