Linux Foundation
 The Linux Foundation Platinum members (August 2020) | |
| Formation | 2000 |
|---|---|
| Type | 501(c)(6) organization |
| Purpose | "Build sustainable ecosystems around open source projects to accelerate technology development and commercial adoption." |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, USA |
Membership | 1,000+ corporate members |
Key people |
|
Revenue | 96,582,653 (2018)[1] $81,616,265 (2017)[2] |
| Expenses | $97,314,914 (2018) |
Employees | 160+ |
| Website | www.linuxfoundation.org |
The Linux Foundation is a technology consortium controlled by a collection or large multinational technology corporations. The Linux foundation is not a promoter of free software. It is, rather, focused on the "open source" aspects of free software in the ways it can be used to further corporate interests and profitability.
The Linux Foundation is, unlikely the Free Software Foundation, not advocating the use of Linux or free software in general internally or externally. Most of the foundations employees use Apple products running the proprietary macOS and iOS operating systems.
The Linux foundation sponsors a hand-full of kernel but it does not do any actual software development itself. The Linux foundation is much more concerned with being "Deeply Committed to Diversity and Inclusiveness"[3] and writing "Code of Conduct" documents placing restrictions on those who actually write code[4].
The Linux foundation does not sponsor Linux development outside of the Linux kernel community. Big free software projects like KDE, XFCE, LibreOffice and GNOME are neither participants of or beneficiaries of the Linux foundation.
Platinum Members[edit]
The Linux Foundation is in practice owned and controlled by:
Technical Advisory Board[edit]
The people serving on the Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board are:
| Laura Abbott | IBM/Red Hat |
| Christian Brauner | Canonical Ltd (Ubuntu) |
| Kees Cook | |
| Jonathan Corbet | LWN journalist |
| Greg Kroah-Hartman | Actual Linux Kernel developer |
| Sasha Levin | Microsoft |
| Chris Mason | |
| Dan Williams | Intel |
| Steven Rostedt | VmWare |
| Ted Ts’o |
By The Numbers[edit]
The Linux Foundation had a total revenue of $96,582,653 in 2018 (numbers from 2019 are not yet available as of October 2020).
- $8,446,432 was spent on "Compensation of current officers, directors,trustees, and key employees".
- $25,297,240 was spent on "Other salaries and wages"
- $2,497,117 went to "Pension plan accruals and contributions"
- $3,138,131 was spent on "Other employee benefits".
- $1,814,092 went to "Payroll taxes "
- $18,569,274 dissappered to "Other" "Fees for services".
- $3,607,630 was spent on "Travel"
- 24,389,248 was spent on "Conferences, conventions, and meetings".
- $1,019,074 went to "other" expenses.
The Linux Foundation spent a total of $97,314,914 in 2018 (732,261 more than it's revenue that year).
Individual Donations[edit]
The Linux foundation is almost exclusively funded (and controlled) by large multi-national corporations. They do accept donations from individuals. These donations do not go towards software development; they are, instead, used for "programs and resources that support growing diverse and inclusive communities".
Footnotes[edit]
Links[edit]
The Linux Foundation has a website at linuxfoundation.org.
The Techrights website has a huge archive filled with investigative and mostly critical articles they've written about the Linux Foundation at techrights.org/ wiki/index.php/Linux_Foundation.
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