New Mecca of Open Source – The Linux Foundation

From now on all pilgrims of the open source sect will proceed to their ‘new’ promised land. Their Mecca – The Linux Foundation. Formed by a merger of the Beaverton based OSDL and Free Standards Group headquartered in San Francisco. The new foundation sets the tone for Linux in its fight against Windows and has the backing of companies like Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Novell, Red Hat and Oracle. The group will have 70 vendor sponsors in all. Other members include Fujitsu, Hitachi, and NEC.

Earlier attempts of merging Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) and Free Standards Group (FSG) did not work out as planned. This time around they seemed to have ironed out all the bumps and look set to formally go ahead as the LF from February, when the members of the two groups are expected to approve it.

The foundation which is a boon for the open source developers will share many of the same objectives that the two bodies pursued independently plus additional aspects which will place Linux in the battlefield with its biggest and toughest competitor – Windows.

OSDL and FSG were both established in 2000, though OSDL hogged more limelight than FSG. The groups shared overlapping memberships of business sponsors and overlapping goals. In early December, the OSDL announced plans to narrow its focus after laying off just under a third of its staff and after the resignation of CEO Stuart Cohen, who wanted to pursue a career with another organization.

Linux is constantly moving up the ladder in its challenge to Windows and is a constant pain for Microsoft. Linux is now an established operating system presence for embedded, desktop, and server systems. FSG’s Executive Director Jim Zemlin will head the LF.

In his statement he said that the foundation will look to expand the legal protection it offers developers and continue to provide a "safe haven" for Linux kernel developers, including the creator of the Linux operating system, Linus Torvalds. Torvalds’ right hand man Andrew Morton, the kernel maintenance expert had left OSDL to pursue his career in Linux with Google. Linux package maintainer Stephen Hemminger will also be a part of the team.

The foundation will continue to supply the Linux Standard Base, the Linux Developer Network, manage the Linux trademark and provide legal services, including the Open Source As Prior Art project to defend against patent challenges, and the Patent Commons, where companies may contribute their patents to be used in defense of Linux. The LF will also offer legal advice to companies worried about lawsuits around their use of the open-source software.

The Foundation is taking all the right steps at the right time to make sure that Linux does not meet the same fate as Unix and that it keeps growing as a powerful and dynamic operating system. The merger of the two groups has been deemed as ‘inevitable’ by the experts in Linux.

The new year seems to be a very bright one in the entire history of open source and lets hope it takes the community to greater heights with interoperability and compatibility issues a thing of the past and best considered forgotten.