[luau] Linus to work full-time on Linux

[Taylor Cody L Contractor 502 AOS/PETS]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech/06/18/tech.linux.reut/index.html

Linus to work full-time on Linux
Torvalds joins development group for open-source software

Wednesday, June 18, 2003 Posted: 2:09 PM EDT (1809 GMT)

SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- Linus Torvalds, the creator of the
free Linux operating system, will join a computer-industry-backed group to
work full time at speeding the adoption of Linux at corporations. 

 As a fellow at Open Source Development Lab, or OSDL, Finnish-born Torvalds
will lead the development of Linux, which Torvalds created in 1991 as a
university student. Linux is gaining acceptance in heavy-duty corporate
computing.

Torvalds is leaving struggling chip designer Transmeta, where he was an
early employee. Transmeta designs low-power chips compatible with those made
by Intel, the world's No. 1 chipmaker.

International Business Machines and Hewlett-Packard, the world's No. 1 and
No. 2 computer companies, respectively, have been building their Linux
offerings for the last several years. Sun Microsystems has waffled somewhat
on its Linux strategy, but it does sell computers running Linux.

"It feels a bit strange to finally officially work on what I've been doing
for the last 12 years, but with the upcoming [Linux release], it makes sense
to be able to concentrate fully on Linux," Torvalds said in a news release
issued jointly by Transmeta and OSDL.

Linux spurs dispute

The announcement comes a day after SCO Group said it revoked IBM's right to
use and distribute software based on Unix, intensifying a legal dispute over
the rights of companies worldwide to the popular Linux operating system.

IBM immediately rejected SCO's attempt to block IBM from working with
Unix-based software, widely used in corporate, government and university
computer systems.

The vast majority of servers in the world run either on variants of the Unix
operating system, sold by IBM, HP and Sun, or on Microsoft's operating
system designed for servers.

Big names back Linux efforts

Founded in 2000, OSDL has data centers in Portland, Oregon, and Yokohama,
Japan, used by Linux developers from around the world, OSDL said.

The group has financial backing from Computer Associates International,
Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel, NEC, and others, and is pushing industry
efforts to make Linux ready for use in corporate data centers and
telecommunications networks, OSDL said.

Revenue for Linux-based servers grew 62 percent in 2002, albeit from a small
base, while overall sales of servers dropped 8 percent that year, according
to Gartner Dataquest, a market research company.

"The computing market is still questioning how far and how fast Linux can go
as an enterprise-ready platform," said George Weiss, Gartner's vice
president and research director, in a statement.

By 2007, Gartner predicts Linux may hold a 15 percent share of the worldwide
server market.