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OSDL and The Free Standards Group to Merge
Posted by
Zonk
on Mon Jan 22, 2007 06:32 AM
from the straightforward-names-say-it-all dept.
from the straightforward-names-say-it-all dept.
Andy Updegrove writes "On Sunday afternoon, the Free Standards Group (FSG) signed an agreement to combine forces with Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) to form a new organization — The Linux Foundation. The result of this consolidation will be to dedicate the resources of the combined membership to 'accelerate the growth of Linux by providing a comprehensive set of services to compete effectively with closed platforms.' Jim Zemlin, currently the head of FSG, will lead the new organization as its Executive Director. The new organization will continue to support Linux in a variety of ways, including by providing economic support to Linus Torvalds and other key kernel developers, managing the Linux trademark, and providing legal protection to developers through such initiatives as the Open Source as Prior Art project, the Patent Commons, and the Linux Legal Defense Fund. All in all, a tall order, but eminently possible given its membership: The Linux Foundation's founding members will include every major company in the Linux industry, including Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel, NEC, Novell, Oracle and Red Hat, as well as many community groups, universities and industry end users."
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Questioning the Linux Foundation's Credentials 94 comments
nadamsieee writes "Neil McAllister has posted a provocative article titled Questioning the Linux Foundation's credentials. He questions the motivations behind the newly formed organization. Quoting: 'But wouldn't it make more sense to call the merged organization the Open Source and Standards Lab, or the Free Software and Standards Group? Why did they have to go and call it the Linux Foundation?' McAllister then goes on to explain why he believes that 'the Linux Foundation isn't any kind of philanthropic foundation at all[,] it's an industry trade organization.'"
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OSDL and The Free Standards Group to Merge
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Oh fer chrissake (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh fer chrissake (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh fer chrissake (Score:5, Funny)
Bad or good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
a) A standards group must be independend. The FSG loses its credibility.
b) Patents risks cannot be combated with baseless tinkering and playing nice. Give a credible lobby group 1 million to build up an equivalent movement in the US as in Europe and US software patents will be gone within 3-4 years. In Europe they continue to exist because of the weakness of US advocats and their waste of money in superficial reform proposals (red herrings). Software patents are of abolutely no use. It is time to prepare a soft landing in Alexandria "to promote the sciences and the arts".
c) If you want patents to cause no harm and pose no risks let them lapse.
d) The strong US bias is a problem which will be regarded as a risk in the rest of the world, also given the insecure US legal situation (patriot act, DMCA etc.).
It is a good idea for these reasons:
e) A Linux foundation now represents "Linux" (the trademark, the founder, the LSB, perfect).
f) The package of services looks complete and gives certain gravity to the project.
g) The name is very catchy
What do you think?
OSD + FS != Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
All the world's NOT a Linux Box.
Re:OSD + FS != Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
That's because Linux has become the de facto standard open source OS. If you check the press release, it's an agglomeration of companies that's funding the whole thing. What they want is a neutral platform which can be used by everyone. On one hand, the "other" GPL OS would be the Hurd, still in its infancy after a long gestation. OTOH, there are the BSD alternatives, but these are too divisive to be used as a standard. Since the BSD licence allows anyone to close the source, no corporation wants to fund a collaborative effort to develop a BSD OS.
Of course, the OS is just part of a software system, but it's a basic part. Without an independent OS, everyone would become Microsoft or Apple developer. The idea isn't to make the world a Linux Box, but to make it stop being a Microsoft Box.
Why not...? (Score:2)
Free Software is represented by much more than Linux. In the operating systems area (well, Linux is just the kernel but let's not detail this too much) there is the BSD (having the same general market niche), there are several research operating systems, some real time, some very small, and so on.
On the application side, there are plenty of implementations for integrated development editor (Eclipse), tens or hundreds of languages/compilers, plenty of Office clones or wannabe, graphic manipulation programs, and so on - in a list longer than a day of fasting.
And all of this takes the name of "The Linux Foundation"?
Linux: Foundation Software (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/ | Last Journal: Thursday January 08 2004, @11:59PM)
Linux is the Foundation Software of the future.
OK, so now (Score:1)
Good Move (Score:5, Insightful)
This new name spells it out in clear text, which is great for all of us that don't use Linux; be it Solaris, BSD or whatever. It also means that OSDL will lose part of its meddling ability because its now in the open that it only exist to promote Linux and not other open source systems.
I love it, I wish more organisations and companies did the same; no more hidden agendas.
What about the other Free and Open Standards? (Score:1, Redundant)
(http://www.genesi-usa.com/)
Meh. What about BSD, the embedded systems like eCos/RTMS? GNU in general runs everywhere. MacOS X is based on Open Source.
Why only focus on Linux? OSDL used to be a bit Linux-biased but now this is just ridiculously narrow in scope, Linux just isn't suitable in every environment for every task.
Load up all the eggs in one basket. (Score:1)
A decentralized OS community is a strong one. An OS community where all the projects are crowded onto one or two servers (i.e. sourceforge) is one that is easily taken out by big competing entities (i.e. Microsoft)
Audio Interview with Jim Zemlin (Score:1)
Uh-oh (Score:3, Funny)
Rock -n- Roll (Score:1)
(http://slashdot.org/)
I love it...
Long Live Linus!!!
And feed him good for his work!!!
Thanks Linus!!
You've made my life better.
Thank You... and all the companies that have supported you.
I will direct my money in your direction.
Thank you all.
One cause, one direction, one goal!
Good day!
Other systems using Linux standards (Score:2)
(http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~abraham/)
However, it might not be so bad. Other systems are free to support "Linux standards". It might even be both closer to reality and good for a marketing perspective. At least the proprietary Unixen are increasingly sold as "a better Linux".
And it is worth remembering that Linux itself started of openly implementing Unix standards, not just the "neutral" Posix, but also the Open Groups Unix98 [wikipedia.org] set of specifications (which was basically SysVR4). Whenever there wasn't a very good reason to do otherwise, Linux would follow Unix98.
I assume other organizations can take a similar stance towards the Linux Foundation.
Pros and cons (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/)
But on two levels I don't, primarily for a simple reason of naming -- Linux is not the the be all and end all of free standards (FSG) or open source (OSDL) -- Linux is a result of both.
My first objection is systems based. Assume I and a group of my peers develop the world's greatest new open source architecture -- that is not Linux. Will the Linux foundation support the open standards and open source efforts by making it easy to hook to it, etc.? Or am I and my peers now competitors?
The second is lesser because without corporate financial involvement, the proprietary solutions will always win by virtue of deep pocketbooks, lobbying, etc. So there has to be corporate buy-in in order for an open source approach to be viable in the future But Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel, NEC, Novell, and Oracle and have all been both black hats and white hats in the "Open Source" arena, so I have a level of distrust in their backing of a "single" organization under a single OS titled name.
My thoughs only. What do you think?
Linux Foundation Champion... (Score:2)
Poor is good. Big makes easy targets. (Score:1)
(http://slashdot.org/~pilbender/journal | Last Journal: Saturday June 16, @04:16PM)
"Full Disclosure" anyone? (Score:1)
(http://nixwizard.net/)
Standards? Hah! (Score:1, Troll)
(http://www.usermode.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday April 17 2007, @09:13PM)
but it's not dead Jim! (Score:1)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Re:Sign of industry maturation (Score:1)
Wow, I hope you didn't buy before 2002! LOL
Re:This old tune (Score:1)
Re:Sign of industry maturation (Score:2)
(http://www.mangaschool.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday January 03 2006, @07:51AM)