More on the KDE League 108
An anonymous reader writes "Timothy Butler published a nice clean-up on the misinformations that were published by dep on Linux and Main. Most of what that has been alleged by Linux and Main turns out to be wrong. Especially, the KDE League has no obligation to disclose financial information. On dot.kde.org, Mathias Kalle Dallheimer, KDE e.V. president, explains that the KDE e.V would authorize the KDE League to disclose its books to the KDE e.V members. However, the KDE e.V is not the only member of the KDE League. Other members would have to approve this."
Who are the other members of the KDE league (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Who are the other members of the KDE league (Score:3, Informative)
good job (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank you Tim, Kalle and Slashdot for your efforts to combat this.
Here we go.. (Score:5, Funny)
Corruption in multi-billion dollar corporations. CEO's going down faster than a hooker on ephedrine.
Now, here comes the OPEN SOURCE book keeping. Does this mean we'll get to see the live, play-by-play webcasted extortion, with the source code to match?
god, getting people busted pwns.
Rather troubling... (Score:5, Insightful)
I worry that this sort of thing feeds into the 'crackpot' image many in business seem to have of the community...
politicians (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:politicians (Score:2)
It's not that OSS is a 'movement'. It's that it's run by humans, and humans are mammals. Mammals really suck sometimes.
Re:politicians (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, by definition
Re:politicians (Score:1)
Re:politicians (Score:1)
Re:politicians (Score:1)
In a company were you are payed you don't realy care(well I do a bit, but then I'm fucked up) about what is done with your work so long as you keep your job etc....
Re:Rather troubling... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Rather troubling... (Score:4, Insightful)
What is it that causes these kinds of conflicts and mistrust?
People. Things like this happen now and then absolutely everywhere. It seems that's how we work.
Re:Rather troubling... (Score:5, Insightful)
sites like linux and main should not fall into the trap all the mainstream media has of sensationalizing everything. news about linux should be informative and well-researched, not the extension of someone's agenda. but that is not the case. people in oss/fs have very strong opinions, and bending the truth is ok as you have any kind of excuse to promote what you like and trash what you do not like. that's why people get tired of the community. or the crackpot image you mention.
if we would be well informed, quit pointing fingers, and just stick together, open sourcerors would have a better reputation outside the community. let's promote what we love, but maintain some tolerance. if people think you hate them and their ideas, chances are pretty slim they'll ever listen to you. if you present your self as knowledgeable yet understanding, they just might think you have something to say that is worth listening to.
Re:Rather troubling... (Score:2)
-b
Re:Rather troubling... (Score:1)
i was talking about things broader than just kde debates. if you want to support oss/fs, support what you like instead of creating fud about 'rival' projects. educate people instead of telling them how stupid they are for not knowing the 'truth.' it's not that hard. and it
Re:Rather troubling... (Score:1)
Re:Rather troubling... (Score:2, Insightful)
For the sake of this reply I'm forced to confess that I'm a Windows developer/user. I started off on Microsoft, got a job using micorsoft, and frankly I've never had a need to use anything else. That doesn't mean I'm not open to other solutions and ideas, and in fact since I started reading Slashdot I've learned a thing or three.
It was slow going at first. When I first got here, I would get infuriated by the zealots who would bash to hell anything related to MS. Imagine that all your knowledge is in a particular subject and you read post after post on how stupid/horrible that is and how you're a sheep etc. Of course you're going to be defensive, and certainly not receptive.
That was exactly what happened to me. I would attack Linux whenever I could, be it in conversation with friends, or with clients. My facts weren't usually backed up by much more than the fud I was angry about, but it was the party line of the opposing view.
After a while I simply got tired of the anger, and I take a lot of what I read with a grain of salt. But I am still able to appreciate other reasonable, politely spoken opinions. While I can understand most arguments, I certainly won't be preached to. The Open Source community could learn a lot from your tolerance based point of view. Well, it's not just Open Source, everbody could use a little tolerance, Mac heads & Windows zealots too.
Re:Rather troubling... (Score:1)
Re:Rather troubling... (Score:5, Interesting)
Traditionally, markets use the language of conflict. Battles over mindshare, control of a critical market segment, etc. These sorts of internal conflicts still occurred, but they were not makde public.
The open source community makes it's internal conversation public. To me, this is a strength, not a weakness.
Doc Searls explaisn this much better than I do, for those that are interested
Re:Rather troubling... (Score:5, Interesting)
Human nature. Contrary to popular belief, os/fs coders are human. Though some seem to have magical time-stretching powers that allow them to do more than a human should be able to in one day.
There are inflated egos among os/fs coders, because, once again, they are human. There are many inflated egos that don't belong to coders as well.
The reason this seems to crop up connected os/fs projects is if/when this happens at a company, _it doesn't get out_. The company doesn't want to lose image points, so conflicts stay internal. On the other hand, how do you keep an os/fs conflict internal? Have the developers talk mind to mind? They talk on public lists most of the time.
And sure, we're crackpots. Some of us prefer to fix something we don't like in software we use. Fixing something you didn't write? Horrors! Putting your heart and time into a project that doesn't make you any money! CRACKPOTS! She's a witch! BURN HER!
Re:Rather troubling... (Score:3, Insightful)
DEP doesn't work on KDE, and I think that it would be reasonable to expect him to be paid fopr his Linux and Main work. What causes these kinds of attacks? Ego, yes - Dennis E Powell's was burnt because many KDE contributors disagreed with aspects of Israel's involvement in the middle east, and then took offence to his article in Linux and Main on April 7 labelling them antisemites for their views.
Re:Rather troubling... (Score:3, Informative)
This isn't the first time I've seen a segment of the Open Source/Free Software community turn on itself.
The slash in your quote is 90% of the answer. There are two similar-but-not-identical philosophies in this "movement". As with any other two similar-but-not-identical philosophies, tension is constant and conflict assured. If you look down the list of the Holy Wars that have occured during the Age of Software, you'll find that they all split down the same line. There is considerable fuzz and overlap at the borders, and most outsiders can't even tell the difference.
Due to circumstances, history and personalities, KDE is in the Open Source camp, while GNOME is in the Free Software camp. Many in the Free Software camp still don't believe that KDE is really Free Software (read this article at -1 threshold and you'll see). They want KDE to fail. Or if not fail, at least be a distant second to any other desktop. Some people just can't stand the fact that KDE is currently the most popular Unix desktop.
Some people see the existance of KDE as a personal attack on their philosophy. They feel they must attack back, or at least cheer on anyone else doing so.
All that info and nothing really (Score:2)
Re:Sigh... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sigh... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sigh... (Score:4, Informative)
Do you have anything factual to add, or do you just need more aluminum foil in your hat?
Re:This is non of your business! (Score:1)
Re:This is non of your business! (Score:1)
Re:This is non of your business! (Score:1)
Re:This is non of your business! (Score:1)
How silly.
Re:This is non of your business! (Score:2)
TrollTech makes most of it's money from commercial windows licenses. It doesn't make anything off of KDE.
> BTW: Matthias now works for Trolltech doesn't he
And how much code has Matthias written in KDE since he joined TrollTech? Very little.
Anyways, what do you have against TrollTech? They provide the community a useful service by providing a version of their toolkit under the GPL. They made the toolkit, they can license it however they want. If you don't like it, don't use it, but don't spread FUD around. It sounds awfully like Microsoft's "gpl'd software is bad" tirades.
Re:This is non of your business! (Score:2)
You ignore the fact that the KDE project had nothing to do at all with the creation of the league.
the KDE league turning out to be a closed club which you have no right to be involved in.
Isn't it supposed to be like that? Unless of course, you run a corporation and wish to contribute to the PR of KDE, or you are a KDE contributor who is a member of the KDE e.V. board
Re:Sigh... (Score:2, Interesting)
As for the disclosure of funds, that's a different issue which sprang from this. It would be interesting to know what happened with the money, but it would be even better to see the money used for good stuff by the KDE League.
Re:Sigh... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sigh... (Score:2)
?
> it should still be done.
Why? Are you a corporation that sponsors the league? If you were, you'd be able to see the finances anyways.
OFB is a KDE mouthpiece? (Score:2, Interesting)
How come you totally neglect the fact that not one thing in DEP's articles was true, including comments he attributed to the Delaware Secretary of State's office that they deny ever making, anyone in their office making, and are factually incorrect. Someone refutes a mostly imaginary article and you say they are a "KDE mouthpiece".
I'll point out parts that are incorrect. (Score:3, Interesting)
Additionally, there are many types of non-profit organizations of which 501(c)3's are only a small subjection - non-profit organizations that are *ALSO* CHARITIBLE organizations. All IRS-recognized non-profits are tax-exempt, but only CHARITIBLE ones (501(c)3's and a very few others) can accept TAX-DEDUCTIBLE contributions.
Basically, the REAL question here is this:
Does the KDE League accept tax-deductible contributions? If yes, then they're likely required to have accounting information publically available (but not much - just their Form 990's), if not, then they're not.
Ultimately, it is up to the members of an organization to keep track of the organization's accounting (the rights of the members to access the accounting information is a matter of state law) and the people making contributions to make sure their contribution will be spent effectively when they make the contribution.
Not a member and not giving money and the organization is not a public charitible organization (which it does not appear the KDE league is?) Then its none of your business what they do with their money.
There seems to be a misconception that non-profit = public or that non-profit = charitible. Neither of those is true.
OFB is a KDE mouthpiece? (Score:4, Insightful)
How come you totally neglect the fact that not one thing in DEP's articles was true, including comments he attributed to the Delaware Secretary of State's office that they deny ever making, anyone in their office making, and are factually incorrect. Someone refutes a mostly imaginary FUD article and you say they are a "KDE mouthpiece". No one talks about making up quotes and facts, but still troll KDE when they did absolutely nothing wrong.
How about the fact that the Gnome foundation hasn't released their financials yet? You'd think you'd at least give the KDE League the same amount of time they get considering they started later, but no
This whole story is crap, and proved to be lies.
Re:OFB is a KDE mouthpiece? (Score:1)
Its unfortunate that people have this double standard where they want one desktop covered with facts based reporting, but if you do a fact based report on the other desktop - wham - your a mouthpiece for the project. I can guarantee that most of those who have attacked my credibility would be quite unhappy if I followed their advice - only on the GNOME League instead. Of course I wouldn't do that either, I see no need to minipulate the facts on either side.
-Tim
Still leaves questions unanswered (Score:4, Interesting)
2. If the KDE league is not a 501(c)3 then what the heck is the KDE league?
I believe the KDE leagues corporate filings should be available from the State of Deleware.
Re:Still leaves questions unanswered (Score:4, Informative)
The database the OFB article refered to is the IRS Search for Charities [irs.gov] web page.
A tax exempt 501(c) organization is a an organization that meets certain requirements (one of which is being a not-for-profit organization) and has applied to and received tax exempt status from the IRS. Not-for-profits can also file for tax exempt status under 501(a) and 501(d). The IRS currently requires organizations that are tax exempt (except for private foundations) to provide public disclosure of certain tax forms such as the corporate 1023 or 1024. See FAQs regarding the Exempt Organization Public Disclosure Requirements [irs.gov] for more information.As the KDE league is not a 501(c) organization, it is one of the many other types of not-for-profit organizations recognized by the state of Delaware. See the The Nonprofit FAQ [nonprofits.org] for more information about what type of not-for-profit organizations exist.
Not quite (Score:1, Informative)
501(d)s I believe are churches, which I think doesn't apply here. 501(a) organizations are related for foreign entities, and may be subject to disclosure.
In any case, the fact that the KDE league claims to the state of delaware that it is a 501(c)3 is interesting, given the fact that it says it is not such an organization.
There is such as thing as a "not-for-profit" organization where the IRS is concerned, and that's all that matters. States do not determine whether a group is tax exempt or not; the IRS does.
It is a probably a for-profit company that decides not to make a profit. That's what the KDE league appears to be. What you're missing here is that the league *claims* to be a 501(c) to the state of Delaware.
The question is why would it not want to be a 501, especially when it would be so advantageous for the league to file as a 501(C). All contributions would then be tax-deductable.
Why are people so willing to give these guys the benefit of the doubt when they have repeatedly offered unclear and inconcsistent explainations of their activity? Just because they are affiliated with the open source community? Please, take your blinders off. Something smells in the state of Delaware, folks, whether you want to believe it or not.
I think Dennis Powell should be commended for raising these questions.
According to whom? (Score:2)
I've seen no evidence of such outside the assertions of the Linux and Main editorials. Given the apparent lack of accuracy in said editorials, I do not find them convincing. Among other problems, the Linux and Main editorialists do not appear to grasp the distinction between being tax exempt and being not-for-profit.
The by-laws of the KDE League (available on their web site) make no mention of tax exempt status. They do not state that donations are tax deductable. There is no reason to believe that the KDE League has ever claimed to anyone to be tax exempt.
Strictly speaking, this is not entirely correct. Obviously only a federal body (such as the IRS) can make a determination on whether or not an organization is federally tax exempt. However, each state has within its power to determine whether or not an organization is also exempt from state taxes. (An exception to this is where federal law prohibits certain types of state taxes to be levied against certain types of institutions.)
The fact of the matter is that it is a trivial action to verify that status of the KDE League through the clerk of courts of the state of Delaware. That none of the parties making the allegations that the League claims to be a 501(c) have done so gives a distinct lack of credibility to those allegations.
It isn't a matter of having blinders on. It is a matter of the person making an assertion having the onus of proving that assertion when it is disputable. In the context of what little I know of corporate law, Andreas Pour's counter assertions make much more sense than Dennis Powell's accusations. Until such time as Linux and Main shows concrete evidence of their allegations (such as a copy of the KDE League's application for a corporate charter), I'll continue to be quite skeptical of their claims.
They do have an obligation to disclose. (Score:2)
Depending on their status they may or may not need to disclose cartain information to the public.
Statements like this do not make for good public relations. Someone needs to have a talk with this guy.
"disclosure" (Score:1)
For tax exempt nonprofit organizations, public disclosure of certain documents is mandatory. In this context it matters a great deal as to whether or not the KDE Leauge is a tax exempt organization.
Bear in mind, that not all nonprofit organzations are tax exempt. A good example is that most Politcal Action Committees (PACs) are organized as nonprofit organizations. However, PACs are precluded from having tax exempt status.
KDE 3.0.4 is out (Score:3, Informative)
Re:KDE 3.0.4 is out (Score:2)
Drag-and-drop of URLs : Improved compatibility with non-KDE apps
Good work all round, guys.
The American Way (Score:4, Funny)
*you know that is how they spend most of their free time anyway...
Anacronyms are FUN!! (Score:4, Funny)
TTFN!
Humor Folks, enjoy it! =)
Some background please? (Score:2)
What is the KDE League? What's their relationship to KDE / The Kompany / anyone else? And what's the current stink about?
The article just leads me to believe that "KDE League" publishes press releases for KDE, and they dissapeared all of a sudden. Was there money stolen/embezzled? I'm not sure I understand the broad picture.
Re:Some background please? (Score:4, Funny)
Kind of like the Justice League of America, but without attractive people in leather tights, superpowers or monkeys.
Re:Some background please? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Some background please? (Score:1)
Re:Some background please? (Score:5, Informative)
The KDE League is essentially a "fan club". It was formed, independent of the actual KDE software projects, to promote KDE.
It would be like ME setting up "The Microsoft League" in my basement, and selling Memberships to, say, Compaq, Intuit Software, Ziff-Davis, and a handful of other corporations who like Microsoft. I would have no direct relationship with Microsoft, I'd just be claiming I want to "promote Microsoft".
In this hypothetical case, Compaq, Intuit, etc. may end up having wasted the money they gave me, but it still has no effect on Microsoft...
Dennis E. Powell posted a somewhat sensational story claiming that the KDE League had ceased to exist, asking "what happened to the money?" and so on. (Several people have accused DEP of having a sort of 'vendetta' against KDE in general over political disagreements he had with people on a KDE-mailinglist-hosted-but-not-KDE-related mailing list (i.e. the 'all topics other than KDE' mailing list) - DEP had posted an editorial which began with an implication that maybe the "K" in KDE was there because it resembled a goose-stepping soldier [linuxandmain.com]) Andreas Pour of the KDE League posted a response to DEP's story on the KDE League saying, in essence, "It's merely a clerical error, we're getting it sorted out, and we really can't say much more without approval from our members". DEP posted a story in response saying (my interpretation/summary) - "Delaware says you're a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so you have to tell us WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MONEY!". The most recent exchange here seems to be Pour saying "We're not a 501(c)(3), We called Delaware and they said A)They didn't say we were B)Nobody there should say were were and C)No, we're NOT a 501(c)(3)", and DEP's response that he "stands by his story".
As I posted above, I am puzzled why all the noise is coming out of this - it looks like what we have is a handful of rabid pro- and anti- KDE people all getting caught up in the sensationalism. The small handful of ANTI-KDE folks yelling because they want to discredit KDE, and the PRO-KDE folks yelling because they either feel they're being slandered or are worried that the KDE software projects are somehow being "ripped off" by the KDE League (presumably in the mistaken belief that the KDE League is analogous to the Gnome Foundation rather than merely a 'fan club'). The sheer volume of the screaming seems to be bringing attention from a whole mess or more normal people who are trying to figure out what all the fuss is about...
Disclaimer - the above is entirely my interpretation, except were indicated, and could very well be wrong. That IS how I see this issue, though...
Re:Some background please? (Score:2)
Thanks a lot!
This story has still not been cleared up (Score:4, Informative)
The KDE League bylaws [kdeleague.org] clearly state that it is a nonprofit, and the article makes the case that it is not a 501(c)(3) organization. Is it, then, a 501(c)(6) organization (a business league)?
If so, there are, indeed, public disclosure requirements imposed by the IRS. See this page [irs.gov] and read the last paragraph. Yes, this page applies to all nonprofits, including business leagues, as this page [irs.gov] makes clear. If, in fact, the KDE League is a "business league", Dennis Powell (no matter how much of a jerk you or I might think he is, and believe me, I'm not a fan) was within his legal rights to ask for disclosures. He is not be entitled to the full books, but he is entitled to "the last three annual information returns".
If the KDE league is not a 501(c)(6) either, then I don't see how it can be a legal nonprofit at all, in which case they owe Delaware filing fees that haven't been paid.
You can't just say that you're an ordinary corporation that doesn't expect to make money. With such a status you have to pay filing fees to the state of Delaware, and Delaware is now saying that the league doesn't owe them. So which is it? Either KDE League has to pay Delaware or they have to give Dennis Powell their annual information report. One or the other.
If I'm wrong, then it must be the case that the KDE League has some alternate legal status that I'm not familiar with. If so, what is it?
I'm not saying this to attack KDE. KDE and the KDE League are distinct entities, and I'm not seeing any evidence that the KDE League is serving the interests of KDE's developers or users. Any responses should leave the personality or beliefs of Dennis Powell out, as they are irrelevant.
Stop confusing "nonprofit" with "tax exempt" (Score:1)
Most nonprofit organizations file normal corporate tax returns and face no more disclosure rules than any other private organization. It is only those nonprofit organizations that have also filed for and have received tax exempt status from the IRS that face additional disclosure requirements.
Put bluntly, the IRS doesn't concern itself with whether or not a corporation is incorporated as a nonprofit organization. The IRS only cares that the corporation pays its federal taxes unless that corporation has applied for and received tax exempt status.
Given that there is no reason to believe that the KDE league has applied for (much less received) tax exempt status, there is no reason to believe that the KDE league faces additional disclosure requirements over any other non-public corporation.
You may also be interested in reading the Delaware Revised Code [state.de.us] on the subject. See especially Title 8, Chapter 1.
Re:Stop confusing "nonprofit" with "tax exempt" (Score:2)
What I am asking for is for someone to clarify the exact legal status that the KDE League has.
The legal status of the KDE league (Score:1)
Re:This story has still not been cleared up (Score:1)
The KDE League is merely a "Fan Club"! (Score:5, Interesting)
What *I* don't get in all of this is - isn't the KDE League getting its money from private corporations (I see NO individuals in the members list, only corporations, several of which are rather large)...one of whom is KDE e.V. (Am I reading this correctly)? Who in turn says they've got no reason to believe anything funny's going on? It's THEIR money - if THEY don't think anything wrong is being done with it, why the heck does anyone who DIDN'T give them money care?
I've only seen one entity that actually ever had anything to do with the KDE League complain, and that's Shawn Gordon, whose company apparently USED TO BE a member (but are not any more, as far as I know. Unpleasant 'break-up', perhaps?).
I keep seeing comparisons with the Gnome Foundation, which is a completely different type of group. The Gnome Foundation, as I understand it, is directly involved in steering Gnome development - it's actually an official part of the Gnome project(s). The KDE League is purely promotional - to put it bluntly, the KDE League is a "Fan Club". They have no more involvement in 'steering' or otherwise influencing development than any other fan of KDE does.
It's also been pointed out elsewhere that $120,000 is a lot of money when it's sitting in a suitcase on your doorstep in the form of small unmarked bills, but it's a pittance when considered as a yearly budget for any kind of corporation. I think the highest-paid individual there is said to have been paid $36k/year salary to run it. Take out that, rent on facilities, purchase of equipment, and so on, and there's not much left...
Now, as to whether or not the KDE League is effective at DOING anything, I couldn't say. I do certainly get the impression that they've not been active at all (basically, as far as I know, they've spent the little funding they had by just merely existing, and not really accomplishing anything), but given that the unrelated-except-by-name-and-theme KDE Software projects (that is, the actual developers, etc., who have no relationship with the KDE League as far as I know) seem to be doing just fine without the KDE League's additional promotion, I'm not too concerned about it. For all I care, the KDE League could have spent all the money on cheap prostitutes, malt liquor, and pornographic videos featuring necropedobestiality, and it will have still done no more harm than wasting a few thousand dollars each from a handful of private corporations (there are 10 listed on the members page - if they all donated the same amount, that's a "whopping" $12,000 each. That's barely pocket-change to corporations like IBM and Fujitsu-Siemens...), who don't seem to even care what happened to THEIR money...
'Scuze the long post, I'm just utterly baffled at all the screaming going on over this thing. I could understand a chorus of "Ha, ha, member corporations, you wasted your money", but shrieking hatred of the sort reserved for Enron and Worldcom and so on just makes no sense to me at all...
Re:The KDE League is merely a "Fan Club"! (Score:1)
Re:The KDE League is merely a "Fan Club"! (Score:3, Informative)
According to a comment on the OfB.biz article, one of the things the KDE League has spent money on is a PR firm.
Perhaps that PR firm has been kept busy announcing new releases of KDE, such as KDE 3.0.4, OUT TODAY [kde.org].
And the man at the centre of the storm, Andreas Pour (also known as Dre), has been busy too - here's another announcement of KDE 3.0.4 [kde.org] at dot.kde.org.
Nice to see he's keeping on in there and just getting on with the job. All this code doesn't just appear by magic.
Re:KDE suffers from a lack of openness and democra (Score:1)
HogWash (Score:3, Flamebait)
Too much of all this KDE League Bunk is just hogwash.
Is anyone here, asside from myself able to make a couple of clicks and read for themselves?
It is VERY VERY clear that the KDE League is supposed to be a Public Relations front for KDE.
It is also quite clear that it is a not for profit, not a non-profit.
It is also quite clear that they are not working as a PR group and that moneys are being piped from for profits into the hands of a special few.
The State Attorney General of Delaware needs to be looking into this organization to see exactly what the story is and should be contacting the members.
I don't hold any stock in the companies that are members, but if I did I would be sending letters to the Boards of those companies asking for clarification.
One thing is for certain there's smoke and KDE League appears to be pulling PR pranks to pretend that it's just a low level fog, and nothings burning.
And before the legal dogs start barking at my door I want to make it clear that this is my OPINION, each of you are free to explore the facts and form your own.
What Happened (Score:1, Insightful)
By the way, here is a list of the original KDE League members:
Caldera
Compaq
Corel
Fujitsu-Siemens
Hewlett-Packard
IBM
KDE.com
Klarälvdalens Datakonsult
theKompany.com
Mandrakesoft
SuSE
Maybe people could email them to find out what happened. I did that with IBM three days ago and the fellow said he would look into it, but I have not gotten a reply back yet.
Last Post! (Score:1)
their thoughts, so all we do is describe their appearance.
Aware, like a fox crossing the water. Alert, like a general on the
battlefield. Kind, like a hostess greeting her guests. Simple, like uncarved
blocks of wood. Opaque, like black pools in darkened caves.
Who can tell the secrets of their hearts and minds?
The answer exists only in the Tao.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Re:Corporations = corruption (maybe Offtopic) (Score:2, Informative)
Linux has existed underground for years, but the fact that large, medium and small companies are all interested in Linux today, and are willing to spend money to make Linux more useful for them, only benefits the entire community.
As an employee of a large corporation seeking to enhance Linux support across a broad line of products, I've been amazed at just how much my company wants Linux to succeed. Of course my company's interests are almost entirely financial - better Linux support for a product means more sales - but it is good to have kernel support for a lot of new, cool hardware. Without support for new hardware, Linux would be forced back into an underground scene where everything had to be reverse-engineered and supported 1-3 years later than release. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing - most of the open source hardware drivers are well-written - but it takes time to develop, and really hurts those who want to use the latest, fastest hardware with Linux.
And, as I'm sure you realize, hardware support is what makes Linux (or any open source operating system) available to the masses. It's not like these big corporations are trying to steer the direction of Linux into something unusable and non-functional for normal Linux users, like you and me. The source code is still out there - the major commercial distributions (Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE) are getting better than ever, the free and source-based distributions (Debian, Gentoo, etc.) are thriving and growing, and nothing prevents anybody from using Linux the way they want to.
If no business people have any say in Linux, as you suggest, then Linux will no longer be useful for business, and will no longer benefit from the investments of those individuals, venture capitalists, and corporations who want to make Linux usable in the real world.
If you want an example of an "underground" operating system, look at OpenBSD. So far as I know, the development team has practically no commercial support or corporations helping to steer the development of the operating system. They continue to work entirely on their drive for perfection, and the generous donations (including CD sales) of their user base. On the other hand, OpenBSD still has no production-quality SMP support for x86 hardware, which is a major limitation and will limit the utility of this operating system. It bugs me, but they seem to be fine with the pace of development. Contrast this with IBM's efforts to make Linux work on their newest and fastest mainframe hardware.
If you really want to back underground, then CP/M and Amiga are still out there, waiting to be revived.
BTW - The subject of the investigation (mentioned above) was the KDE League, which is a separate entity from KDE e.V. Whether or not this business operated corruptly will not affect the development of KDE - they are completely separate organizations.
Re:Corporations = corruption (Score:1)
Re:Am not even close to satisfied... (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, the KDE league is a private corporation that has nothing to do with the KDE Project (i.e, KDE e.V) It doesn't need to disclose anything to you. Are you going to go and ask Microsoft, Dell, RedHat, and Intel for all of their private financial records?
> Perhaps my clients and I will be better served by GNOME and leave KDE to the thieves.
=troll
>How humiliating for KDE and open source!
=FUD
Re:Am not even close to satisfied... (Score:2)
And what part of non-profit organization do you not understand? Just being non-profit does not mean that they have to reveal financial information. There is plenty of information about this in this article; I won't bore you to death explaining it _again_.