Is the Linux Foundation allergic to the media?

Sam Varghese
Friday, 17 October 2008 06:05

Opinion and Analysis

Zemlin's second reason held a little more water. "Second, most of the end user guests requested that there be no press.  They would rather not watch everything they say out of concern that it might show up in a news article or blog post.  Sometimes people want to have private meetings.  I guess that is just the reality of the world."

Once again, this shows that the Foundation is naive when it comes to handling the media. I'm not a conference junkie and very rarely do I bother to attend one. But when I do, I am always aware that there are times when one has to watch and not report.

At the last conference I attended, the organisers requested me not to report on two talks - because it would cause problems for the speakers. I had no problem in cooperating with this request once the situation was explained and I verified that there were genuine reasons behind the request.

One also understands that there are closed sessions at any conference. That is fine, provided that someone who can be trusted - and that's the nub of dealing with the media - provides an account of what went on behind closed doors. Neither I nor any other reporter is the least bit interested in private talks - not unless it has some relevance to the wider FOSS community.

Zemlin had a bit more to say in response to my query: "On a positive note, the Linux Foundation NEVER advocates that people work on open source projects outside of established and open processes such as LKML or other upstream mailing lists. Our meeting was not a skunk works project for Linux, but a way to encourage sophisticated in house (non-vendor) developers to participate in the Linux development process. As you know, over 60 percent of software is written inside of firms and this is a huge untapped resource of creativity that everyone would love to see more actively participate in mainline open source development process."

I'm a bit perplexed as to why ordinary people who use GNU/Linux are not considered end-users. And I'm even more perplexed by the use of the word "sophisticated" to refer only to the people who were invited to this summit.

If the Foundation thinks that it can use the same methods to handle the media as big corporations do, the same methods that were employed in Soviet Russia, then it is meandering down the wrong path. Linux did not come to this stage of its evolution by secrecy and spin - there has always been a spirit of openness and willingness to accept that while it does have its warts, everyone will know exactly what those warts are.

Or in other words, Linus Torvalds may be a bastard, but he's our bastard. And there's a considerable amount of trust that the entire FOSS community has in this man.

But it looks like some of the criticism is hitting home. Zemlin says the next collaboration summit will be open to the media. "On an even better note, we would love to have you and other members of the press join us at our Collaboration Summit in April in San Francisco and our Linuxcon event in September 2009 in Portland."

A lack of openness in business dealings is the main reason why Wall Street has gone to the wall (pun intended). Secrecy and so-called sophistication did not serve financial institutions well. One doubts that they will do the Linux Foundation any good.