Linux Foundation quietly scraps individual memberships The Linux Foundation has quietly amended its bylaws so that individual members, now called "supporters", no longer have the right to elect board members. The Linux Foundation is a non-profit association which sponsors those developing the Linux kernel, including Linus Torvalds, and runs various collaborative projects to set …
Looks like a step in the wrong direction for the many individuals who dedicate their time and effort in continuing to develop Linux; the very people who aught to have a say in the direction of the OS. Somewhat worrying if the corporations are going to dictate direction as it will likely be to the benefit of their own pockets rather than the end users.
I'm really tired of listing to people whine about systemd.
Systemd (at least in Debian's case) was voted on by the maintainers with all of the pros and cons spelled out on publicly available web pages. The resulting flame fest happened close to a year after the decision was already made and involved trolls misrepresenting it's design and posts of fake bugs.
In fact, this is the second time I've gone to research something for myself only to find out that most of the things said about it in the forums were actually false (Wayland being the other)
The reality is that it is vastly better than what was there before and it has allowed me to get things working much faster in cases where the boot sequence is complicated (iSCSI Gluster etc) The result is a more maintainable system that as a side benefit happens to boot faster.
We get it. You like systemd. Buy why should it be mandatory - and in effect, it is - instead of optional? The whole point of the Unix philosophy was "do one thing and do it well", so that individual components you don't like can be swapped out. Systemd - and the massively REL-influenced projects like Gnome that that have decided to depend on it - remove choice.
Do you also think Microsoft was correct in telling it's users to go fuck themselves by removing the Start Menu, adding in Start Button, and then creating Windows 10 which creates a horror in place of a working start menu, doesn't let you fully turn off spying and removes your ability to control your updates? If so, why would anyone use Linux instead of Microsoft if both are to be removers of choice? If you don't agree with Microsoft's approach, why do you disagree with them and not with moves like systemd?
The removal of choice from administrators or end users is never a good thing. Nor is committing to a path that will get you to that "choiceless" future a piece at a time.
"We get it. You like systemd. Buy why should it be mandatory - and in effect, it is - instead of optional? The whole point of the Unix philosophy was "do one thing and do it well", so that individual components you don't like can be swapped out. Systemd - and the massively REL-influenced projects like Gnome that that have decided to depend on it - remove choice."
Gnome has no such dependency. In fact, they had to change their plans because the logind replacement just wasn't ready and they didn't want to lose support for non systemd systems such as FreeBSD. Do a quick search on Google for "Gnome systemd dependency" and you can see their thoughts for yourself.
Gnome was always one of the worst offenders for dependency bloat. If they dropped systemd it must be because it *really* sucks, not because they found their missing engineering sense under the sofa cushion. Those guys are software sophists through and through. They should just throw in the towel and go work for Apple.
"We get it. You like systemd. Buy why should it be mandatory - and in effect, it is - instead of optional?"
Except for the fact that in the vast majority of Linux distros systemd IS opinional. Please do not conflate "default" with "mandatory". Yes, there are a few distros, RHEL derivatives for example, that it's not so optional. Debian, Arch, and countless others simply use it by default while others don't use it at all.
In the case of Debian Jessie, you can replace systemd with SysV in less than 5 minutes and 1 reboot.
I'd probably have stumped the $99 If I'd known that such a thing existed, but cutting them off feels a little more ICAAN then FSF. Corporate interests(albiet many open source companies) already made up the majority of the foundations voting and political clout before this. I want to know the reasons this change was made, as a matter of public interest.
If they want to lock out the little guy someone could always fill out a couple of forms and charter "Sticking up for the Littleguy, LLC" and "Suprise! I can vote too, INC"
Not to happy that all of the corp membership benefits and information are buried in the Bylaws either. C- grade on transparency.
Silver membership is 5000 for 100 members, so with overhead it would be about 30% less then than the 99/year individual membership, with one shared vote, but slightly broader voting rights.
Since there is an open Platinum slot, if you can get enough bodies to float $500,000 a year you get a guaranteed seat. But that would take at least 10,000 people to get to half the seats that were previously elected by individual members?
No surprises here.
Along with RH attempting to dominate and 'unify' linux this is just another step on the road to a binary blob alternative to M$.
The days of 'amateur' linux and multiple distros are nigh.
https://fosdem.org/2016/schedule/event/distros_rethinking/
"Well, how about they stop providing a distribution."
The sales machine is in full swing and the devs are being outwitted by those 'dumb schmucks' in marketing.
Welcome to the brave new world....
.. that all of this happened after that much heralded event.
It got what it wanted - now it's a corporate game. NOW will you listen that they're not to be trusted?
I clicked on "Donate" and this line caught my attention:
You can make a donation to support the overall efforts of the Linux Foundation. All donations can be made using a credit card, PayPal account or check. Please note that donations are not tax deductible.
Not tax deductible? So this is a 'for profit" foundation? In the same category as political donations and donations to the NRA-ILA.....
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