Adobe joins Linux Foundation

Is this becoming a vendors' club?

On the surface the question of whether the Linux Foundation is dominated by vendors may be less important than whether the OSI is dominated by them. But I would argue it's more important.

Linux is not just a code base. It's the collective effort of many people, not all of whom work for software vendors, and not all of whom have proprietary advantage in mind.

There are many questions before the Linux community where the very idea of proprietary advantage would destroy the ecosystem -- software patents for instance.

If the assumptions of the proprietary world are grafted onto Linux and open source organizations, will users and non-profit coders retain their voice?

We may get an insight into those questions very soon, as Adobe has already signed to be part of the Linux Foundation's Collaboration Summit, April 8-10 in Austin.

The agenda for that meeting, which was just finalized last week, features keynotes from executives at MySQL and Red Hat, as well as briefings on the kernel and many market sub-sets, and there are no Adobe speakers on the program.

But the drift toward vendor interest may simply be natural, as most of the first day's panels will be dominated by vendors, and most will likely stick around for the second day's workgroup sessions, where the real work will be done.

As with all things, what comes out will tell us more than what we see going in.  

How concerned should we be about the trend of vendor interest in Linux, and is there anything that can be done to stop it?[poll id=73]