Linux Foundation spends just 3.4% of its money on Linux

The Linux Foundation ? the organization that effectively controls \nLinux and employs the creator of Linux ? just published its yearly \nreport for 2021.

Two numbers quickly jump out at you when reading the report:

$177 Million USD\n : The amount of money The Linux Foundation made in 2021 (mostly from \nsome undisclosed combination of memberships and donations).

3.4% : The amount of their spending that went towards Linux.

You read that right. The Linux Foundation only spends 3.4% on? Linux.

That screenshot right there is the entire\n ?Financial Disclosure? section of the 85 page annual report. That is \nevery single detail that they?ve published on their finances in this \nreport.

How, exactly, do those categories break down? What amount\n of revenue comes from individual donations compared to corporate \nmemberships? How much went to each project for ?Project Support? (which\n makes up the majority of the expenditures)?

No idea.

For \nbeing an organization focused on ?Linux? and ?Open Source?, The Linux \nFoundation is extraordinarily cagey and closed when it comes to talking \nabout how they spend the money folks donate.

But, one thing we do know for sure, ?Linux Kernel Support? is the lowest priority for The Linux Foundation. Literally. It is the smallest expenditure they have. The very bottom of the list.

So\n what, exactly, is The Linux Foundation spending the rest of that $177 \nMillion dollars on? Let?s take a look through the rest of their annual \nreport and see what we can glean.

Efforts in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Well. One of their biggest focuses seems to be ?Efforts in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion?.

Remember\n how their entire financial disclosure consisted of two small pie charts\n that took up less than one page? The ?Diversity, Equality, and \nInclusion? section gets 5 pages. Chock full of text. Including:

?Addressing Racial Justice Efforts Through Code:\n In February of 2021, the Linux Foundation announced it would host seven\n Call for Code for Racial Justice projects, an initiative driven by IBM \nand Creator David Clark Cause to urge the global developer ecosystem and\n open source community to contribute to solutions that can help confront\n racial inequalities.?

Here are two of the projects that The Linux Foundation is working on:

Fair Change\n is a platform to help record, catalog, and access evidence of \npotentially racially charged incidents to help enable transparency, \nreeducation, and reform as a matter of public interest and safety.

Five Fifths Voter:\n This web app empowers minorities to exercise their right to vote and \nhelps ensure their voice is heard by determining optimal voting \nstrategies and limiting suppression issues.

Regardless of what you, I, or anyone else thinks of any of that from a political point of view? they?re not exactly ?Linux-y?.

Oh, I found something Linux-related!

Their ?Inclusive Language Efforts?\n to restrict which words can be used within the Linux Kernel (and \nelsewhere). Things like ?whitespace?, ?whitelist / blacklist?, ?master /\n slave?, etc.:

?The Linux kernel community adopted \ninclusive language in the Linux 5.8 release, showing its commitment to \nDiversity and Inclusion. For other projects, the Inclusive Naming \nInitiative launched at KubeCon North America to standardize inclusive \nlanguage across the industry. It released a training course, LFC103: \nInclusive Strategies for Open Source Communities, to support this.?

How\n much time and money was spent on that? Was that part of the 3.4% spent\n on the Linux Kernel? Was that in some other budget? Who knows!

Public Health

It\n is unclear how much money has been spent on their ?LF: Public Health? \ncategory of projects, but we already know they have made a significant \ninvestment into ?Vaccine Passport? systems.

What\n does creating a vaccine passport system designed to restrict movements,\n activities, and freedoms of people have to do with Linux?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Saving the Planet

At one point in the annual report, The Linux Foundation states (assumedly with a straight face): ?Our Biggest Challenge Yet: Saving the Planet?.

?Several\n Linux Foundation projects are already working on various climate \ninitiatives. For example, LF Energy is accelerating the decarbonization \nof the global economy through the transformation of power system \nnetworks and delivering a full interoperability stack for EVs and \nvehicles to grid (V2G) to onboard intermittent and renewable energy at \nscale. LF Energy now encompasses 20 open source projects.?

I like the planet. The planet is cool. What does this have to do with Linux? Beats me.

Buzzword Bingo

Most\n of the rest of the 85 page annual report seems to be comprised \nprimarily of (seemingly) randomly selected Tech Industry buzz words.

Edge Computing. Serverless. Heck, ?5G? is mentioned 26 times alone.

And there?s a whole page dedicated to the ?Open3D? 3D engine that shipped without Linux support ? and Linux itself is not even mentioned once within that page of text in the report.

Some of that is tangentially related to Linux. Some of it is not. It?s pretty all over the map.

What is The Linux Foundation? for?

Let?s\n be honest. Regardless of what you think of the various initiatives \nlaid out in their 2021 annual report? The Linux Foundation is, without \nany doubt, absolutely not focused on Linux.

That much is obvious.

If\n you told me to read this annual report, and then give you a simple \nsentence that defined what The Linux Foundation seems to be about? I \nwould write something like this:

?The Linux Foundation\n is dedicated to social justice activism, climate change, and vaccine \npassports? while occasionally using Open Source software.?

Do\n they still do Linux related stuff? Yes. Yes, they do. Just not much.\n And nowhere near as much as they do with non-Linux-y stuff.

3.4%.

Yeesh.