Does it matter if Rocky and CIQ are separate organisations? Would your or anyone elses opinion be different if the flow went client -> paid support -> Rocky rather than client -> paid support -> CIQ -> donation -> Rocky?

That's one guy saying he doesn't know what's up. I have no doubt he doesn't get paid. What counts though, is this:

https://rockylinux.org/support

I think you misread the post. He's clearly saying that he doesn't understand how the conclusion was drawn that there was anything shady going on. Willing to bet that the RESF builds rocky linux and CIQ does all the "shady" business dealings, which is out of their control.

I'm one of the board members who replied on the forum thread. Rocky has never sold support or any other product. We make an OS for the community, that's it. The link to the support providers page simply is that, a list of other third party providers who offer paid support services.

So a "founding partner" is now a third party provider? Frame it as you may, but there is in fact commercial interest here. Even if Rocky were a separate entity, it depends on the sponsors selling support.

Open source projects with sponsors and partners are pretty commonplace. Naturally, projects depend on having some support from others. You can frame that as a "commercial interest" but I maintain that is an inaccurate description of our sponsor and partner relationships.

Rocky is absolutely a separate entity, both legally and in practice. In fact, the project and foundation board bylaws limit undue influence in a number of ways including maximum number of board seats per employer. We try to show our values both in our words and actions.

So why is Rocky Linux as the 'project?' trying to indicate they still go to space: https://mastodon.social/@[email protected]/1106244765..., referring to the 3 person seat, 2 year premium support 'they' sold to NASA?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36417968 https://sam.gov/opp/2e0365ce1e3c4c179b50fb15573d68e4/view

Developers? What do they develop? If they have upstream contributions great, but if they are just adjustments to their build pipeline they are not developing... That is tweaking.