Techrights — Over 97% of the ‘Linux’ Foundation’s Budget Goes Not to Linux

posted by Roy Schestowitz on May 08, 2026

According to the latest annual report from the Linux Foundation (LF), less than 3% of its budgetary resources are allocated to the thing it is named after!

“What percent of the LF budget, if any, is still spent on Linux?”

Someone rightly asked this (many other people ask the same thing, more so in the past decade or so).

Consider these annotated screenshots:

Page 58 and a little from page 20 are shove above.

“The info was rather buried,” we’re reminded. “The answer is, 2.95% is spent on Linux,” but some legwork is needed to do these calculations, as the facts tend to be obscured somewhat.

So where does the money go? Promoting or tolerating policies that hurt Linux.

“Should the various distro communities report LF en masse for trademark violation for their 2% budget?” asked a reader, pointing to linuxmark.org but explaining: “The problem there is that URL links back to the Linux Foundation which is itself the main part of the problem.”

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).

There is a term for this: mission creep. In this case, openwashing. Everything is now “open”, “cloud”, “AI” etc. █