if you're watching the world of Open
Source right now you are seeing two
things occurring simultaneously that
should not be happening together two
extreme things that absolutely Boggle
the mind how they could coexist
simultaneously the first is
unprecedented levels of success
absolutely amazing staggering and
heartwarming in some cases levels of
sucess ESS in the open source ecosystem
in terms of pure numbers of install
bases I mean just look at Linux Linux
installed on over 56 million desktop or
laptop PCS as of the last year that's
huge numbers and sure that may not be 50
plus% of the market share that may not
even be 5% of the market share of of
desktop and laptop PCS but it's a big
number and it's bigger than it ever was
before those are huge huge numbers in
terms of growth and what's more that's
only a tiny fraction of what you see on
servers on mobile devices on cloud
devices and containers it's it's crazy
the sheer install base is nuts and then
you break into the monetary side of
things and holy smokes look look at
things like the Linux Foundation the
Linux Foundation is bringing in what is
this exactly here I'm looking at the one
of the more recent Lund du Journal
articles covering it um total revenues
in
2022 of a quarter of a billion dollars
now this is a foundation mind you this
is the Linux Foundation this isn't so
giant for-profit Corporation this is
this is a foundation it's a quarter of
a billion dollar that's a that's a
massive amount of money and it's not a
loan I I mean if you if you go across
the entirety of Open Source and open
content include things like wikip media
wikip media brings in what is it here
it's
it's 165 million in a year I mean huge
numbers huge huge numbers Firefox uh the
makers of Firefox Modzilla bring in what
is it here 600 million uh let's see if I
get this right here uh they have they
include let's see 400 million in cash um
Revenue in
2021 was uh just over
600 million over half a billion dollar
for the makers of an open-source web
browser it's it's crazy it's crazy and
yet while that same financial success
and install based success is happening
and it's massive we are at the same time
seeing
what appears to be an a a
direct purposeful effort to
destroy to
self-destruct open- Source software from
within so I would like to pose a few
questions here and we're going to go
through some some examples here so we
can try to answer these but here's a few
questions first is the world of
open-source software destroying itself
right is it
self-destructing let's answer that
question first before we move on to
everything else because if it's not well
then this whole conversation is
meaningless but if the answer is yes and
I'm just gon to just going to do a
little spoiler here yeah it is but if
the answer is yes then we have to ask
the question
why why is open- Source software
self-destructing for what purpose is it
purposeful is it accidental is it some
sort of a of an offshoot of other
problems if it is purposeful what is the
purpose what could the purpose possibly
be to to destroy something that is truly
achieving unimaginable levels of success
just from just 10 years ago I mean it's
off the charts why destroy
it and and how exactly is that happening
now and once we answer all of that I
think a really reasonable question to
ask here is what if anything can be done
to stop it what if anything can be done
to stop this self-destruction that we're
seeing here so I'm going to I'm going to
walk through a couple of examples here
we don't have time to go through all of
them but I'm just going to go through a
smattering of some of the luk journal
articles that cover some of this so that
we can get a taste for how this
self-destruction is occurring and maybe
think of ways we can actually stop this
uh the first
because this goes all over the map here
this this really goes all over the map
the first I thing I would like to point
out is the open source initiative
because we're talking about the
destruction of Open Source software so
why not start with the open- source
initiative itself now the open source
initiative is interesting because it
doesn't really make anything it doesn't
make any software what it really does is
it blesses licenses it says yes I bless
you my son are a good open-source
software license they are the keeper of
what is known as the open-source
definition the definition of what
opsource software is now what's
fascinating about that is this
definition of an open-source software
license has more or less existed roughly
the same as has as how the Creator Bruce
Pern created it many many years
ago what's fascinating is none of the
founders of the open source initiative
are currently allowed to have
involvement in the open source
initiative BR both Bruce paren and Bruce
parin and Eric Raymond were banned from
even joining like mailing lists it
ridiculous like they're not allowed to
talk they're not allowed to open their
mouths in anything related to the open
source initiative it's it's wild so this
organization really isn't what it once
was but one thing that's happening there
that that I find truly peculiar is in an
attempt to um maybe cash in on
artificial intelligence maybe that's
what's going on maybe in an attempt to
stay relevant in an everchanging
technological landscape the open source
initiative has decided to create the
open- source artificial intelligence
definition essentially what sort of
licenses what set of licenses would an
artificial intelligence and a large
language model type system have to
conform to in order to be considered
open source and what's truly fascinating
about it is that it is not at all
open it truly isn't like for an AI model
in order to be open in order to to
functionally be able to replicate how a
an AI system would behave you have to
replicate the entirety of the data used
to train it that's that's part of the
system system but the the open- source
initiative funded in large part by some
very large corporations who have
invested interest in closed Source AI
systems H have decided to say that you
can have an open source AI model that is
not at all open it's it's a fascinating
thing so from this example what can we
learn from that well we could say big
companies coming in with a stated agenda
are saying flat out hey
hey we we want to we want to adjust what
defines open source so they're they're
pushing their agenda big billion dooll
corporations are pushing an agenda okay
does that does that apply across the
board though let's let's look at another
example here let's look at Nick OS for a
moment Nick's OS is interesting because
there's really two aspects two major
aspects to this project the first is
that it's a l distribution a very
popular one and the second is that it's
it's kind of a a packaging system and
package format right and it's it's
gained incredible popularity for for
very good reasons it has some very very
interesting technical aspects to it and
it has almost completely imploded on
itself the significant organizers and
board members and moderation team
members have have organized together and
committed what they declared to be a
Purge their word of quote Nazi
contributors right um now were those
people that they were purging actual
Nazis no no they weren't um instead what
it really turned out to be was there
were some people that were Centrist or
right leaning and the people who were
hard hard hard extremist left leaning um
declared all of them Nazis and kicked
them out of the project or banned them
from the project and actually forced out
the founder of the project itself the
founder of Nix OS is not part of Nix OS
anymore he was K he was he he abdicated
by force you know what I'm saying like
it wasn't it wasn't like technically he
was banned uh he was not banned wink
wink right he was he was he was
abdicating right and this sort of thing
seems to happen a bit so now here's an
example where yes the organization Nix
OS has a has a foundation behind it and
they do receive money from corporations
but that doesn't seem to be behind their
self-destruction this self-destruction
seems to be more coming from uh an
ideological and political wave and we
see a lot of that happening just all
over the place um and it doesn't really
stop there though a case in point
Modzilla now matzilla makes a ton of
money because of Firefox I mean half a
billion dollars per year or more because
of Firefox sure they have a lot of other
projects they're working on in fact
they're putting all of their eggs in the
future into the AI basket which is weird
but they seem to be imploding from very
different directions uh first and
foremost there has there was recently a
sort of uh I kind of dubbed it A Game of
Thrones style power struggle but what
really happened was individuals on the
board of directors of Mozilla came in
and took advantage of a moment when the
person who was about to assume the CEO
role was out sick and they took that
moment to OU that person to install a
new CEO voted on by the board making
sure that person that new CEO was a
board member and then be to they began
to change the the organization and
Company radically right so then they
started working on turning Mozilla
entirely into an advertising and Aid
driven company now that that may be good
that may be bad but what you see with
that is a distinct move away from
open-source software and internal power
struggles where long-term people
advocating for open source software are
are ousted are tossed out on their keer
now in this case you can find little
hints of political here you can find
hints of of corporate Overlord here but
you also just see an intense level of of
of power struggles of people who are who
are seeking to obtain power and are are
willing to just destroy in order to make
it happen it's it's it's a fascinating
thing that's going on there and it it's
sort of the backdrop of all of this
we're seeing Modzilla
have a really uncertain financial future
because almost all of their current
Revenue comes via a search placement
deal with Google making Google the
default search partner for uh for
Firefox so it just it's just tumultuous
so is there an influence from from Big
corporate entities here abs absolutely
is there a little bit of political stuff
at play Yeah Yeah there really does seem
to be this one kind of goes all over the
map and and it goes on from there python
recently has had a number of very very
strange events occurring with it now
Python's interesting because it's just a
programming language right it's not it's
not an operating system it's not a
high-profile web browser it's simply an
a Very commonly used programming
language I mean pyth in in all of the
the stack Overflow lists of of top
however many programming languages it's
always very high up there I mean it's a
very commonly used language on Linux
desktops and a lot of server systems
it's it's all over the place and they
have a foundation uh the the python
software Foundation um and they they are
starting to get a little strange they
are beginning to ban people for
political reasons from being involved in
Python and in the python software
foundation and so what we're seeing here
is does not appear to be at first glance
anything corporate it doesn't appear to
be anything monetary at all right like
or or doesn't it doesn't even
necessarily appear to be like an outside
power struggle it appears to be very
specifically politically motivated as
though certain individuals who have a
certain level of Power with in the
python software Foundation are not okay
with other people having the wrong
politics and so we see people being
banned entirely
long-term uh since almost the first days
of python contributors being ousted
being suspended uh for just seemingly
madeup reasons it's it's a fascinating
thing that's occurring there and it does
seem to be entirely politically
motivated
now this goes this goes on and on I want
I want to touch on one or two other uh
examples here because I think they they
shed some light into the
overall uh idea of what is really
happening here and the first is gnome
the first is the gnome foundation and if
you've followed excuse me if you've
followed what the luk journal has been
reporting over the last say 6 months or
so you've seen a number of articles on
some strange things that have been
happening within
gome but what's truly fascinating with
all of this is there's not a lot of
money here gnome itself brings in
startlingly little money considering how
popular it is now we we talked uh where
where's those where those numbers again
we talked about uh the 56 million
desktop Linux PCS running out there and
that doesn't even include the server
systems and the server system
by and large are running gnome redhe hat
Enterprise Linux soua Linux uh auntu all
of it is by default gnome now people can
install whatever they want it's Linux
that's just the way of things but the
reality is most of it is gnome gnome is
the desktop environment that is most
commonly used on Linux machines it just
is uh it's not the one I use but it is
the most popular by far by far including
in the corporate world but it has
startlingly little finances those
companies uh red hat and Souza and
abunto canonical all of them that that
that derive so much value from from
gnome really don't invest back into it
so there's not a great deal of corporate
or monetary power struggling going on
here the issues with gnome which we'll
talk a CLE out a couple of them appear
to be entirely individual like personto
person power struggling and political
power struggling uh uh for example gnome
banned a core team member of mangaro
which the person who actually packages
gnome for the mangaro Linux distribution
because he said my name right like like
literally he said my name he linked to
uh some some article or other and uh
that got him banned permanently banned
from from being involved in in Gnome it
it was it's a fascinating fascinating
thing and and huge huge problems they
even went on and made an official policy
where if you say the name lunduke or or
link to luk you you get banned which I I
just want to as an aside thank you once
again to gnome for doing that because
those sorts of things is probably the
best ad advertisement I that could
possibly exist for the luk journal
please please make more rules against
saying the word luk like like you'll
hunt people down and murder them or
something if they say the word luk
please just go extreme with it because
man oh man when you guys made that rule
my the subscription numbers to luk
journal just skyrocketed but beyond my
wildest dream so please keep that up um
but but gnome keeps doing really weird
things
um do I do I have this here yeah like
they came up with this 5-year plan
recently and The Five-Year
Plan was supposed to be what they stated
it was was a five-year road map to
profitability because they were having a
problem they were spending more money
than they were taking in and they just
weren't taking in that much they had to
come up with a way to make more money so
how how are they going to do that well
they came up with a 5-year plan and
their 5-year plan had
no details whatsoever on how they were
going to make money they had no details
on how much money they were going to be
able to get by maybe working with red
hat and canonical and souan and all
these other big companies that were
shipping gnome and making billions on it
in some cases uh but no they didn't
include any of that what they included
was a couple page bullet list of
diversity Equity inclusion and and an
idea that eventually they might make a
PowerPoint presentation to talk about
how gnome is pretty good like it was the
strangest thing it was and this was
supposedly something that had been
worked on for half a
year half a year and had been studied
and they they'd really worked hard on it
and they brought in this new executive
director to build this amazing Five-Year
Plan but it was A Five-Year Plan of
dooming gnome to failure like is really
what it
was and that was a choice that they made
now that when you look at it with such
an emphasis on diversity equity and
inclusion which almost always leads to
financial ruin it's just it's just a
it's just an understanding at this point
whe whether you like diversity Equity
inclusion and all that sort of thing it
almost doesn't matter when you focus
your business around that it really more
often than not leads to financial ruin
and all of the people running gnome they
have to know that right because they
spent half a year working on this so
clearly they would have looked at uh at
other Industries and other other
organizations and Foundations who have
done a similar thing and come to the
conclusion that yes that's that's not a
path to profitability for us let's
either make a different goal or change
our strategy but they didn't they chose
actively to have a strategy of failure
it's it's fascinating and then they
began to have internal turmoil and they
started kicking out board members and
keeping it super secret and they they
did it in secret meetings that they
wouldn't document they refused to
document the votes on kicking out board
members elected board members and they
didn't even tell the people who voted
for that board member that they'd kicked
out that board member that had been
voted on for two months and only then
did they tell them when it was about to
be revealed
publicly it's just this fascinating
amount of personal power struggle and
political power struggle that seems to
be just utterly destroying this project
a project that again is a Cornerstone of
red hat Enterprise of soua Linux
Enterprise of
auntu if if gnome as a software project
fails if it begins to falter all of
these I mean billions of dollars in
yearly Revenue could be somewhat at
stake certainly they'd have to be
changing and and that's a fascinating
thing to me that all of these
corporations would allow that to be
happening when any one of them at any
time could swoop in save the day and
completely take over the project but
they choose not to
why why do they see it self-destructing
why do they see the organizers of this
project eating themselves alive and they
say you know what that's great I love
that I love the destruction thing let's
see more of that why how utterly
peculiar when with pocket change red hat
and IBM could swoop in and with pocket
change completely take over one of the
projects that is the Cornerstone of
billions in Revenue but they
don't to transition to for a moment here
when we
see new open- source projects come out
out and become popular become exciting
get
press there's a certain segment of of
the open- source world that hates that
right that sees that and attacks now I'm
not saying criticizes but attacks a case
in point the ladybird web browser the
ladybird web browser is is an
interesting project in that it has a
significant amount of funding a lot of
momentum towards building
a brand new from scratch web browser
engine and web browser it's a very
worthwhile project considering
everything that's happening at Google
and Mozilla and
Etc but when it began to get significant
funding when it became clear that that
project had a road map to success not a
not a clear Victory not not a not a a
workable beta even but just a road map
to a potential success
when that occurred a certain segment of
the open- source population pounced they
attacked they they came up with crazy
theories about how the developers were
promoting human
slavery which is the weirdest thing I I
could possibly think of it's very
strange we don't like you therefore you
are a human slave trader like what he's
making a web browser I don't think he's
a slave owner they they ACC them of
transphobia and all sorts of other
things and of course this this this
group this uh segment of the open source
world is distinctly very political they
are on the hard political left they are
again those those leftist
extremists but they see something good
happening they see a new successful
thing happening in open source they
attack it and this is this is a common
recurring thing uh Nick's OS was seeing
increased success so what happened
hardcore leftist extremists ex attacked
it so that it couldn't be as
successful this kind of goes on and on
um uh Elementary OS Elementary OS is an
interesting project in that you'll note
that I have talked about it for years in
fact I I do these yearly Linux sucks
shows where I where I make fun of Slash
love on Linux for a little bit and going
back 10 or more years I've talked about
how Elementary it h was setting itself
up to an interesting level of success
because they were doing something that
was both tried and true and with a new
sheen on it that they were they were
having potential success right they were
having actual employees they got to the
point where I think they had four
employees at its height and yes that's
not a big Mega Corporation but when
we're talking about a small open- source
project moving forward and growing into
something successful that's rather
exciting that's uplifting to see that
sort of thing happening that's a
positive thing as it started to gain in
success its own creators decided to
destroy it and Elementary OS even went
so far as to make declarations as soon
as they started to see that level of
success of being able to have multiple
employees and and having Financial
stability they started attacking people
who used and contributed to Elementary
OS they said flat out they didn't want
people who were right-wing to use
Elementary OS to contribute to
Elementary OS and when they said
right-wing what they really meant was
anyone um anywhere who wasn't extreme
leftist right
centrists leaning right even left
leaning centrists were too right-wing
for Elementary OS and so they started
attacking viciously and saying some
really horrible things and what has
happened well they went from four I
think it was employees to
absolutely like barely one and they're
just kind of falling apart and it
doesn't seem to be going anywhere and
it's faltering and dying see it's it's
this consistent thing with they see
success in an open- source project and
as soon as they see success they begin
to hate and they start taking it down
assah Linux is doing a similar thing um
open Souza is doing a similar thing
where the open soua project was seeing
growth uh full disclosure I used to be
on the open soua board an elected board
member I used to work at soua as a
person in marketing and so I was
responsible for some of that growth and
as the growth was ramping up in terms of
just user base and it was becoming
increasingly
significant they began to attack not
just the people in involved in the
project but the users themselves the
their uh their board members their Su
employees um even their previous Board
of uh uh director chairman of the board
uh came out and said that anyone who had
the wrong political ideas was rotten
flesh he's the word rotten flesh
repeatedly that rotten flesh needed to
be cut out and and they said if you
didn't wave the the transgender and LGBT
flag actively that you were that rotten
flesh and they did a lot of a lot of
things like that and regardless of what
you or I or anyone else thinks of those
political ideas of saying um you must
actively wave and support the banner of
this particular
cause to say if you don't actively
support this nonrelated to this piece of
software cause you're out you're you
shouldn't they even said flat out we
hope you're not welcome anywhere in the
Linux world you are so rotten
flesh that makes it so they they begin
to to destroy that success that they
were having right and again we're seeing
it from a political standpoint right
there's not a there's not a corporate or
financial incentive here this is
harming their the soua bottom line here
and then that's that's fascinating and
we're seeing a similar thing happen um
over on the red hat side of things uh
many of you have seen like the red hat
and IBM leaks where where they are uh
pursuing some distinctly illegal
discrimination in their in their
Employment
Practices and clearly those are going to
end up harming IBM and red hat and and
their bottom line cuz there's lots of
lawsuits that are just spinning up
including like state governments are
suing them and individual employees are
suing them it's just it's going to be
non-stop but they're also Red Hat
employees are actively attacking other
open- source community members right
we're seeing this regularly so it's
there's a the hyperland example uh crops
up for those of you who aren't familiar
essentially a red hat employee decided
that that uh this person did not like um
hyperland and hyper land is a is a
window manager is a is a Linux window
manager that sits on top of Wayland okay
all right is it is it actively used by a
bazillion people nope nope it's gaining
in some popularity and it's quite cool I
I like it um is Red Hat shipping it no
no it's not part of redhead Enterprise
Linux that's not that's that's not like
their default setup they they ship with
gnome they don't ship with hyperland um
okay so why do they have interest in
this and I don't no but what they
decided to do was attack that person and
get the lead developer of that project
banned from a project called free
desktop and free desktop is kind of this
umbrella Foundation that controls things
like Wayland and and and
whatnot
and why would that why would they do
that right it's not for financial
reasons right because there's no there's
no Financial incentive to either support
or attack hyperland because they don't
ship
hyperland but there is political
incentive here in order to try and ban
or ostracize anyone who doesn't in
theory actively support certain politics
and in this particular case um they were
accused of essentially wrong think uh
the developer of hyperland and uh and
and tossed out and tossed out of the
free desktop project by Red Hat
employees and red hat sanctioned it
supported it uh never spoke out against
it they were cool with it but
why a lot of these things continue to be
happening where employees prominent
employees
within significant open- Source
companies attack other people they just
go after them they attack they attack
they attack uh one example that that I
find truly
peculiar system 76 a company that many
of you who have been around the Linux
Journal World for or the lunduke journal
sorry slip I used to write for Linux
Journal magazine now I run luk Journal
but uh many of you who have have
followed my work with the luk journal
for years will recognize system 76 as a
sponsor of the luk journal back when the
luk journal still accepted sponsors I
don't do sponsors anymore I don't allow
any company to pay me money CU they can
influence me and they always tried and I
didn't like it um but system76 is a
company that ships desktops and servers
and laptops preloaded with Linux and and
until recently that was always auntu but
they shifted over to having their own
auntu based Linux distribution that they
call Pop OS and pop OS is not bad it's
not I I mean it has some some distinctly
good qualities to it in fact I I I have
a lot of good things I could say about
popos but they have one individual who
is their uh principal engineer at system
76 who is the man who is really
responsible for poos he's kind of like
the the the poos lead he's the lead
maintainer he's the guy that really runs
the show when it comes to
poos he came out and started attacking
Linux developers just in general like
all Linux konel developers calling them
patronizing pedantic
megalomaniacs and he said quite frankly
that that directly that he doesn't try
to contribute to the Linux kernel
anymore because of that now now maybe
there's political stuff at play there
maybe there's not maybe it's just uh a
working thing maybe it's not maybe he's
100% right maybe he's not but what's
fascinating here is you see individuals
high-profile individuals within opsource
companies going on an attack saying I'm
going to
attack other open- source projects open-
Source companies in this case the very
project upon which they build their
entire business and say that the people
who run that project are patronizing
pedantic
megalomaniacs now you'd think attacking
and saying I will not work with the
people that run the project that your
very business relies upon is a bad
business strategy right but they go with
it and in fact system 76 has fully
supported this individual saying this
and is not taken it back is not telling
him to take it back it's like no that's
fine fascinating now is there is there
anything political about this but you
know what it doesn't look like it I'm
I'm sure we could come up with with some
ways if we twist it to say oh there's
some political thing here but but
realistically what we can say
definitively is it's an
attack on the people people that are
responsible for the software that makes
their business
possible and they're going with it it is
a
self-destructive action now is there a
financial benefit to that action no not
really is there a political motivation
to that action no not really it's just
self-destructive it's just
self-destructive it there there's so
much happening here that is just purely
self
destructive one final example and then I
want to talk about this for a second
here um the Linux uh the internet
archive I know this isn't specifically
open- Source software the internet
archive um has just recently lost one of
their appeals uh they've been they're
getting sued into Oblivion right now
right just utterly sued into Oblivion
they're being sued by Sony and Universal
music group and um uh random house and
penguin Publishers like like they're
being sued and there's just no way
they're going to survive long term but
what's fascinating here is they're
they're pushing kind of an open open uh
uh you know open data open information
creative common stuff is is is readily
commonly pushed on the internet archive
and so that's why I want to mention it
because I think there's there's a
there's something about that's that's
the same as what we're seeing in the
open source
world the internet archive is getting
sued because of specific choices that
they keep making and they keep making
those choices over and over again they
choose to host content which is in
violation of the copyrights of the
copyright holders they choose to do that
and they fight to do that they want to
do that they know they're going to get
sued right they know it they they they
almost they almost encourage themselves
to get
sued and so they're self-destructing
they're going to go out of business
business because they
choose to to do all this and if you want
more details on this because I know
we're going real high level going over
the luk journal l. locals.com to read
through all the details there's there's
a really a lot here to discuss but
they're making that
choice so what I want to say here is
this I me I think we can definitively
say that the world of Open Source
software and open media and open data
and open information in general is
destroying itself or at least least
attempting
to right it looks pretty obvious at
least a significant portion of the open
source world is trying to just destroy
itself so the then the question that
must inevitably follow is why for what
purpose to what end and the reality is I
can't really pinpoint that there are
many examples where political ideologies
come into play and we went through a
number of them here and there's many
many more and I would say that more than
any other
one specific motivating factor political
ideology being extreme leftist political
ideology appears to be a part of those
self-destructive actions right whether
it's Nick's Os or Elementary OS or
what's happening with Souza and open
soua and red hat and so many other
projects the the extreme leftist
political ideologies do tend to be a
part of that but that is not all of it
that just is not all of it there are
examples where it's
just money coming in from corporations
or just a strange hatred of success we
see examples where yeah organizations
that are Achi in certain levels of
success get attacked often times from
within but the attack seems to be
spurred on because they were
successful I I'm going to put out there
a simple
idea a significant portion of the
open-source World loathes
success they see success as an evil
success in in market share of user
install base if money of total employee
count those become an evil whether it's
because it's capitalism or just
successfulness I think there's a large
number of people that intrinsically
begin to hate these open- Source
projects these software projects when
they become
successful and there seems to
be a ven diagram that's almost A Perfect
Circle where those individuals tend to
also be extreme leftist politically so
therefore that's the tool that they use
to attack and they may also just be
attacking things because of political
reasons and yet there are also obvious
examples where where corporations are or
foundations are eating themselves from
the inside out because of the influence
of some
corporations so obviously this is
happening obviously this is happening
and and for those of you who have
watched the world of Open Source
software for many years this is
new open source has always always had
drama always and sometimes it's crazy
drama sometimes it's off the charts wild
drama but what it's never had is a
concerted constant set of examples that
flow out almost weekly of organizations
utterly destroying themselves from the
inside out
out the the luk journal covers these
when they happen to significant uh open
source and Linux and whatnot
organizations because it needs to be
covered but honestly I would like to be
able to cover it a whole lot less but it
happened so regularly that sometimes
it's like okay I'm covering them this
week okay well now next week it's Nix OS
the week after that it's python the week
after that it's open soua oh there's
another lawsuit against Reddit like it
it's just a constant ongoing thing
this is new I've been covering Linux
for 15
years no 18 years no yeah 18 years been
covering Linux professionally for about
18 years now and I can say definitively
this is new if any one of the stories
that we just talked about had happened
in a year uh let's say 15 years ago that
would be a story of the year at the end
of the year when all the journalists
write their wrap up of the five biggest
Linux stories of the last of the last
year that any one of these would make it
but yet almost all of these happened in
the last six to nine months and when we
get to the point of the end of this year
and we write those wrap-ups of the of
the five biggest stories of the year
most of these won't even make it it's
crazy it's absolutely absurd
so it's definitely happening we are
seeing we are witnessing the
self-destruction of Open Source software
and I'm going to say that it appears to
be
purposeful people don't repeatedly do
the same thing over and over again
without purpose because many of the
individuals involved in some of these
things that we've talked about are in
multiple stories uh for for example some
of the individuals in uh The Gnome
stories and the NX OS stories are the
same people oftentimes enacting the same
sorts of policies where it rips the
project apart from the inside out and
yeah sometimes there's political
ideology at play and sometimes there's
not but a lot of times there are and it
does seem to be purposeful so the
question comes what can be done to stop
it and I I think I think realistic Al
and this this I think needs to be a
followup discussion that we have
here we have
to declare it as a bad thing we have to
point at it publish it document the heck
out of it so that when we're looking
back over the last year we can say this
is what happened this is what you said
this is what these people did to this
project this is why they said they did
it to this project and these are the
results ad s right so that when we look
back over the last you know 6 months 9
months 12 months however long we can
point to it and say this is exactly what
happen Sunshine is always the best
disinfectant right so we need to
document it now so far the luk journal
is pretty alone in documenting nine out
of 10 of of these sorts of stories a few
of them get documented here and there in
piddling ways but the luk journal is
pretty much alone in documenting most of
this
so I need to keep doing it it would be
great if we could get more open-source
and just Tech journalists actually
covering these sorts of topics that
would help
substantially but in the meantime that
aside because that's not going to happen
the luk journal needs to continue to
cover it and people need to speak out
right so like for example for example
The Gnome Foundation has banned me right
not not not me joining them but me
existing they they if if you utter my
name linked to me allude to my existence
you're kicked out of the gnome The Gnome
software project entirely it's happened
to tons of people now I I I get I get
emails about it regularly the The Gnome
Foundation if they see you posting in
their Forum a link to a Lund duuk
article or something like that they'll
delete it they delete what you post they
ban you and uh and then I and then I get
an email from the person who gets banned
and they're like what the heck I thought
that was a joke like no it's very real
but what needs to happen is people need
to speak up like this is a problem you
are destroying the project and we have
two paths we can go down with each of
these projects where these sorts of
things are happening one is we
completely OU the individuals who are
taking part in who are destroying the
projects right the people in NX OS the
people in Python the people in Gnome Etc
and if that's not possible we need to we
need to abandon ship fork and go
somewhere else right and the the result
is somewhat horrific there because then
it it is a massive fracturing of the
open- source world and that's not a
great thing in a lot of ways and it's
good in some others but the reality is
there is at present no positive future
in the op Source world so long as the
people who are seeking to destroy it
remain and power now why do they
continue to destroy it I don't know
you'd have to ask them and you'd have to
sit down with probably a a
psychotherapist for a very long period
of time to figure out exactly why
they're doing it it's nonsense to me but
just the same it's
undeniable that they are doing it and
we've documented who they are and we've
documented what approaches they're
taking
so we need to find a way to stop it if
we are going to say that the future of
successful
projects releasing and publishing as
open source is an important one that we
are going to say that successful
foundations focused on free software is
an important one if it's not important
we can just say okay let it die but I'm
going to posit that it is important I'm
going to put out there that there's
distinct value and we can point that
distinct value again let me go over here
because of the success that we're seeing
people want it the the success of Open
Source is not because of these
individuals that are running it it's
despite them the success of Linux the
success of gnome is despite the people
running The Gnome Foundation
right I would suggest
that with proper
management those foundations would be
significantly more
successful that that's that's my
positing there and again this could be a
much larger discussion of exactly the
sort
of approaches we could take to actually
stop this self-destruction that's
occurring
across dozens if not hundreds of
significant and prominent open source
projects foundations and companies right
now and and the luk journal continues to
publish new articles and shows about
them almost every week it's
non-stop but that almost is too long for
today if you have thoughts about it I
think the first and foremost thing to be
done is to speak up not enough people
are speaking up about it if it's
important to you you got to do it you
got to do it I'm doing my
part I feel like I'm an ad on Starship
Troopers I'm doing doing my part and
with that I want to say thank you to all
the luk journal supporters and
subscribers over at luk.com and luk.com
could not do this without you because I
sure as heck am not taking a dime from
any of the companies and Foundation I've
just mentioned here today and with that
ladies and gentlemen boys and girls
nerds and nerds across the in tubes I do
declare end broadcast