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.
