Linux creator Linux Torvalds is bringing his top lieutenant, Andrew Morton, onboard with him at Open Source Development Labs (OSDL).
Under an agreement between OSDL and Digeo, where Morton serves as principle engineer and senior architect of the firm’s Linux efforts, OSDL will support Morton’s role as maintainer of the stable Linux kernel while he continues in his official role at Digeo. Torvalds maintains the development kernel.
Morton’s move follows Torvalds’ recent departure from Transmeta to work on the Linux kernel fulltime at OSDL.
OSDL is a non-profit group dedicated to Linux development geared to the enterprise and backed by a global consortium of companies. OSDL sponsors include Alcatel , Cisco Systems
, Computer Associates
, Dell Computer
, Ericsson
, HP
, IBM
, Nokia
and several Linux developers and Japanese electronics companies.
Bringing first Torvalds and now Morton onboard lends credibility to OSDL’s efforts to turn itself into a leading authority on Linux for the enterprise.
“With deep roots in the Linux development community and the backing of the industry’s leaders, OSDL is in the best position to support the work of exceptional engineers like Andrew,” said Stuart Cohen, CEO of OSDL. “This will allow OSDL to become a leading contributor to the Linux development community as well as giving us a great technical resource for accelerating the use of Linux.”
Morton’s duties as Linux maintainer remain unchanged. He will continue to work closely with Torvalds and the various kernel subsystem maintainers, Linux distributions, hardware vendors and other key parties to ensure that the product kernel meets their needs. He is responsible for ensuring the production kernel is stable and performs well and is the final arbiter over technical and business issues for the inclusion of patches into the production kernel.
“It’s great that both Andrew and I can work full-time on Linux through OSDL,” Torvalds said. “Now the maintainers of both the development kernel and the stable kernel
have the support of a vendor-neutral organization committed to advancing
Linux.”
Digeo applauded OSDL’s decision to sponsor Morton’s work.
“For Digeo and OSDL, this is a win-win situation,” said Mark Himelstein, senior vice president of software at Digeo. “Digeo is using Linux to drive next generation media centers for the home. Andrew’s participation ensures Digeo and the community have a high quality release we can rely on.”
In a related development, OSDL has also wooed Brian Grega to lead business
development for the group. Grega was formerly with embedded Linux specialists LynuxWorks and MontaVista.
“I look forward to helping OSDL’s members grow their businesses by
participating in the working groups on Carrier Grade Linux, Data Center
Linux and through the lab’s many other activities,” Grega said.
Corrects the name of Morton’s employer.
