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Yes. I worry that they wind up like Mozilla Foundation, and down the road, Linux itself winds up being a fraction of what it could be.
by sgc 4y ago
Yes. I worry that they wind up like Mozilla Foundation, and down the road, Linux itself winds up being a fraction of what it could be.
- dhruval 4y agoOr the Wikipedia foundation. Sadly it seems many of these large open source foundations are prone to mission creep and stagnation.
- bitwize 4y agoSo here's my thinking. When it comes to soliciting investor money, startups are often beset with questions about specific technologies the investors heard were "hot". E.g., "Everybody's talking about cloud these says. What's your story on cloud? How does cloud fit into your strategy?" Just substitute "crypto", "AI", etc. So the startup is forced to either hit the road looking for a VC interested in their product or incorporate cloud, crypto, AI, or whatever into their product. I suspect that big-ticket donors come to foundations with similar questions, and substitute social issues like climate change, the gender wage gap, etc. "What are you doing about climate change? How is your foundation protecting LGBTQ rights?" So the foundation is put in the position of saying "Our primary mission is maintaining a critical piece of software" and refusing the donor's money, or incorporating the social issue into their mission. Because an awful lot of money could be at stake and the foundation needs money to keep the lights on.