Linus Torvalds, the quiet-spoken creator of Linux, is leaving his position
He added, “I do not expect a huge amount of change as a result, testament
Bringing Torvalds — who crafted Linux in 1991 while in university in
“Linus Torvalds adds tremendous credibility to OSDL’s efforts to drive the
OSDL has been one of the organizations leading Linux into the enterprise
Transmeta, a member of OSDL, said it supports Torvalds’ decision.
“Linus has made substantial technological contributions as a member of our
Torvalds’ move may also some political implications, as it comes at a time
with chipmaker Transmeta to focus all his energies on
the Linux kernel.
In a note to the Linux-Kernel mailing list Monday, in which he announced
the release of version 2.5.72 of the kernel, Torvalds said he would leave
Transmeta to join the non-profit Open Source
Development Labs (OSDL), an industry-sponsored consortium that invests
in development efforts to improve the operating platform’s enterprise
capabilities.
“The other big news — well for me personally, anyway — is that I’ve
decided to take a leave of absence after 6+ years at Transmeta to actually
work full-time on the kernel,” Torvalds told list members. “Transmeta has
always been very good at letting me spend even an inordinate amount of time
on Linux, but as a result I’ve been feeling a little guilty at just how
little “real work” I got done lately. To fix that, I’ll instead be working
at OSDL, finally actually doing Linux as my main job.”
to just how freely Transmeta has let me do Linux work.”
Torvalds will leave his position as Transmeta Fellow to become OSDL’s first
OSDL Fellow. There, the organization said, he will work exclusively on
leading the development of Linux, guiding a team of thousands of developers
around the world. OSDL said he will help set priorities and direction for
the Lab’s different industry initiatives.
“It feels a bit strange to finally officially work on what I’ve been doing
for the last 12 years, but with the upcoming 2.6.x release it makes sense
to be able to concentrate fully on Linux,” Torvalds said in a statement
Tuesday. “OSDL is the perfect setting for vendor-independent and neutral
Linux development.”
Finland — onboard also enhances OSDL’s credibility.
evolution of Linux forward into enterprise computing and carrier
environments,” said George Weiss, vice president and research director for
research firm Gartner . “The computing market is still
questioning how far and how fast Linux can go as an enterprise-ready
platform. With Linus at OSDL, many will be looking for leadership from the
lab for answers to those questions.”
Echoing Weiss’ sentiments, Stuart Cohen, CEO of OSDL, added, “Linus’
decision to join us is a confirmation of the importance of our mission.
OSDL is the only organization where Linux developers, customers and vendors
can all participate as equals. The addition of Linus’ perspective and
guidance to the Lab will enhance our value to all three of these groups.”
from its roots as a hobbyist project. The organization, with data centers
in Portland, Ore. and Yokohama, Japan, was founded in 2000 with backing
from Computer Associates , Fujitsu, Hitachi, Hewlett-Packard
, IBM
, Intel
, and NEC.
It sponsors projects like Data Center Linux and Carrier Grade Linux.
development team here at Transmeta,” said Matthew Perry, president and CEO
of Transmeta. “Transmeta appreciates and fully supports Linus’ strong
interest in devoting his attention and energy to certain emerging
industry-wide open source initiatives at OSDL.”
when former Linux distributor SCO Group is attempting
to cast doubt on
the legality of Linux with claims that Linux kernel has illegally
incorporated portions of its copyrighted Unix source code. However,
Torvalds has a reputation for being apolitical.
Linux Creator Leaves Transmeta to Work on Kernel
