Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

[Posted September 13, 2016 by corbet]

Andrew "Tridge" Tridgell writes about the ArduPilot project's withdrawal from the Dronecode group. "Unfortunately DroneCode has a built-in flaw. The structure and bylaws of DroneCode are built around exceptional power for the Platinum members, giving them extraordinary control over the future of DroneCode. [...] Just how great a flaw that is has been shown by the actions of the Platinum members over the last two months. Due to their overwhelming desire to be able to make a proprietary autopilot stack the Platinum members staged what can only be called a coup. They removed all top level open source projects from DroneCode, leaving only their own nominees in the Technical Steering Committee. They passed a resolution requiring that all projects hand over control of all trademarks, accounts and domains to their control."

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 13, 2016 14:58 UTC (Tue) by MortFurd (guest, #9389) [Link] (2 responses)

F-Secure blocks access to the ArduPilot site, and claims that it has been reported as a dangerous site.

I doubt that it is truly dangerous.

<Tin foil hat mode ON>
May be Dronecode reported ArduPilot as hazardous to take revenge for ArduPilot leaving the fold.
<Tin foil hat mode OFF>

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 13, 2016 18:47 UTC (Tue) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

Slightly more cynical view: maybe it's the three megabytes of obfuscated javascript on the page that triggered it. :-/

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 13, 2016 20:40 UTC (Tue) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]

It fails a Google Safe Browsing check. Typically this happens because bad guys were able to modify the site, to do something malicious. At best this might be it's now going to fill your desktop with pop-up ads that are hard to close. More often visitors with less than up-to-date common operating systems get themselves infected with malware. Worst case, it's ransomware and a few seconds after visiting the site you've got the choice between wiping the hardware and restoring from backups (you do *make* backups right?) or paying somebody you've never met some bitcoins to get what may or may not be a working restore key...

I mean, it's not inconceivable that the site is fine, but well, I wouldn't visit it with any system I intended to keep using after that warning.

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 13, 2016 16:17 UTC (Tue) by tmarble (guest, #37983) [Link] (5 responses)

Some may not realize that DroneCode isn't a a non-profit of its own, but is in fact a sub-organization of the Linux Foundation.

Linux Foundation uses phrases like "open source" and "community", but Tridge's experience with ArduPilot shows LF is a "pay to play" organization. The non-elected "Platinum members" with the most cash form the "governance".

Linux Foundation is classified as a 501(c)(6) trade association in the USA. That means its mandate is to do what is in the common business industry of the entire industry, not only those who can afford Platinum memberships. While this goverance structure might be just right for a few corporate projects like OpenDaylight, this is not the way we intuitively expect open source foundations to behave for projects that seek community and individual oriented collaboration.

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 13, 2016 17:07 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (2 responses)

It is worth noting that the projects under the LF umbrella are, for the most part, autonomous and self-governing. The decisions being made here are not made by the LF, and the platinum members under discussion are not the LF's platinum members.

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 13, 2016 18:54 UTC (Tue) by rfontana (subscriber, #52677) [Link] (1 responses)

That is correct - although it appears that two of the three DroneCode platinum members are also platinum members of the LF itself.

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 13, 2016 19:01 UTC (Tue) by anonymous1 (guest, #41963) [Link]

The common platinum members being Intel and QualComm.
Corporations go their own way, and we as communities have to find our own path(s). They may be the same or differ from that of corporations, but we have to be aware that our interests are ours, and that they have their own interests.

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 13, 2016 17:30 UTC (Tue) by anonymous1 (guest, #41963) [Link] (1 responses)

It is worth repeating, Linux Foundation falls under the same 501c(6) umbrella as the US Chamber of Commerce, NFL used to be under the same umbrella

Wikipedia says 5o1c(6)

"is an association of persons having a common business interest, whose purpose is to promote the common business interest and whose activities improve business conditions rather than actually conduct the business itself."

Linux Foundation is *NOT* like SPI (Software In Public Interest), FSF, SFC, SFLC, OSI etc.. etc.. Forget community and Free Software/Open Source goodness when thinking about Linux Foundation. Think of it as Linux Chamber of Commerce.

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 14, 2016 3:02 UTC (Wed) by Mook (subscriber, #71173) [Link]

Other organizations that are 501(c)6s: RIAA, MPAA. Those should have enough of a reputation to make it easier to remember.

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 14, 2016 1:49 UTC (Wed) by PaulWay (guest, #45600) [Link] (6 responses)

And so once again a large percentage of the FOSS community watches on as an industry group starts off by talking about how wonderful Open Source and Free Software are, and then says "oh, and we've decided to not be free, or open, and want to own everything". And we have yet another fork off by the FOSS developers to protect the actual freedom and openness they wanted from the beginning.

It seems to be yet another proof that most businesses see FOSS as simply a tool for them to make money from.

Resignedly,

Paul

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 14, 2016 3:16 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (2 responses)

Basically, most of DroneCode is GPL and big companies don't like it for end-user products. They want to be able to add proprietary stuff to it, often with good reasons. In return companies can provide resources that are often orders of magnitude greater than it's possible with purely volunteer developers.

Taking over existing projects is kinda a dickish move, though. They should have started new projects under a good license.

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 15, 2016 11:13 UTC (Thu) by xtifr (guest, #143) [Link] (1 responses)

Oh, companies like the GPL for their *own* code, because it means that their competitors can't add improvements without sharing. They just hate seeing it used with anyone *else's* code! Because it means they can't add improvements without sharing. :)

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 15, 2016 21:12 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

That covers mostly the "corporate shareware" types of products where one company holds all the copyright and also provides code under alternative proprietary license.

When companies genuinely want to collaborate they usually choose Apache 2.0 these days.

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 14, 2016 3:33 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> It seems to be yet another proof that most businesses see FOSS as simply a tool for them to make money from.

Honestly, how is that a surprise to anyone?

(And this also highlights the difference between "Free Software" and "Open Source Software")

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 15, 2016 10:11 UTC (Thu) by dunlapg (guest, #57764) [Link] (1 responses)

It seems to be yet another proof that most businesses see FOSS as simply a tool for them to make money from.

Um, yes? That's the purpose of businesses; it's useless to expect anything else. The suits (and the investors to whom they are accountable) don't care about your long-haired hippie values of "freedom", any more than you care about making investors a load of cash.

There's no point in trying to get corporations to become something they're not. The right way to interact with corporations is to recognize that they're using you, as a software developer, to achieve their goal (making money); and in turn use them to achieve your goals (software freedom). Done right, both of you get what you want in the end.

As I said, there's no point calling corporations selfish for making this move. The rules allowed this to happen, and they are playing by the rules. There is a point to saying that it is foolish for them to have done so, as they have just destroyed the project they were hoping to make money from, wasting all the time and money they've already invested.

There's also a point to saying that it was foolish of the people who created the project to set up the rules in a way that allowed this to happen; and a point to saying that it was negligent of the Linux Foundation to allow one of its sub-projects to have a governance so poorly designed.

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 15, 2016 19:35 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> There's also a point to saying that it was foolish of the people who created the project to set up the rules in a way that allowed this to happen; and a point to saying that it was negligent of the Linux Foundation to allow one of its sub-projects to have a governance so poorly designed.

Actually, I'd've said it was foolish of the politicians to set things up this way, except that the only way to succeed in politics is to throw money at it, for which you have to raid the piggy-banks of all us poor schmucks at the bottom.

From any rational viewpoint, modern corporate governance is crazy, but the system is self-perpetuating :-( and until someone has the guts and the megaphone to stand up and point out to the masses what is going on, it'll stay that way :-(

Cheers,
Wol

Tridgell: ArduPilot and DroneCode

Posted Sep 14, 2016 6:43 UTC (Wed) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link]

Not unlikely outcome from something within the Linux Foundation umbrella these days.

Does anyone know if it was all of the platinum members 3dr,Intel,Qualcomm etc or some form of an majority amongst them?

People who are contributing their own free time in community's surrounding the companies that staged the coup need to be warned about this and that means reaching out to those communities and point out the fate that might await them.