What are the actual main goals of the #LinuxFoundation?[1] What does it "want"?

What do Open Source developers and users think the main goals of the LF are? And how many of those does it track for real?

How is the LF supporting Linux kernel development – and where does the engagement end? And how are conflicts of interest handled, given that the LF also hosts projects to foster other kernels competing with Linux in some areas?

Should the LF in an ideal world have a different name that better describes what it is/does?

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I wish some good journalist would write a decent article that answers questions like these – and maybe afterwards would update the Wikipedia page[2]. It seems badly needed, given threads like https://cosocial.ca/@mhoye/116064470377791978 or https://social.kernel.org/objects/efcd6b8a-6923-44bf-a07b-7ecee397afae

Disclaimer: I'm neither a fan nor a critic of the LF. It just seems to me that many in the Open-Source community do not or only partially understand what the LF is/does (me included).

[1] yes, I know about https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about, but at least for me it's a lot of wibbly-wobbly, open-sourcely-wimey... stuff

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Foundation, which, for example, mentions "support Linux development" in the intro. I don't see that as a main goal in [1]; and does that even mean "Linux, the kernel" or "Linux, the OS"?

@kernellogger the LF provides all the legal, technical and financial backing of the LVFS website. Without their help I'm not sure it would exist like it does now.

@hughsie I'm very well aware of it.

Did you feel compelled to write that because you read my post as anti LF? If that's the case, *please* let me know why that was the case so that I can fix that, because the post was not meant like that at all.

It just feels to me like people are not aware of what the LF does and/or expect it to do more/something different, as the threads mentioned show.

So there is a area for a really good writeup here I'd say.

@kernellogger ohh not pointed at you dude; more generally the LF gets a lot of heat here and they probably need to do a better job explaining exactly all the good things it does.

@hughsie thx for the response, now I'm less worried that my post is to easy to misunderstand.

And yes, the LF definitely could be better at describing how/where it helps the Open Source community.

But some look from the outside still would be good to also show where the LF does not what the community expect -- while questioning if those expectations are adequate or not.

@kernellogger @hughsie yeap, the LF gets a lot of heat along with pretty much every corporate entity that is involved in open source. Everyone piles on corps because they “take” from open source, without acknowledging that many corps also give or invest directly in open source as well. Sure there are freeloading corps, but painting all corps the same way misses the reality by a mile.

@kernellogger I wrote a bit about how the LF supports the kernel community back in December:

https://lwn.net/Articles/1049035/

@hughsie @kernellogger The LF doesn't get heat because they pay Linus, host the maintainer git trees, or fund fwupd. Of course, it's nice that they do, but it's also their mission and the bare minimum. They get heat because, for example, their conferences are getting less and less affordable, especially for hobbyists, while they invest in crypto-bullshit.