From the ®money talks, bullshit walks¯ department:
Feed: OSnews
Title: Follow the money, especially in open source
Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2026 05:27:46 +0000
Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/145548/follow-the-money-especially-in-open-source/

Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel and git, is employed by
the Linux Foundation[1]. This Foundation is a non-profit organisation
dedicated to, as the name obviously implies, the promotion of Linux. The primary use of the funds it collects is to ?help fund the infrastructure
and fellows, including Linus Torvalds, who help develop the Linux
kernel?. The list of megacorporations donating most of the Foundation?s
funds is long.

The Linux Foundation has twelve platinum members[2], which donate
$500000 per year, followed by twelve gold members, who donate $100000
per year. Below these two primary tiers lie the silver peasants, who
each donate $5000-$25000 per year, based on number of employees. Looking
at the list of twelve platinum members, I noticed something interesting.

Of the twelve platinum companies, six are ?AI? companies or companies
with massive investments in ?AI?: Google, Huawei, Facebook, Microsoft,
Oracle, and IBM/Red Hat. Then there?s Samsung Electronics, which is
raking in stupendous amounts of money[3] thanks to the ?AI? bubble. Additionally, one of the gold members is Anthropic, another major ?AI?
company and makers of ?Claude?, the sloppiest of slopcoding tools.

Many of these companies are unimaginably deep in the red[4] when it
comes to ?AI?, with very little indication they?re ever going to be able
to recover any of it[5]. The situation is particularly bad for Oracle
and IBM/Red Hat. Oracle?s debt has been downgraded to one notch above
junk status[6] because of its ?AI? spending, while IBM?s shares
experienced the largest crash in its 115 year history[7] only a few days
ago. By the way, in the first half of 2025, ?AI-related capital
expenditures contributed 1.1% to [US] GDP growth[8], outpacing the U.S. consumer as an engine of expansion?.

Fun fact: since most of The Netherlands is effectively a swamp, most of
the country?s buildings are built on massive wooden or concrete poles
(piles) hammered deep into the ground[9] until they hit something more
stable than mushy clay and wet sand. Otherwise, buildings in the country
would simply sink into the ground. Every Dutch person who ever lived
near a construction site has heard the rhythmic kathunk, kathunk,
kathunk, all day long, as the massive piledriver machines spread their
gospel. I guess something reminded me of this just now.

Anyway, a large chunk of the funding the Linux Foundation, Linus
Torvald?s employer, receives is coming from increasingly desperate
companies frantically trying to convince a populace deeply skeptical and
often downright hostile towards ?AI?[10] to spend money on ?AI? before
the bubble bursts.

For some reason, I thought this was interesting[11].

Links:
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Foundation (link)
[2]: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members (link)
[3]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1kyy8yrpxdo (link)
[4]: https://isaiprofitable.com/ (link)
[5]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/business/ai-spending-oracle-stocks-bonds.html (link)
[6]: https://www.spglobal.com/ratings/en/regulatory/article/-/view/sourceId/101695609 (link)
[7]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2026/07/14/ibm-shares-crashed-25-in-worst-day-ever-heres-why/ (link)
[8]: https://am.jpmorgan.com/us/en/asset-management/adv/insights/market-insights/market-updates/on-the-minds-of-investors/is-ai-already-driving-us-growth/ (link)
[9]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piling (link)
[10]: https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/hate-ai-more-ice-poll (link) [11]: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/21810-it-is-difficult-to-get-a-man-to-understand-something (link)


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 18 Jul 2026 13:53:48 GMT, Retrograde wrote:

Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel and git, is employed
by the Linux Foundation[1]. This Foundation is a non-profit
organisation dedicated to, as the name obviously implies, the
promotion of Linux. The primary use of the funds it collects is to
?help fund the infrastructure and fellows, including Linus Torvalds,
who help develop the Linux kernel?. The list of megacorporations
donating most of the Foundation?s funds is long.

Where does the money go, again? I notice you were a little short on
details on that. Obviously not all of those mega-millions go into
Linus Torvalds? pocket.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Retrograde <fungus@amongus.com.invalid> wrote:

The Linux Foundation has twelve platinum members[2], which donate
$500000 per year, followed by twelve gold members, who donate $100000
per year. Below these two primary tiers lie the silver peasants, who
each donate $5000-$25000 per year, based on number of employees. Looking
at the list of twelve platinum members,

Note that if you add all the amounts donated by those members up you
don't get more than a third of the way to the total "memberships and
donations" they report receiving in their annual report ($133 million
in 2025, pg. 58). So the memberships don't tell you who'se really
providing the greatest share of the funding. Quite possibly some of
those same member companies donate much more money anonymously since
they don't want to highlight their corresponding position of
influence.

https://www.linuxfoundation.org/hubfs/Publications/2025%20Linux%20Foundation%20Annual%20Report_122225a_lr.pdf

Of the twelve platinum companies, six are "AI" companies or companies
with massive investments in "AI": Google, Huawei, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM/Red Hat. Then there's Samsung Electronics, which is
raking in stupendous amounts of money[3] thanks to the "AI" bubble. Additionally, one of the gold members is Anthropic, another major "AI" company and makers of "Claude", the sloppiest of slopcoding tools.

Many are also the top employers of Linux kernel code contributors:

https://lwn.net/Articles/1057302/

--
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--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On 18 Jul 2026 13:53:48 GMT, Retrograde wrote:

Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel and git, is employed
by the Linux Foundation[1]. This Foundation is a non-profit
organisation dedicated to, as the name obviously implies, the
promotion of Linux. The primary use of the funds it collects is to
"help fund the infrastructure and fellows, including Linus Torvalds,
who help develop the Linux kernel". The list of megacorporations
donating most of the Foundation's funds is long.

Where does the money go, again? I notice you were a little short on
details on that. Obviously not all of those mega-millions go into
Linus Torvalds' pocket.

Of a total expenditure of $284,795,682 in the 2025 annual report,
only $8,410,144 is attributed to "Linux Kernel Project". Most goes
to "Project Support", which sounds like it could mean anything.
Their "Training" and "Event Services" appear to be profit-making,
and each get more money than "Linux Kernel Project", which makes
me wonder if it's turned into more of a separate business than
something focused on building software.

Even if the Linux Foundation's funding is maintained, if the AI
companies sack the kernel developers who of them also employ, that
might hurt the Linux kernel project much more.

--
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--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Linux is dead, all the alpha nerds are on BSD, Haiku, or going full retro.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sat, 18 Jul 2026 23:45:47 -0000 (UTC), Oregonian Haruspex wrote:

Linux is dead, all the alpha nerds are on BSD, Haiku, or going full
retro.

Most of the retro stuff is running on Linux.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Sat, 18 Jul 2026 23:45:47 -0000 (UTC), Oregonian Haruspex wrote:

Linux is dead, all the alpha nerds are on BSD, Haiku, or going full
retro.

Most of the retro stuff is running on Linux.

Indeed, Linux is being very actively developed with huge numbers of people moving to it. This is WHY all the alpha nerds are on BSD or Haiku.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Oregonian Haruspex <no_email@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Linux is dead, all the alpha nerds are on BSD, Haiku,
or going full retro.

I do not know if this is true, but Linux is going in a
direction I do not like. Between this AI article, systemd,
wayland and other things, seems BSD is going in a direction
I like.

But, were are the young people ? IMO, for home use, the young
seems to be all about Smart Phones. It would be interesting
to see an age breakdown between users of Linux and BSD.
I would expect to see most of Linux/BSD home users are 40 and
older.

--
[t]csh(1) - "An elegant shell, for a more... civilized age."
- Paraphrasing Star Wars

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sun, 19 Jul 2026 16:45:55 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote:

I do not know if this is true, but Linux is going in a direction I
do not like.

In what way?

Between this AI article, systemd, wayland and other things, seems
BSD is going in a direction I like.

Becoming more fragmented?

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Sun, 19 Jul 2026 16:45:55 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote:

Between this AI article, systemd, wayland and other things, seems
BSD is going in a direction I like.

Becoming more fragmented?

Certainly your critisisms of BSD's "fragmentation" keep on selling
BSD to me.

--
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#_ < |\| |< _#

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-07-20, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Sun, 19 Jul 2026 16:45:55 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote:

Between this AI article, systemd, wayland and other things, seems
BSD is going in a direction I like.

Becoming more fragmented?

Certainly your critisisms of BSD's "fragmentation" keep on selling
BSD to me.

And just wait for the usual commentary on systemd or wayland... time to "killfile" the subthread, probably.

--
Nuno Silva

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 2026-07-20, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Sun, 19 Jul 2026 16:45:55 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote:

Between this AI article, systemd, wayland and other things, seems
BSD is going in a direction I like.

Becoming more fragmented?

Certainly your critisisms of BSD's "fragmentation" keep on selling
BSD to me.

And just wait for the usual commentary on systemd or wayland... time to "killfile" the subthread, probably.

Given that Lawrence is more often than not trolling, and is a huge
systemd fanboi (on the level of how Apple fanboi's fawn over every
mistake Apple makes as if it were manna from heaven) killfiling
Lawrence provides a nicer reading experience.

Granted, you still get to see his rants from under his bridge when
someone else responds and quotes them.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 7/19/26 11:45 AM, John McCue wrote:

But, were are the young people ? IMO, for home use, the young
seems to be all about Smart Phones. It would be interesting
to see an age breakdown between users of Linux and BSD.
I would expect to see most of Linux/BSD home users are 40 and
older.

I'll bet there's a larger base of college students out there too.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)