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Our Blogs Open Sauce - A GNU perspective Whither the Linux Foundation?
Our Blogs Open Sauce - A GNU perspective Whither the Linux Foundation? | Whither the Linux Foundation? |
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| by Sam Varghese | |
| Tuesday, 22 April 2008 | |
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Page 3 of 3 When he talks about "sophisticated users" Zemlin has one thing in mind: industry and its use of big iron. Barr wrote that he had no problem with closed sessions between industry and developers; I concur, but only if there is some kind of open session later so that the media can know what was going on - that's the only way the average Linux user will get to know. We don't want to hear X or Y shouting at each other but we do need to know the nature of the transaction in civilised language - that is, if the Linux kernel developers and the Foundation are interested in keeping the average Linux user informed and in the picture. Else, why not close the summit to the media in toto? For some time now, the Foundation has been trying to generate its own coverage. There were some pitiful attempts by Zemlin earlier this year to pass around interviews which he had done with Foundation employees. But he came unstuck when he interviewed Novell chief Ron Hovsepian and never raised the question of that company's deal with Microsoft. If anything could have unmasked an interview as being bogus, this was it. The Foundation has also tried to co-opt some tech writers into its ranks for the summit by getting them to chair one session on the first day. Of course, no journalist would ever be able to report about a summit in which he or she was involved in this manner. However, some writers - ZDNet's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, for one - seemed to be thrilled to be the equivalent of the embedded reporter, a technique practised with success by the American army when George Bush's US of A illegally invaded Iraq. Like a little boy at a birthday party, Vaughan-Nichols gushed : "Everyone at this invitation-only event is someone who matters if you're in the Linux community: lawyers and developers, CEOs and print driver experts." You get the idea, I'm sure. The best coverage of the one day that was open to the media came from Charles Babcock of Information Week; one of the more interesting aspects that he touched on was the approach of vendors who wanted to get a patch into the official kernel. The whole exercise tells me one thing: this is taking Linux away from its roots. The whole point is to rapidly introduce changes into the kernel, changes which the corporates want, changes for which they pay, both by being members of this Foundation and also by employing developers. In Urdu, we have a phrase "paisa wasool." It broadly means something which is worth the money. I won't insult your intelligence by explaining further.
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