11 ms·

This is sad. I was just thinking days ago, as I revisited Processing, how consistent it has been at being Processing. Sure, development has been rather slow but

by keyle 3y ago

This is sad. I was just thinking days ago, as I revisited Processing, how consistent it has been at being Processing. Sure, development has been rather slow but at least it's not overwhelming to come back to. I had no idea that they had a 'foundation' let alone this big. The list of people in the about section has me pondering 'why'. I never knew that a foundation based on donations could stray off the path so far as to make the original founders uncomfortable enough to quit. I wish them well and I hope that they start a new foundation where money can go instead. Money walks.

colechristensen 3y ago
I read something about the Linux Foundation that indicated it is also straying quite far from the expected path as well.
- the_biot 3y ago
  They've been a money train for a very long time now, and at some point started going ultra-woke as well. Last I checked they were demanding what can only be described as "woke loyalty oaths" from people that wanted to speak at one of their conferences.
- goku12 3y ago
  The news is that TLF spent just 3.2% of its funds on the Linux kernel. It dwindled from a paltry 3.4% in the previous year. Meanwhile, Linux developers are giving up on their LTS kernel due to lack of resources. That news had many defending the foundation, saying that their other projects get equally low funding. However, it makes me wonder how these foundations would fare in terms of income if they didn't use the name of a popular open source project. It's likely that a lot of donors have the misconception that their money goes to the namesake project - this is especially true for Mozilla.
  - mst 3y ago
    The LTS kernel change appears to be lack of senior maintainer bandwidth. This is not, in my experience, the sort of problem that could be solved by throwing money at it. (and by "in my experience" I mean situations where I was involved with that shape of problem, and could have arranged to have money thrown at it, and the eventual decision was that that wasn't the limiting factor) Note that this is entirely separate to the question of whether what TLF is doing with its money is suboptimal - it probably is - but I don't believe from what I've seen that the LTS kernel situation is downstream of funding decisions.
jdougan 3y ago
It is actually fairly normal for foundations to go off the rails unless there is tight control. Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy always applies: ---- Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people": First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration. Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc. The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization. ----- https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
- DonHopkins 3y ago
  How Jerry Pournelle got kicked off the ARPANET: http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/text/pourne-smut.html http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/text/pourne-smut.html
  - h2odragon 3y ago
    Thank you for preserving and sharing that little bit of history. "The Internet is for those that agree with us" has a long tradition.
    - 15457345234 3y ago
      It wouldn't actually be so bad if they just came out and said it like that, but it's always accompanied by some weirdly non-sequitur equivocation word salad 'justifying' the ban or whatever and it always resolves (painfully) to the same thing: 'it's not censorship/fascism/bad when we do it.' The jannie urge to mop has surely got to be genetic

by keyle 3y ago

colechristensen 3y ago

I read something about the Linux Foundation that indicated it is also straying quite far from the expected path as well.

the_biot 3y ago
They've been a money train for a very long time now, and at some point started going ultra-woke as well. Last I checked they were demanding what can only be described as "woke loyalty oaths" from people that wanted to speak at one of their conferences.
goku12 3y ago
The news is that TLF spent just 3.2% of its funds on the Linux kernel. It dwindled from a paltry 3.4% in the previous year. Meanwhile, Linux developers are giving up on their LTS kernel due to lack of resources. That news had many defending the foundation, saying that their other projects get equally low funding. However, it makes me wonder how these foundations would fare in terms of income if they didn't use the name of a popular open source project. It's likely that a lot of donors have the misconception that their money goes to the namesake project - this is especially true for Mozilla.
- mst 3y ago
  The LTS kernel change appears to be lack of senior maintainer bandwidth. This is not, in my experience, the sort of problem that could be solved by throwing money at it. (and by "in my experience" I mean situations where I was involved with that shape of problem, and could have arranged to have money thrown at it, and the eventual decision was that that wasn't the limiting factor) Note that this is entirely separate to the question of whether what TLF is doing with its money is suboptimal - it probably is - but I don't believe from what I've seen that the LTS kernel situation is downstream of funding decisions.

jdougan 3y ago

It is actually fairly normal for foundations to go off the rails unless there is tight control. Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy always applies: ---- Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people": First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration. Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc. The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization. ----- https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html

DonHopkins 3y ago
How Jerry Pournelle got kicked off the ARPANET: http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/text/pourne-smut.html http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/text/pourne-smut.html
- h2odragon 3y ago
  Thank you for preserving and sharing that little bit of history. "The Internet is for those that agree with us" has a long tradition.
  - 15457345234 3y ago
    It wouldn't actually be so bad if they just came out and said it like that, but it's always accompanied by some weirdly non-sequitur equivocation word salad 'justifying' the ban or whatever and it always resolves (painfully) to the same thing: 'it's not censorship/fascism/bad when we do it.' The jannie urge to mop has surely got to be genetic