Linux Foundation: Corporate Lackey or Linux Savior?: Page 2

In its mission statement, the Linux Foundation says that it “promotes, protects and standardizes Linux.” It’s that last goal, “standardizes,” that raises a few eyebrows. Does the Foundation think it’s going to corral a bunch of born-to-be-wild open source programmers?

Jim Zemlin, Linux Foundation

“Keep in mind that standards aren’t punitive in nature. In other words, nobody goes to jail because you don’t follow a standard,” Zemlin says, with a laugh. “People can – and in some cases are highly incented to – go away from the standard, to enhance or come up with some sort of innovation.

“But at the same time, you’re incented to have a standard, to have a common backward-compatible set of components, so that you can participate in a growing market. So you have sort of this dual incentive model.

“In the world of proprietary software, standard setting is real easy – one company defines the standard and everybody has to follow that standard. And it precludes choice.

“In the new world of Linux, you have this collaboration between the upstream developers of open source software, and the downstream people who create Linux distributions, whether they’re commercial or non-commercial. And all of them work together, in a public forum, to develop a publicly available specification that is open and free for anyone to use, should they choose to participate in that market.”

What Does It Mean to ‘Standardize’ Linux?

A plan to standardize Linux sounds good in theory, but does it mean that to join the action, a distro has to lose its individual stamp?

“There will still be unique components of the different Linux distributions that developers can take advantage of, and [they] will enter into support contracts with those distributions,” Zemlin says. Interfering at that level – “That’s just not our game.”

“So I don’t want to characterize this as a ‘write once, run everywhere’ standard. What it does is that it makes it dead simple to target the platform, to easily enter in to support agreements with the various vendors who provide Linux distributions, with fewer changes to their software.

“You also get a forum within which you can define component standards, that enable Linux to interoperate with all the third party systems that are out there in the data center today.” These component standards could guide everything from printer drivers to management software interfaces, he says.

The Curse of the Industry Trade Group

Many industries, the software industry included, are littered with well-intentioned trade groups that don’t do much. They pass resolutions, sip chardonnay, and put out press releases. Meanwhile the actual industry ignores the toothless tiger.

Is the Linux Foundation one of those do-nothing groups?

“I think it’s clear what our charter is,” Zemlin says. “I think what you should expect from us is clear action in the next months.” In particular, the Foundation will be “releasing subsequent versions of our standard specification.” Furthermore, “I can see activity where we clearly demonstrate how we support the Linux development community.”

While Zemlin acknowledges the doubters, “I would also say that I’ve heard that kind of skepticism before. It was in the mid ‘90s, and it was about open source and Linux in general,” he says, laughing about how skepticism never goes away, it just changes targets.

But kidding aside, “This is tough work, it’s complex, it requires a great deal of cooperation amongst organizations that are tough competitors,” he says. “And we think we’ve got a critical mass of all the right folks at the table. Both from the industry perspective, but also from the community’s perspective. And we think we’re going to be successful, so keep an eye on us – absolutely.”