What Google's new $500,000 per year Linux Foundation Membership means... | The Linux Gamer

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Google is now a platinum member of The Linux Foundation--and this comes as no surprise: Android is built atop the Linux Kernel. So is ChromeOS. Their servers are Linux servers. And let’s not forget that they run a custom Linux distro called Gubuntu at their offices.

Linux runs the entire world. It’s the de facto standard, and it makes sense for a company like Google to be supporting the foundation behind free and open source software. Let’s not forget that FOSS software empowered them to build one of the biggest and most influential companies in the world.

But you might be asking yourself, what is The Linux Foundation. And what does Google get in exchange for $500,000 a year?

Hi, I’m Gardiner, The Linux Gamer, and let’s talk about this.

“The Linux Foundation is dedicated to building sustainable ecosystems around open source projects to accelerate technology development and industry adoption.”

In other words, The Linux Foundation is a non-profit organization that helps support and evangelize open source projects. They not only fund the development of the Linux kernel, but they also support high-profile projects include Let’s Encrypt, Kubernetes, and Node.js among many others.

The Linux Foundation also hosts events and conferences, sponsors training and certification programs, and organizes projects that are beneficial to the open source community.

They do a ton of work fostering communication, building a healthy ecosystem for the Open Source world. But they’re not without their controversy. They’ve done things that have quietly killed community involvement within the highest ranks of their organization, The executive director has a higher salary than Linus Torvalds for some reason, and he embarassingly uses a Mac. In public. As the director of the Linux Foundation.

Anyway…

So there are now 15 Platinum members of the Linux Foundation (that includes Google). A few notable members include Cisco, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and Samsung.

So what does a platinum member get for their annual membership fee? Well, according to the press release on the Linux Foundation's website:

Becoming a Platinum member – the highest level of membership – of The Linux Foundation gives Google access to the foundation’s extensive knowledge and experience in open source governance, legal and technical topics. As a Platinum member, Google will also receive a seat on The Linux Foundation Board of Directors.

Sarah Novotny, who will represent Google on The Linux Foundation Board of Directors, also participates on the Node.js Foundation board. Novotny leads the open source strategy team for Google Cloud. She has long been an open source community champion in communities such as NGINX and MySQL.

And yeah, Google’s one of the largest companies in the world, and they’re one of the most active open source developers but they also have a hell of a lot of proprietary code.

I know some people will be creeped out by this, and honestly I don’t like the idea of auctioning off the right to vote to the highest bidder… but I’m trying to remain optimistic here.

I’d like to know what you think. Is money a corrupting influence? Or is the Linux Foundation an ineffectual trade group with no real power? What business do proprietary software companies have as members with voting rights of what’s supposed to be an open source foundation?

Leave me a comment and let me know or hit me up on Twitter @TheLinuxGamer. If you believe in the work that I do, you can support the show with a monthly contribution over on Patreon or Liberapay. Or you can pick up a teeshirt over on teespring. There’s a link in the description.

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