Two leading consortia dedicated to the advancement of Linux® – the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) and the Free Standards Group (FSG) – have signed an agreement to merge and form The Linux Foundation. The new organisation says it intends to accelerate the growth of the Linux operating system (OS) by providing a comprehensive set of services to compete effectively with closed platforms.

Founding platinum members of the Linux Foundation include Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel, NEC, Novell, and Oracle. Jim Zemlin, former executive director of the Free Standards Group, will head up the new body. Other members of the new organisation apparently include every major company in the Linux industry, including Red Hat, as well as numerous community groups, universities and industry end users.

“Computing is entering a world dominated by two platforms: Linux and Windows. While being managed under one roof has given Windows some consistency, Linux offers freedom of choice, customisation and flexibility without forcing customers into vendor lock-in,” said Zemlin. “The Linux Foundation helps in the next stage of Linux growth by organising the diverse companies and constituencies of the Linux ecosystem to promote, protect, and standardise Linux.”

Quite what the relationship will be between The Linux  Foundation and the various other bodies rooting for Linux – including the Linux Phone Standards Forum (LiPS) which in August last year said it was synchronising its activities with those of the OSDL (click) – is presently unclear.

Meantime, another of the Linux booster organisations – the open Linux-based platform foundation announced in 2006 by Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone, NEC, Panasonic and Samsung Electronics - has officially formed the LiMo Foundation to support the goal of creating the world’s first globally competitive, Linux-based software platform for mobile devices. A not-for-profit organisation, the LiMo Foundation “…is aimed at blending the community-based development benefits of transparency, innovation and scalability with the best development practices from the mobile community to create an innovative new business model.” Overseen by a board of directors comprising representatives from the founding member companies including Foundation chairman, Greg Besio of Motorola and vice chair, Kiyohito Nagata of NTT DoCoMo, the LiMo Foundation will be seeking new members interested in participating in the development of a set of APIs, architecture, and contributing source code for the common components of the Linux based mobile platform.

And in other OS news, tomorrow sees the much-delayed consumer launch by Microsoft (aka the Beast of Redmond) of its Vista PC OS product, developed over a not very fleet-footed five years at a reputed cost of around US$6bn.
John Williamson