Dr Foster holds a PhD, did her dissertation about the Linux kernel, and has had a respectably long career in technology with a focus on open source and governance. The topic is literally straight in her professional wheelhouse.
If you can’t get over her physical appearance long enough to engage with the topic, it’s healthier to leave the thread and do something else.
It signals the group of people she belongs to which allows me to make a good prediction of her world view. Similar to how after seeing "Since the beginning of history, Foster began, those in power have tended to use it against those who were weaker.", I already knew the type of person who was giving the talk and seeing a picture of her did not surprise me in the least.
>holds a PhD, did her dissertation about the Linux kernel
But it's not about Linix's scheduler, nor it's network stack. It's not technical at all. "Understanding Collaboration in Fluid Organizations, a Proximity Approach" is about looking at collaboration for the development of Linux.
>Why is open source longevity and viability not on-topic for LWN discussion?
Because LWN should focus on the Linux kernel and not about "evil companies" running other projects changing their licenses.
FOSS beyond Linux itself is still explicitly on-topic by the site's own self-description.
But we all know what this was about anyway. Good luck to you out there.
No, you tried to quibble over terminology. Both of these comments were shallow dismissals which tried to distract from the point by focusing on surface issues.
> LWN is focusing on "social issues" in open source and how I do not think it is something valuable for LWN to spend time on and lowers their brand.
Open source is a social concept and politics has been an integral part of it since the beginning. It’s not not “lowering” LWN’s brand to talk about contributor dynamics and it certainly isn’t their job to vet their authors based on the intersection of their tonsorial choices and your personal politics rather than the substance of their articles.
Terminology frames how people think about things. A rug pull sounds negative, when in reality it just means you aren't getting future work under such a permissive license. If someone is shocked from that it means that they felt entitled to the work people were doing for free. I disagree with the whole way the situation is being framed like its wrong for the people who did the work creating a project having the ability to figure out how to monetize it.
>Open source is a social concept and politics has been an integral part of it since the beginning.
But such politics are not a driving force for the Linux kernel. Linux is not open source in order to push the FSF's agenda. When there are people who focus exclusively on the social and political aspects these people are a parasite. It would be different if it was an open source developer sharing their views, but this talk purely serves to advertise an agenda the author has.
>isn’t their job to vet their authors based on the intersection of their tonsorial choices and your personal politics rather than the substance of their articles.
You are not engaging honestly. I stated up front that my issue was with the substance of the article. That picking such a talk over some other talk or topic was a mistake.