Over 97% of the 'Linux' Foundation's Budget Goes Not to Linux

tdeck

The executive compensation is pretty shocking https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460...

countWSS

What is the 181M$ mysterious "Project Support" in the graph means? Linux is labeled separately, so it cannot be the "Project".

woodruffw

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.

jrflowers

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?

jmclnx

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 :(

wolttam

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.

siren2026

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. Rarely seen so many self serving people that are in it for themselves as in the CNCF. Yes, downvote away.

sysreq_

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.

sourcegrift

As a 24 year linux user, linux foundation is cancer, they don't use linux themselves.