Posted on 06/09/2024 8:45:20 AM PDT by fireman15
Diversity & Inclusivity
The power of collaboration is greater when many different perspectives are included.
Addressing Diversity and Inclusivity
A diversity of ideas and contributions, one that originates from a diverse community, from all walks of life, cultures, countries, and skin colors—is vital for building sustainable and healthy open source communities. Individuals from diverse backgrounds inject new and innovative ideas to advance an inclusive and welcoming ecosystem for all. Linux Foundation is committed to building diverse and inclusive communities. Creating those diverse communities requires effort and commitment to creating inclusive and welcoming spaces. We continue to work to address this problem through various initiatives, including:
Inclusive Language Efforts
Communities that adopt inclusive language and actions will be able to attract and retain individuals from diverse backgrounds. The Linux kernel community adapted inclusive language in Linux 5.8 release showing its commitment to Diversity and Inclusion. For other projects, the launched at KubeCon North America to standardize inclusive language across the industry.
Open Hardware Diversity Alliance
The Open Hardware Diversity Alliance is a RISC-V incubating project with the mission of bringing together the open hardware community to provide programs, networking opportunities, and learning to encourage participation and support to the professional advancement of women and underrepresented individuals in open source hardware.
Software Developer Diversity and Inclusion
We are also focusing on Science and Research to Advance Diversity and Inclusion in Software Engineering. Our new Software Developer Diversity and Inclusion (SDDI) project will draw on science and research to deliver resources and best practices that increase D&I in software engineering.
Training and Certification
The Linux Foundation provides free training to women and underrepresented communities to support career development. More than 100,000 women have taken our free, Massive Online Open Courses (MooCs) in partnership with edX.
(Excerpt) Read more at linuxfoundation.org ...
The thing that people do not seem to realize is that Linux is big business mostly funded by major corporations and government entities. The myth of excentric computer nerd do-gooders donating their time and efforts to help others by perfecting the Linux Kernal or one of the many distributions would be funny if it were not so pervasive.
"By 2017 "Linux ran on 90% of the public cloud workloads and nine of the top 10 public cloud providers. On top of these, Linux also ran on 82% of the world’s smartphones and had a gargantuan market share of 99% on the supercomputer market."
https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/us/security/news/cybercrime-and-digital-threats/a-look-at-linux-threats-risks-and-recommendations.
Since that time Linux distributions and the kernel(s) itself have grown and further dominated much of the segments that they are focused on. It is just much fuzzier than that of most of the major entities that are the major contributors.
I have posted the Linux Foundation's current "Diversity & Inclusivity" statement to try and demonstrate that they are on the same wavelength as the big tech organizations that provide nearly all of their funding. If you look at the funding and income streams for all of the major Linux distributions you will find the same type of thing.
The scary thing about Linux distributions is that their ownership, contributors, and motives are more difficult to trace and figure out than those of Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Intel, Google and others. The related security concerns and determining who is actually responsible when bad actors manage to exploit or even contribute vulnerabilities are not clear.
I have done quite a bit of research on this over the years and it is always scary. Linux proponents here and just about everywhere else tend to be extremely naive when it comes to the security of their systems. The same major corporations and government agencies that they believe that they are thwarting by using Linux are typically major contributors to Linux development. And they are not doing it from the goodness of their heart... they are doing it because they expect to get a return on their investment.
Most if not all of the major Linux distributions have major multi-national corporations behind them. Who are you trusting your data with and who else might be contributing and exploiting vulnerabilities. This is a discussion that most people have little if any awareness of.
I will close with a link to this article that makes a few good points.
https://thenewstack.io/is-community-backed-open-source-software-worth-the-risk/
https://thenewstack.io/is-community-backed-open-source-software-worth-the-risk/
I always thought it strange that Linux developers were so proud that the “kernel” had grown into the size of a cornfield. I imagine somewhere in there are both the code to handle a defunct dot matrix printer and a backdoor to the NSA.
I always feel bad when I forget to ping you into any thread that I start here related to computers. This one and the motivation for it are probably too arcane to get much attention.
Nevertheless there is a huge difference in principle between open source and closed source software, which is whether third parties can or can not independently assess the software for vulnerabilities. With closed-source software one has no idea what it’s actually doing, and one has to trust the skills of the same developers who developed the vulnerabilities to also fix them, which brings to mind the quote that “problems can’t be solved by the same minds that created those problems”. With open source software anyone in the world is able to submit a patch to any given identified problem.
NSA hacks aside, you can build your own kernel and deselect things which are not of interest in your environment.
Check this out.
Linus is not politically correct.
It seems like more and more code that was in libraries is now in the kernel.
Ping!.....
“The power of collaboration is greater when many different perspectives are included.”
Conservatives need not apply, though.
I no longer have a "preferred" operating system. I have used Linux, Windows, and MacOS constantly and interchangeably all day at work and evenings for personal stuff, for so many years, that I now move between them seamlessly without even thinking about it. They all run simultaneously, side-by-side, mostly in VMs. Hardware is mostly Apple and HP, because those are the most trouble-free.
I'm annoyed and even angered by what has happened to the tech industry as a result of social and governmental pressures. I started doing hands-on computers with a PDP-8 and a Kim-1 in the '70s, so I think in 50 years I've earned my right to an opinion.
But I have given up worrying about whether Microsoft, or Apple, or Canonical, or RedHat, or whoever, is messing around with regard to DEI or any other virtue-signalling crap. I care in the abstract, of course, and it does pi$$ me off, but I can't waste my time fussing with it any more. I'm 72, probably only have a handful of productive years left, and I still have lots of work to do.
See, I did not say anything about the competing operating systems. :)
The various flavors of Linux don’t use their own version of the kernel. They write all the other stuff around it. The kernel is maintained by the LF and the code that goes into the kernel is heavily peer reviewed with Torvalds himself approving the code.
“The Linux Foundation provides free training to women and underrepresented communities “
Does that include the under 85 IQ community?
What about the felon community?
Or the pedophile community?
We don’t call them felons now.
They are referred to as Justice-impacted individuals these days.
“The various flavors of Linux don’t use their own version of the kernel.”
RedHat has several of their own custom versions of “the kernel”.
Wow. I didn’t know foundations could write suicide notes.
Don't like Linux Foundation? Don't buy their cruddy courses then, but that has nothing to do with what is you run.
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