Without bending over backwards to defend the Linux Foundation, I'll point out that the 97% number means very little -- the percentage that actually matters is the percentage that doesn't go towards funding open source at all. The Linux Foundation hasn't been solely about Linux for decades; they are (facially) responsible for hosting a very large number of open source projects.
Reading through the list of projects that the Linux Foundation supports (via infrastructure, governance, events, etc) with the other 181 million is honestly shocking. They are supporting, among like a thousand others - NodeJS/OpenJS, PyTorch, Electron, K8s, vLLM, ONNX, PX4, GraphQL - plus the 'smaller' entries like Zephyr, Containerd, gRPC, KiCAD, ESLint, Fastify, etc. Their portfolio is literally insane. This is the BlackRock of the entire digital world.
Is it? Percentage-wise, executive compensation appears to be lower than well-regarded technology nonprofits[1][2]. In some sense that's extremely weird, since LF is a trade organization rather than a public-interest nonprofit. Their financiers are huge corporations, not individual donors!
(This is the core of the bigger problem with LF, IMO -- they simply don't represent non-corporate OSS interests at all, beyond some lip service.)
Not to belabor the point, but LF is a 501(c)(6), not a 501(c)(3). They don't behave like your intuition for a public-interest nonprofit because they aren't one. You shouldn't give them your money!
It's an industry trade association, for the benefit of its members. You aren't one of its members. (I'd suggest spending 60 seconds researching the difference between a 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(6) on wikipedia or whatever.)
Actually crazy that Linus just takes home 1.5M per year for one of the largest contributions to tech of anyone in the world. Obviously nobody needs more than that per year, but this pay is 1/100 or 1/1000th of many tech executives that have contributed very little comparatively.
Way more people who are doing way less good (many of them are net-negative to society by a very large margin, and we'd all be better off if they stopped going to work) for the world in corporate America make way more money.
Shit, a random L7 SWE or some low level manager makes more money than most of these people.
More than half the money spent on Conferences and Salaries with the rest being functional expenses. Nothing in the "grants" or "benefits to members" column. Prima facie this would not be an organization I would ever donate to.
Which is good because most of their revenue comes from fees and services rendered.
> Linus Torvalds is not in charge and is no longer compensated fairly, either. The highest paid people don't even use Linux. Torvalds is no longer in the top 10 (not anymore).
And then link to a filing that shows his “compensation” being lower than the others but also having an extra million dollars in the “other” column.
Well this is in line with the fact the LF has been quiet about these new Age Verification laws. The LF should be very vocal about how these laws will hurt Linux.
It is almost seems like the LF wants these laws :(
I agree that LF and CNCF have serious conceptual problems but I think finances and executive comp are the least of them. This article is attacking the wrong part.
Without bending over backwards to defend the Linux Foundation, I'll point out that the 97% number means very little -- the percentage that actually matters is the percentage that doesn't go towards funding open source at all. The Linux Foundation hasn't been solely about Linux for decades; they are (facially) responsible for hosting a very large number of open source projects.
8 million (~3%) towards the Linux kernel
180 million (~65%) towards ancillary project support, which includes a huge ecosystem of useful technologies around linux
Their 'corporate operations' overhead is like 5% of expenses. whoop.
Reading through the list of projects that the Linux Foundation supports (via infrastructure, governance, events, etc) with the other 181 million is honestly shocking. They are supporting, among like a thousand others - NodeJS/OpenJS, PyTorch, Electron, K8s, vLLM, ONNX, PX4, GraphQL - plus the 'smaller' entries like Zephyr, Containerd, gRPC, KiCAD, ESLint, Fastify, etc. Their portfolio is literally insane. This is the BlackRock of the entire digital world.
The executive compensation is pretty shocking
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460...
I’m guessing it’s below market rates. Silicon Valley and all.
I'm actually more curious on why a lot of directors receive $0, while others receive almost 1M
Directors sound like the Board, the others are Executive Directors (eg, they do the work).
The ones getting paid are probably working full time for LF while the unpaid ones are just on the board and presumably have other jobs.
That seems to be correct. You can see the hours disclosure here: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460...
Is it? Percentage-wise, executive compensation appears to be lower than well-regarded technology nonprofits[1][2]. In some sense that's extremely weird, since LF is a trade organization rather than a public-interest nonprofit. Their financiers are huge corporations, not individual donors!
(This is the core of the bigger problem with LF, IMO -- they simply don't represent non-corporate OSS interests at all, beyond some lip service.)
[1]: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/430...
[2]: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460...
it does fit the trend...
[0] https://www.epi.org/chart/ceopay2019-figure-a-ceo-realized-d...
Not to belabor the point, but LF is a 501(c)(6), not a 501(c)(3). They don't behave like your intuition for a public-interest nonprofit because they aren't one. You shouldn't give them your money!
Why not?
It's an industry trade association, for the benefit of its members. You aren't one of its members. (I'd suggest spending 60 seconds researching the difference between a 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(6) on wikipedia or whatever.)
Actually crazy that Linus just takes home 1.5M per year for one of the largest contributions to tech of anyone in the world. Obviously nobody needs more than that per year, but this pay is 1/100 or 1/1000th of many tech executives that have contributed very little comparatively.
That's the difference between giving your work away for free or not. 100x.
Or maybe the difference between doing work, and controlling humans by convincing them that what they're doing is "work".
> pretty shocking
Shockingly low.
Way more people who are doing way less good (many of them are net-negative to society by a very large margin, and we'd all be better off if they stopped going to work) for the world in corporate America make way more money.
Shit, a random L7 SWE or some low level manager makes more money than most of these people.
What is the 181M$ mysterious "Project Support" in the graph means? Linux is labeled separately, so it cannot be the "Project".
That's revenue. This article isn't clear at all. Here's their actual tax filing:
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460...
More than half the money spent on Conferences and Salaries with the rest being functional expenses. Nothing in the "grants" or "benefits to members" column. Prima facie this would not be an organization I would ever donate to.
Which is good because most of their revenue comes from fees and services rendered.
You aren’t supposed to donate to them!
My favorite part of this is when they say this
> Linus Torvalds is not in charge and is no longer compensated fairly, either. The highest paid people don't even use Linux. Torvalds is no longer in the top 10 (not anymore).
And then link to a filing that shows his “compensation” being lower than the others but also having an extra million dollars in the “other” column.
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460...
It kind of looks like if you count the extra million dollars earmarked for him he would be the highest-paid person on the list?
Well this is in line with the fact the LF has been quiet about these new Age Verification laws. The LF should be very vocal about how these laws will hurt Linux.
It is almost seems like the LF wants these laws :(
I have some experience with the CNCF and oh boy is it a huge powergrab with excuse of inclusivity, wokeness and all the stuff that comes with it.
I agree that LF and CNCF have serious conceptual problems but I think finances and executive comp are the least of them. This article is attacking the wrong part.