Open Cloud Roundup: Top Stories this Week

This week's open source cloud headlines yielded the not-so-suprising news that NASA will discontinue support for the OpenStack cloud platform it helped engineer. The reason? OpenStack is now receiving commercial support and the agency's funds are best spent elsewhere, according to Datacenter Dynamics. 

Uptime: NASA to cut involvement in OpenStack
Datacenter Dynamics
The agency that was central to developing the OpenStack platform has announced it will no longer be involved in the project. NASA will also stop work on Nebula, the cloud infrastructure developed alongside OpenStack.

OpenShift PaaS Roadmap for Enterprises Outlined by Red Hat
Application Development Trends

Red Hat announced its open source PaaS offering for the enterprise, a competitor to VMWare’s Cloud Foundry. 

How the Growth of Mobile is Driving Cloud Computing (Infographic)
Alltop
This isn't open source specific, but the connection between mobile computing and the growth of PaaS, the third largest cloud category, is interesting. PaaS is expected to grow 232% between 2010 and 2014. Who are the big open source PaaS providers? Red Hat's OpenShift, for one. VMWare's Cloud Foundry is another.

Open Source Cloud Computing: Could It Be Part of Your Next Cloud Project?
Midsize Insider
When does it make sense for mid-size businesses to use open source frameworks for cloud computing? Web and social applications are a good fit. Internal IT skills are a must, according to this article. And for many, it may be too soon. The article argues that security is still an issue for SMBs in cloud adoption, but a Microsoft study on cloud adoption disagrees.

Marten Mickos: Openness is Winning in the Cloud
Linux.com
The CEO of Eucalyptus says open source cloud startups are scaling in size with important customers and a large install base that make them competitive with closed source solutions.

Linux Mint 13 “Maya” RC released!

Marten Mickos: Eucalyptus Opens Up Under Agile Model

As part of our ongoing focus on open source cloud, we talked with Eucalyptus CEO Marten Mickos about the commoditization of hypervisors, what’s driving his company’s growth and its plans to release Eucalyptus 3.1 soon, marking the company’s shift to a much more open development model. The interview is presented in two parts. Yesterday’s post covered the open cloud, the role of APIs and where open source cloud computing is headed.

Linux.com: What’s driving private cloud (Eucalyptus’s specialty)?

Marten Mickos: The driving force now is agility. Companies need the elasticity of cloud to assign infrastructure resources on the fly to different applications and shift the workloads around. That’s why our customers do it. Cloud is a new piece of software on your servers so there must be a benefit to installing it. Agility is that benefit. Longer-term, cloud also gives better manageability and higher utilization.

Linux.com: How much overlap is there between the surge in interest in big data and the open cloud movement? Is one influencing the other?

Mickos: I think both are driven by the large increase in the number of connected devices. The underlying trend is connected devices. How many new devices with an IP address are there? They produce a lot of data and have compute needs. They need clouds to run on and big data to be analyzed. You can run big data solutions on cloud platforms. That’s just a practical reality.

Linux.com:  Is virtualization in the cloud going away? More companies are offering cloud services without the hypervisor. What does that mean for VMware and others?

Mickos: Virtualization is needed and useful but ultimately it will be compressed into the hardware, into the CPU. Sure you can do deployments that don’t use hypervisors and get some improvements in use case. But how do you maintain flexibility of your own virtual machine? I don’t think they’re going away but I can see them being commoditized.

But we shouldn’t think companies like VWMare are losing their business anytime soon. Although the technological change could happen fast, customer deployments happen slowly. They virtualization vendors will be able to monetize that for many years to come. And now they’re moving up the chain into PaaS and IaaS that they didn’t have before.

But with a hypervisor background you might not have the needed frame of thinking for building a cloud. A hypervisor is a single piece of software; it runs in one machine. A cloud platform like Eucalyptus is essentially a multi-machine piece of software.  It takes a different mindset to develop distributed systems.

Here’s an analogy: The world had hierarchical databases, and then someone developed a relational database. It wasn’t the hierarchical designers who came up with it, it took new guys.

Linux.com: Where is Eucalyptus now?

Mickos: We are unique in the space in that we’ve had production use of Eucalyptus for over two years. We have taken a step into mission-critical uses and now have high availability (HA) in the product.

Linux.com: What’s new for you this year and where are you headed?

Mickos: We are growing very rapidly. We shipped Eucalyptus 3.0 which is revolutionary in that it has features no other cloud service has. We signed a deal with AWS and have raised $30 million in capital a few weeks ago.

We have lots of customers going and that’s just the U.S. We’re equally active in China , India and Europe. We’re pushing hard on all those fronts and shipping software faster than before. And we have the financial funds to keep expanding. But it’s always hard to build a company.

The 3.1 release is coming out in two months from now. It will mark the transition we agreed on internally in terms of a new development model. We’re working now under an agile model and we’ll use Git and GitHub for our source code repository.  This marks a much more open model for how we develop our product.

Linux.com: Does that mean Eucalyptus will be completely open source, or will you still reserve some aspects of your code for customers under an “open core” model?

Mickos: The platform is totally open, we will have plugins we give to paying customers. The good news is anybody can develop plugins so we’re a much more pluggable architecture and we’ll welcome that sort of development.

2012 Linux Foundation T-shirt Contest: Inspired by Linux

So much has happened recently in the Linux community to be inspired by. This is my second month as the Digital Content Editor for Linux.com and as a newbie member I’ve already met so many amazing people and seen so many significant milestones pass just since I started.

- With the Linux Foundation’s Annual Development Report we learned that more than 7,800 developers from almost 800 different companies have contributed to the Linux kernel since tracking began in 2005.

Their contributions make Linux the largest collaborative development project in the history of computing. That’s pretty amazing, and inspiring.

- Linux Creator and Linux Foundation Fellow Linus Torvalds in April was named a Millennium Technology Prize laureate -- an honor considered to be the Nobel prize of technology.

Wow, am I proud to work in the same community as him.

- New advances are happening all the time, whether it’s Ubuntu’s recent 12.04, the soon-to-be-released Linux 3.4, OpenStack and the open cloud movement, Android seizing market share or the myriad other technologies and trends that form the Linux juggernaut.

You had me at Ubuntu.

Bottom line: This community is continually innovating and inspiring the next generation of Linux products and developers. The list of accomplishments is as diverse as the community that contributes to the success of Linux. I can’t help but be in awe, and I’ll bet you can’t help it either. That’s why we’ve chosen the theme of this year’s T-shirt design contest to be “Inspired by Linux.” Tell us:

How does Linux inspire you?

We invite you to take that kernel of an idea and turn it into an inspiring T-shirt design for the Linux community to wear proudly in our 3rd Annual Linux Foundation T-shirt Design Contest. The design can depict literally or figuratively the events or ideas that get you pumped up for Linux. It can have words, graphics, or both in whatever font and colors you like. Let Linux be your muse.

Submissions are due on June 8. (Submit your design and see the official rules and submission guidelines.)

This year we’re pleased to announce that two winners will be selected by the communty. The first place winner will be reimbursed $2,000 to be applied toward airfare, hotel and admissions to their choice of LinuxCon North America in San Diego, CA on Aug. 26 - 29, 2012, or LinuxCon Europe in Barcelona, Spain Nov. 5-7, 2012. Second place will be reimbursed $1,000 toward LinuxCon North America or LinuxCon Europe in 2012.

We’ve also taken steps this year to ensure a fair voting process. The Linux Foundation staff will choose the top 5-7 submissions from designs received by the deadline. The community will then vote on the finalists to choose two winners. Voters must be registered members of Linux.com and must be logged in to vote. Only one vote per registered member is allowed.

First place will be awarded to the design that receives the most community votes and second place will go to the runner up. Winners will be announced on or around July 17, 2012.

Good luck! I can’t wait to see all of your designs. And if you're looking for more inspiration, check out our contest video:

Marten Mickos: Openness is Winning in the Cloud

Open source cloud computing software startup Eucalyptus has had an eventful past few months:

-       In March the Infrastructure-as-a-Service company signed a deal with Amazon Web Services to improve its compatibility with the Amazon API and address customers jointly. This makes Eucalyptus the only cloud vendor to land a formal agreement with the market-leading platform, though it’s not the only one using the API.

-       In April the company raised $30 million in Series C funding, setting it on solid financial footing to fuel its rapid expansion says CEO Marten Mickos.

-       And Eucalyptus 3.1 is coming soon, marking the company’s shift to a much more open development model and placing it firmly at the center of the open source cloud computing movement.

As part of our ongoing focus on open source cloud, we talked with Mickos about Linux and the open cloud, the role of APIs and where open source cloud computing is headed. The interview is presented in two parts. In tomorrow’s post we’ll discuss Eucalyptus’s business in more detail.

Linux.com: Open cloud has been gaining momentum in the past few months with the announcement of CloudOpen and activity around OpenStack. What’s driving that attention?

Marten Mickos: I think generally speaking people are realizing how important cloud is. And when you look at what’s out there, there’s VMWare and then there’s nothing. And then you have four open source projects: OpenNebula; OpenStack; CloudStack; and Eucalyptus. When you want an alternative you are immediately in open source space.

Linux.com: What has changed in open source cloud computing since you spoke about it a year ago at LinuxCon?

Mickos: Products have matured. It’s following a typical technology adoption lifecycle, described in Crossing the Chasm. We’re still early but we’re less early than a year ago.

Linux.com: In that talk last year you said GPL was vital to Linux, do you see a similar legal framework developing for the cloud yet?

Mickos: It’s an important question but it’s a little philosophical. We have GPL which defines software as free and open. When you go into the cloud it’s not only about source code - it is also about data and API. Today, openness in data and API is up to each vendor - there isn't yet a common rulebook for it like the GPL is the rulebook for free software.

But I do think we’re seeing de facto standards emerging in cloud. To take Eucalyptus as a specific example, we do the same cloud API as Amazon. We see EC2 as a de facto standard.

Linux.com:The Linux Foundation has announced a new conference this year, Cloud Open, intended to encourage collaboration among open source players in cloud computing. What do you see as the Linux Foundation’s role in the open cloud movement?

Mickos: The Linux Foundation is one of the most central bodies in software in the whole world. We don’t hear much from The Linux Foundation because it’s so well managed. There haven’t been any big conflicts. Linus Torvalds keeps working on the kernel and after 20 years it keeps feeding a huge ecosystem downstream. Just doing that is already amazing.

I don’t think The Linux Foundation feels that it has to take on some mandate. It is important and relevant that KVM and Xen are now part of the Linux kernel. That’s an indication of the importance of cloud. It’s so important to keep Linux in active development in managing all the work from different parties, which is the key mandate for The Linux Foundation.

Linux.com: What about the role of Linux in open cloud?

Mickos: As we get more datacenters running in the cloud the underlying architecture will be Linux. Cloud will mean an increase in the Linux install base. Linux is so well suited for it. It powers already the largest datacenters and as we move to cloud architectures it’s good to have it there. I think cloud will increase the share of Linux on servers. 

Linux.com: What’s your outlook on the open source cloud movement in general?

Mickos: Openness is winning in cloud. I was just at a Goldman Sachs cloud conference. Out of 15 companies presenting, ten were open source companies. That’s significant. There’s much more coming and promising startups are scaling in size. Companies like Cloudera, Acquia, Opscode and Puppet Labs.

They have a large install base, they have great customers, and they’re competitive against closed source. It bodes well for the world of open source. It’s important in my mind that open source isn’t just a technology, but that there are businesses who thrive on and around open source. Take Red Hat as an example. People forget how critical it is that they’re successful showing that open source makes business sense. We need such role models and it’s very healthy for the open source community.

Linux.com: You’ve said that we’re in a transitional period in which programming freedom isn’t about source code anymore, it’s about API’s. What do you mean by that? And how does that apply to the open cloud?

Mickos: It is also about source code, but it’s not only about source code. I’m a huge supporter of open source, but the attention is pointing more to the APIs. Ten years ago you’d say that your application runs on Linux. The question now is does your application run on AWS? And of course AWS runs some Linux. But we have reached a new abstraction layer. We are higher up. And we talk about apps running on a specific cloud, not on a specific operating system. It’s difficult to find a public cloud today that doesn’t run on Linux.

Linux.com: Your talk about making API’s open was prescient considering the precedent now being set by Google and Oracle. What is the danger here?

Mickos: I’m not a legal expert so don’t want to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit. But generally speaking there are many products that claim Amazon API compatibility or are developing it.

Open Source Cloud Top Stories of the Week

This week's open source cloud headlines featured doomsday predictions about the consequences of the Oracle and Google dispute; why Rackspace's first quarter earnings have some analysts scaling down cloud computing predictions; and a crop of interesting trends including moves to abandon hypervisors and go bare metal in the cloud. 



Could Oracle Blow Up the Cloud?, Wired
An analysis of how the recent decision in the Oracle v Google case would potentially affect the cloud. If APIs are protected under copyright, open source cloud projects including OpenStack and CloudStack could wind up paying fees to Amazon Web Services.
 
Rackspace Earnings: Cloud Computing, Services Reality Check, Talkin Cloud Blog
The margins on Rackspace’s cloud computing earnings are fluctuating more than investors would like, signalling that the market isn’t going as gangbusters as predicted. Growth was still very strong, however, and the company reassured investors by pumping up its plans for OpenStack.


Citrix CloudStack: 85% of VARs See Private Cloud Opportunities, Talkin Cloud Blog
No real suprising news out of the Citrix Partner Summit in San Francisco this week. The market is young and Citrix is going after the group of VARs and cloud service providers that already partner with Citrix.
 
Open-source cloud frameworks: A work in progress, ComputerWorld
This overview of open source cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service offerings includes a few case studies from businesses using open source frameworks.


6fusion Goes Vendor-Agnostic with Xen, Citrix Support, Talkin Cloud Blog
This IaaS provider is branching out from VMWare to include Citrix Xen and open source Xen support. The market is chafing against vendor lockin and this company is looking to make the hypervisor less relevant to cloud services.

Going native: The move to bare-metal cloud services, InfoWorld
This article seems to back up 6Fusion’s assertion that hypervisors aren’t necessary for cloud services and that there’s a trend away from them in the market.

The battle to stop Amazon Web Services starts here, InfoWorld
Expect to see more IaaS/ PaaS partnerships and acquisitions as companies align against AWS.

Piston Cloud, the Red Hat of OpenStack Cloud Computing?

With the recent buzz around the OpenStack project, momentum behind open source cloud development is building. We’re now seeing an early ecosystem of companies and products built around OpenStack – a goal that Rackspace’s Lew Moorman laid out for the project when it launched two years ago.

“We hope to build a vibrant business community around this,” Moorman said in a 2010 OSCON presentation. “If companies can build around OpenStack it’s going to pay for developers to continue to give back.”

Piston Cloud Computing was one of the first to jump into the fray as an Infrastructure-as-a-Service startup built on the OpenStack framework. The one-year-old company is both contributing to and seizing the momentum behind OpenStack as the project’s only distribution (so far).

We talked recently with Christopher MacGown, a Piston Cloud co-founder and CTO, about the kind of open source ecosystem he sees developing around OpenStack and his company’s claim as the Red Hat of OpenStack.

Linux.com: There are now several IT companies built around OpenStack, mostly offering services, how are you different?

Christopher MacGown: We’re primarily a product company. We’ve built the first of many distributions of OpenStack. We’re also private cloud focused versus those focused on OpenStack-based public clouds.

We’re one of the few companies for whom OpenStack is the big bet for our company. We succeed when OpenStack succeeds. Whereas some of these other companies have services divisions or other open source projects they can fall back on.

Linux.com: How are you integrated with OpenStack?

MacGown: At Piston Cloud we’re amongst the founders of OpenStack. My fellow cofounders were both at NASA and worked on the Nebula project, one of the key technologies behind OpenStack. I was at Rackspace at the time and trying to figure out how to make it open source.

We’re still really involved with the project. I’m on the Nova Core team for OpenStack compute. And several engineers are on core teams and the new Cinder project as well.

Linux.com: Why is it worthwhile to gamble your whole company on OpenStack?

MacGown: In open source software it’s not the actual software that wins, it’s the ecosystem that builds services or applications around it that wins. Linux won because the ecosystem was so much larger than the BSD/s. There’s a huge ecosystem around OpenStack. That makes it a good bet.

Linux.com: To quote Wired in a recent article: Who will be the Red Hat of OpenStack?

MacGown: We’ve always described ourselves as the Red Hat of OpenStack, though that’s become a bit funnier since Red Hat has joined OpenStack. They’re not as focused on Infrastructure-as-a-Service as we are. So we think we can still make that claim.

Our competitive advantage is we’re the only people who have built large scalable clouds. Joshua (McKenty) helped build the first certified regulated cloud for NASA, which was used by the White House. We understand regulation and we built the first implementation of Cloud Audit API, and open sourced that framework. We understand the space and believe that other people won’t actually be able to compete with us on the advantage.

Linux.com: Is open source cloud heating up? Why now?

MacGown: It really is. Open source cloud is heating up now because so many people see the Amazon model and realize it’s going to lock them in long term and don’t want to turn Amazon into next IBM. They’re realizing they can actually drive the development to meet their needs better than if using other proprietary solutions such as KWS or VMWare.

Linux.com: What are some of the trends we should be paying attention to in the open cloud space right now?

MacGown: The licensing model is moving away from general public license (GPL) and transitioning to a freer, more open licensing. That enables companies to do more around open core proprietary extensions without feeling like they’re going to violate their own source code with the GPL. There’s a trend toward Apache licensing. On the tech side there’s a lot of research and development in software-defined networking.

Linux.com: How does software-defined networking fit in with open source cloud?

MacGown: When it becomes something people understand and view the benefit for, they’ll be able to build out federate cloud environments similar to how we build out web properties now. Everybody uses Apache, some use IIS, but when you use a web browser everything is the same with your experience. Back ends might not be identical but you have the same experience as an end user of the software or virtualization pieces directly and use that across cloud providers and platforms.

Linux.com: Has this been a focus of the OpenStack project?

MacGown: It’s definitely a focus. Companies like Cisco and Dell have contributed heavily. And with federation in general there’s a lot of expectation and work being done from the humanitarian and scientific computing communities.

Linux.com: Talk about some of the challenges of the open cloud and OpenStack project and your niche in the market.

MacGown: One of the main challenges is nobody’s quite sure what cloud means. With the OpenStack project in particular that’s very similar. You have a lot of excitement and driving that in a single direction that’s 80-90 percent for everyone has been historically difficult.

The work that’s been done around the foundation to put the control directly in the hands of the community will help that. There are efforts to formalize the relationship and the decision making structure.

Linux.com: Your startup is less than two years old now, how far have you come? Where are you headed?

MacGown: We raised series A funding in July of last year, announced a preview of our product, Piston Enterprise OS (pentOS) in September 2011 and pentOS went general availability in January of this year.

Our goal for the year is we’re going to have a great release of OpanStack Essex around the middle to the end of the third quarter. We were the first to release a distro of Diablo, but we don’t want to be the first for Essex. (Canonical plans to have Essex first.) We want to be the stately gravitas distro where we support it and know all about it and can guarantee the security of it.

To learn more about how open source is impacting the future of cloud computing, check out The Linux Foundation’s latest event CloudOpen.

The Linux Foundation Announces Early Keynote Confirmations, Co-located Events for LinuxCon North America and CloudOpen

NEWS HIGHIGHTS

• Twitter among early keynote confirmations to headline this year’s premier Linux and open source event

• LinuxCon/CloudOpen co-located events - including Linux Kernel Summit, Linux Plumbers Conference, GStreamer Summit, and more - make San Diego the Linux and open source hot spot for summer 2012

• Call for Papers for both LinuxCon North America and CloudOpen closes June 1, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO, May 9, 2012 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced early confirmations for keynote speakers for North America’s premier annual conference LinuxCon and the debut event CloudOpen, taking place together in San Diego, Calif., August 29-31, 2012.

Twitter’s Open Source Manager Chris Aniszczyk, President of Qualcomm’s Innovation Center Rob Chandhok, and former HP executive and author Phil McKinney are among the keynoters who will headline this summer’s event.

The organization today is also announcing a variety of new co-located events being hosted at LinuxCon North America and CloudOpen, which will allow attendees to maximize their experience and collaboration with the broadest possible set of Linux community stakeholders.

LinuxCon North America this year is co-located with the Linux Kernel Summit and Linux Plumbers Conference, as well as the following events:   

• Gluster Workshop, oVirt Workshop and Security Mini-Summit
• GStreamer Conference
• The C Conference
• Xen Summit

The LinuxCon/CloudOpen keynote lineup reflects this year’s software and computing priorities, from the role of Linux in the cloud, big data and mobile computing, to its impact on today’s online experiences. The following keynote speakers have been confirmed:

• Twitter’s Chris Aniszczyk will present “The Open Source Technology Behind a Tweet.”

• Qualcomm Innovation Center’s Rob Chandhok will share how Linux is fueling the mobile industry through collaboration.

• Former HP executive and author of “Beyond the Obvious: Killer Questions That Spark Game-Changing Innovation,” Phil McKinney will talk about the nature of innovation in a collaboration economy.

• The exclusive Linux Kernel panel will draw from a pool of the top Linux kernel developers in the world who will be attending the Linux Kernel Summit co-located with LinuxCon North America and CloudOpen. 

• The Linux Foundation’s Jim Zemlin will give his annual State of Linux.

The Call for Participation (CFP) deadline for both LinuxCon North America and CloudOpen is June 1, 2012. Please submit a proposal and be a part of this year’s events. Additional details, speakers and sessions will be announced after all proposals have been received.

“Clear your calendars for the last week of August, because the global Linux and open source community will be taking over the city of San Diego. The number of co-located events and caliber of keynote speakers at this year’s LinuxCon North America is unprecedented, and we’re looking forward to what we can advance at this year’s events,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “We hope that by bringing together an even wider variety of open source projects and companies, we can maximize everyone’s investment in their conference schedules this year.”

Registration is U.S. $500 through July 28th. For more information about LinuxCon, CloudOpen or other Linux events, pleaes visit The Linux Foundation Events website or watch this video that showcases the LinuxCon experience.

LinuxCon, which has sold out every year since its debut, is the world’s leading conference addressing all matters Linux for the global business and technical communities. The LinuxCon schedule includes in-depth technical content for developers and operations personnel, as well as business and legal insight from the industry’s leaders. The networking, problem-solving and deal-making opportunities at LinuxCon are unmatched for those involved in enterprise, desktop or mobile Linux.

Designed for software developers and IT managers responsible for deploying and developing cloud solutions, CloudOpen will feature technical content that includes, but is not limited to Chef, Gluster, Hadoop, KVM, Linux, oVirt, Puppet, and Xen, as well as big data strategies and open cloud platforms and tools. This conference will also cover open source best practices and how they relate to topics such as company data and APIs.

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research, Linux videos and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base , MeeGo and the Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Monthly Stats – April 2012

Monthly Stats – March 2012

Monthly Stats – February 2012

Big Data, Cloud Knowledge Key in IT Jobs Market

As a global community, we are creating and sharing more information than ever before. And, most of that activity is happening "in the cloud," which is hosted on millions of servers in datacenters located anywhere from the Columbia River Gorge, to the Nevada desert, to the most remote areas of China.

As the reality of managing that level of data sets in, the demand for employees with a unique combination of analytics and IT management expertise is on the rise. With our newest event, CloudOpen, taking place this coming summer, we wanted to learn more about this demand and the areas we should address at this event and as part of our ongoing Linux training program. So, we got in touch with Dice.com's Managing Director Alice Hill. Her responses were very useful and we thought we'd share them with you, the community.

Linux.com: We've been reading a lot about an increasing demand for professionals with big data expertise. What's your take on the primary drivers behind this trend?

Hill: Every company wants more intelligence – more insights into customer behavior, emerging trends, cost structures, etc.  Many firms have the data, but it’s unused, unstructured and isn’t easily digestible by managers to make decisions.  If companies can develop this asset, it will give them an edge in the market and potentially influence customer behaviors.  

Linux.com: What kinds of expertise are employers looking for related to big data?

Hill: Data architects, analytics professionals and data scientists are high on the list right now. Employers are requesting experience with machine learning, statistics, and natural language processing.  Big data takes that foundation and marries that know-how to newer technologies like Hadoop and NoSQL and other open-source tools/technologies.  

Linux.com: You recently reported that demand for Linux talent hit an all-time high on the Dice.com boards. Do you see any parallels with the demand for big data talent?

Hill: About one-third of the “big data” jobs on Dice also request Linux expertise. The employment demand for Linux expertise is much more widespread and it’s really a core skill for technology professionals today.

Linux.com: We've heard that a big data expert is likely someone with a hybrid of expertise, including business and technical acumen. How are employers dealing with this challenge?

Hill: That’s true and we see more and more job postings on Dice.com that note an MBA is a plus. However, it’s not just the technology departments’ responsibility to gain business acumen. The line of business leaders need to have a willingness to dig into the technologies and ask questions when they don’t fully comprehend the back-end of getting the insights everyone wants.  

For newer technologists, whether focused on big data or other areas, you should be able to “story board” what the business needs, contribute to the story, understand the financial analysis and deliver it in a way that is easily understood by any audience. This is where we should spend time teaching our less experienced colleagues.  

Linux.com: What advice do you have for professionals seeking a career in the area of big data?

Hill: Focus on working with internet companies with consumer audiences – ecommerce, gaming, etc.  Those firms have enormous data streams matched by a serious craving to use the data.  Ultimately, though don’t fit your career into a trend – you should do what you are best at for real satisfaction.  

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Related Resources

Linux Jobs

Linux Training

Linux Events

Member Profile: Open Source Founder and Android Fan Anthony Favre

Anthony Favre used Linux for the first time as a student in 1997 and has since started two companies that specialize in Linux and open source technologies. 

In 2002 he founded Linalis, an IT company in Geneva that provided LPI (LInux Professional Institute) certifications. There he wrote one of the first LPI-certified study guides. Then in 2009, he founded the Swiss branch of French IT company Smile, also active in open source, where he is now managing director. 

"My job is to promote open source solutions in general and Linux in particular," Favre said. "My company is a Red Hat advanced partner and we provide solutions based only on open source." 

He recently joined the Linux Foudation as an individual member after learning that membership is an option for anyone.

"I didn't know it was possible to join The Linux Foundation. Since I saw that, I was pleased to grant a little bit to the foundation," he said. "Unfortunately, I'm not technically strong enough to develop or help on projects."

He's still very active in the community through the events he organizes to promote Linux such as the 2009 conference LinuxDays and this year's Open Source Now event in Geneva. He's hoping to take advantage of his membership to attend Linux Foundation events such as LinuxCon Europe in Barcelona Nov. 5-7. Members receive 20 percent off the registration fee for LinuxCon events.

His favorite Linux innovation?

"All of them, but specifically Android," he said, because it's an easy-to-use Linux for end users.

Welcome, Anthony!

Want to share your story with The LInux Foundation and have your profile featured on Linux.com? Email Digital Content Editor Libby Clark, lclark (at) linuxfoundation.org.   

AutoGuide: Automakers Betting on Linux for Future Infotainment Systems

Automakers are seeing how people use their hands and voices to interact with their smart phones, and applying similar interfaces to their infotainment systems.

That’s why many automakers are starting to bet on Linux. Linux is a robust and versatile computer operating system, which is used in popular mobile devices (seen at the right) like those powered by Android. Additionally, it’s open-source, which means that anyone can take Linux and adapt it for their needs, without having to pay license fees. Now, Linux just earned its driver’s license, and will be coming to a car’s infotainment system soon.

Read more at AutoGuide.com

Top Open Cloud Stories This Week

Open cloud news this week brought with it some new competition, some reflection on existing competitors and some unexpected cooperation.  I've also thrown in a short counter perspective on the issue of portability -- is it a myth? 
 
What did you think was this week's top open cloud story? Please tell me in the comments, below. I'd love to hear from you. Your feedback will help me refine this list and and make it more useful to the community. Thanks!
 
First the competition:
 
Open source cloud toolkit funded by EU Optimis project to arrive in June, ComputerWorld UK
Funded by the European Union to make Europe more “cloud friendly,” the Optmis project is gaining steam. The European OpenStack equivalent is also getting some pressure to partner with OpenStack.

Red Hat debuts OpenShift Origin project, takes swipe at VMware's Cloud Foundry, ZDNet
The Origin project will serve as the upstream for code and improvements to OpenShift, Red Hat’s PaaS, which today runs on Amazon Web Services cloud and competes against VMware’s open source Cloud Foundry.

Marten Mickos: For Eucalyptus open cloud is more than open code, TechWorld
Mickos compares cloud storage to depositing money in the bank. All depositors should have free and open access to their stored data. He also comments on Eucalyptus’ partnership with Amazon to support Amazon Web Services’ API, saying it gives his company a competitive advantage over OpenStack, which doesn’t have a similar deal with Amazon.
 
Cooperation (or just less competition):
 
Thanks to Piston, OpenStack gets an unlikely ally in VMware, GigaOM
Piston Cloud wants to bring together the Cloud Foundry PaaS with the OpenStack IaaS. Wasn’t OpenStack in part a play against VMWare, as well as Amazon Web Services?
 
Open Compute one year later. Bigger, badder and less disruptive than we thought, GigaOm
With the growth of Facebook’s Open Compute open hardware project and OpenStack it’s possible to build an entirely open hardware infrastructure layer and companies are demanding more flexibility. The big data ecosystem has adjusted, with companies like Dell and HP offering new server and storage designs compatible with Open Rack.
 
A different perspective:

Two Cloud Myths Busted: Lock-In and Locked Up, PCWorld
Portability is a favorite mantra of open cloud supporters. But is portability a myth? This commentary says profitability and intellectual property values will always trump portability.

Quotes from the Linux Foundation Enterprise End User Summit

For the past two days, we've held our annual Enterprise End User Summit at the New York Stock Exchange. Besides the fun of ringing the bell during our evening reception, it's been an incredibly valuable event, fueling collaboration between kernel maintainers and enterprise end users who are pushing Linux to its edge.  

Here are highlights:

“We’re not going to use our APIs to lock people out. Trust and security are at the heart of everything we do.” Stanley Young, CEO of NYSE Technologies

“if there is one community who has embraced collaboration and openness, it’s the Linux Foundation." Stanley Young, CEO of NYSE Technologies

"Lots of things want to be the 'Linux of the cloud.' Let me tell you: Linux is the Linux of the cloud." Scott Crenshaw, Vice President at Red Hat

“There is no KVM scheduler. There are no KVM device drivers. KVM is Linux.” Anthony Liguori, IBM

“I reviewed 40 patches on my way to the conference today." Dave Miller, kernel developer, Red Hat

“I care about things that affect a lot of people. When I fix a TCP/IP bug it affects everyone who does a Google search.” Dave Miller, Red Hat

“I want to be sure Linux works for you in 20 years. That’s my goal.” Greg K-H, The Linux Foundation

I want to thank NYSE Technologies for hosting us at the historic exchange and also thank our gold sponsors IBM and SUSE. If you missed this event, please consider LinuxCon North America, Europe or Japan and CloudOpen later this August. Details on our events site. Pictures of the End User Summit are also available on Linux.com.

In Pictures: Linux Foundation Enterprise End User Summit

The Linux Foundation's Enterprise End User Summit kicked off yesterday in New York. The event this year is hosted at the NYSE Technologies' offices. It brings together Linux kernel developers and the world's largest users of Linux to collaborate face-to-face. The evening party was held on the trading floor of the NYSE, and we have some pictures available now that take you inside the event. {lfnews}

Financial Services Industry Rallies Around OpenMAMA Project as it Delivers First Release

The Linux Foundation-hosted OpenMAMA project fosters increasing collaboration on open source technologies for financial services; new Steering Committee participants include IBM, Tick42 and TS-Associates

NEW YORK [The Linux Foundation Enterprise End User Summit], April 30, 2012 – OpenMAMA, a Linux Foundation Labs project, today announced the availability of OpenMAMA 2.1, the open source Middleware Agnostic Messaging API and the first neutral standard in data messaging for financial services.

The project today is also welcoming three new Steering Committee participants: IBM, Tick42 (formerly known as DOT) and TS-Associates. Founding members for the project include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, EMC, Exegy, Fixnetix, and NYSE Technologies, who originally created the MAMA platform.

Announced last fall, the OpenMAMA project is an open source Application Programming Interface (API) that connects multiple transports and applications. Collaboration among companies and the Linux and open source communities today is enabling users to embrace new, common middleware technologies and applications as the market changes. It also helps organizations reduce their total cost of ownership and time to market for “event-driven” applications and ensures high performance, both in terms of throughput and message latency.

Features and technologies included in OpenMAMA 2.1 include:

•    The Middleware Agnostic Market Data API (MAMDA), which adds a market-specific data application development framework that includes support for quotes, trades and order books. OpenMAMDA will ultimately serve as the reference implementation of the NYSE Data Model.

•    Support for C++, Java and Windows. OpenMAMA is built using the C programming language and is designed to run on Linux. New contributions include wrappers that allow programmers to develop OpenMAMA applications written in C++ and Java, and to deploy these applications on Windows as well as Linux.

•    Integration of NYSE Technologies’ Open Data Model Project, which provides an end-to-end open platform for facilitating and simplifying the consolidation of market data with independent technology, encoding formats and distributions mechanisms. This will include support for 200+ datafed venues globally and is expected to be compliant with NYSE Technologies’ Market Data Platform.

•    Completion of the AMQP Bridge, which integrates OpenMAMA with the standard protocol for interoperability among all messaging middleware. For more information about the OpenMAMA and AMQP collaboration, please visit this blog from Amanda McPherson.

•    Vendor adoption. For example, Exegy today is announcing it is now delivering data from an Exegy Ticker Plant through OpenMAMA.

“The OpenMAMA project represents what all Linux Foundation Labs projects represent: collaboration at its best,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “OpenMAMA and open source software are accelerating for the messaging layer of the stack what Linux is doing for the OS-level of the software stack: driving innovation to support the largest number of complex transactions in real-time. The companies contributing to these efforts are leaders in their respective areas, and we’re happy to see the tremendous progress that together they’re making.”

“We are truly excited to see OpenMAMA delivered to the financial services community to become a core building block of future innovation in trading technology,” said Stanley Young, CEO, NYSE Technologies.  “I thank my colleagues at NYSE Technologies and the OpenMAMA steering committee for their leadership and dedication to bringing this first of a kind initiative to the marketplace.”

The OpenMAMA project members are meeting today with Linux kernel developers at The Linux Foundation Enterprise End User Summit to discuss these new features and to discuss what comes next. This invitation-only event this year is hosted by NYSE Technologies in New York. 

To start participating in the OpenMAMA project, visit the OpenMAMA website. You can also watch a recent keynote presentation from NYSE Technologies’ Feargal O’Sullivan titled “OpenMAMA: Open Middleware Standards for the Capital Markets and Beyond.”

About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshalling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research, Linux videos and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.


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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Poll: Desktop environments

Introducing CloudOpen: Why now and why the Linux Foundation?

I am pleased to announce CloudOpen, our new conference celebrating and exploring the open source projects, technologies and companies who make up the cloud. CloudOpen will bring together the open source projects, products and companies that are driving the cloud and big data ecosystems today and present best practices from the world of traditional open source.

You may be asking yourself, "Why another cloud event?" There are certainly no shortage of them, which isn't surprising given the nascent stage of an important new market segment. But  there was nothing that I felt focused on the open source technologies and the open source way behind the cloud.

This event began when developers from various cloud-related projects came to me and said, "We should probably be talking to each other." The Linux Foundation's role in the industry is to facilitate collaboration amongst developers, projects, companies and users. The cloud and the open source technologies that comprise it are now reaching the point of maturity that this collaboration can truly benefit users. Cloud infrastructure choice is also reaching the point of proliferation that users need to have a place to educate themselves on "open" as it relates to the cloud. And this isn't just at a source level: the conversation must include data policies, APIs and so on. The Linux Foundation can provide the neutral forum and the platform for this conversation on open to take place. 

I feel truly blessed to have assembled many leaders of cloud computing for the program committee:

• Greg DeKoenigsberg, vice president of community, Eucalyptus Systems
• Mark Hinkle, director of cloud computing community, Citrix
• Gerrit Huzienga, cloud architect, IBM
• Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer services, The Linux Foundation
• Stefano Maffulli, community manager, OpenStack
• Stephen Spector, cloud evangelist, Dell
• John Mark Walker, director of communities, Red Hat

These individuals represent the right technologies and also have the right background in open source to create a truly useful event. Expect content on cloud platforms, virtualization projects, storage, devops best practices and more. There will also be collaborative meetings between open cloud projects. 

I want to thank the platinum sponsors of CloudOpen who are supporting this work: Canonical, HP, IBM, Intel. The Linux Foundation is a non-profit who needs the support of companies to make collaboration possible. And in an event landscape where prices continue to climb, we try to make our events affordable for a broad group of people. These sponsors help us to do that. 

The CFP deadline is June 1 so please submit a talk if you would like to participate. Early bird registration ends on April 29th so please register. This year one registration gets you into both LinuxCon and CloudOpen. San Diego is truly shaping up to be an unforgettable gathering of the leaders behind open source. LinuxCon, CloudOpen, the Xen Summit, the Linux Kernel Summit, The Linux Plumbers Conference and more will all be there during the week. We hope you join us. 

Open Source Cloud Roundup: Top Stories of the Week

Not to over-inflate the horse race nature of the cloud computing space right now, but this is an exciting time to watch the action as open source projects seek to compete with giants such as Amazon and the telcos. This week's Open Cloud Roundup of top stories illustrates just how much the industry is heating up this year, with The Linux Foundation's announcement of a new CloudOpen conference and OpenStack's recent accumulation of big-name partners. The week also turned up an interesting "how-to" and a product launch for building your own private cloud with Debian.
 

Linux Foundation To Host Open Source Cloud Conference “CloudOpen”, TechCrunch
Of course, this was the top news of the week for us! As Linux Foundation VP Amanda McPherson stated in her blog post about the announcement this week: "The cloud and the open source technologies that comprise it are now reaching the point of maturity that this collaboration can truly benefit users." 

Top 10 Cloud Computing Providers of 2012, TechTarget
TechTarget’s list of top 10 cloud providers this year includes three open source projects, with one (care to take a guess?) taking second place. That’s compared with just one OS project on the list last year, a sign that open source is heating up in the cloud space. The list is also missing some noteable drop-offs from last year including IBM and Google.

OpenStack Optimism Overrides Confusion, Wired
Large companies are clamoring to participate in the project, but it’s still undefined. And many are asking who will be the Red Hat of the cloud? Hint: stay tuned for an interview here on Linux.com next week with a company that wants to answer this question.

Oracle And OpenStack: A Tale Of Two Completely Opposite Strategies, Forrester
This analysis from Forrester contrasts Rackspace and Oracle’s analyst conferences last week and highlights the difference in approaches between open source and proprietary projects. Who will win?

Deploy Your Own "Cloud" with Debian "Wheezy", Debian-news list
The open source project this week announced the availability of several new technologies that would ease the deployment of Debian-based clouds. Starting with the forthcoming release of Debian 7.0 "Wheezy", users will find ready-to-use packages for OpenStack® and Xen Cloud Platform (XCP).

Tutorial: Build a Private Cloud in Twenty Minutes, Sys-Con Media
Using OpenStack, set up devstack on a single server.

Wired.com: Linux Foundation Backs Open Cloud with CloudOpen

Mike Barton writes:

Whether open source will rule the cloud is an open question. But the Linux Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting Linux, is hoping to answer that question on the affirmative with a new technical conference that will “bring together in a vendor-neutral environment the open source projects, products and companies that are driving cloud and big data ecosystems.”

Read more at Wired.com

TechCrunch: Linux Foundation to Host Open Source Cloud Confernce: OpenCloud

Scott Merrill writes:

It wasn’t that long ago that I complained about cloud fragmentation issues. There were some interesting observations in the comments on that post. Now word comes that the Linux Foundation is hosting CloudOpen, a “new conference to advance openness in the cloud.”

Read more at TechCrunch

The Linux Foundation Launches New Event: CloudOpen

Canonical, Citrix, Dell, Eucalyptus, HP, IBM, Intel, OpenStack and SUSE to participate in new conference to advance openness in the cloud

SAN FRANCISCO, April 25, 2012 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced the creation of CloudOpen, a technical conference that will bring together in a vendor-neutral environment the open source projects, products and companies that are driving cloud and big data ecosystems.

The inaugural CloudOpen event will take place in parallel with LinuxCon North America on August 29-31, 2012 in San Diego, Calif. Designed for software developers and IT managers responsible for deploying and developing cloud solutions, CloudOpen will feature technical content that includes, but is not limited to Chef, Gluster, Hadoop, KVM, Linux, oVirt, Puppet, and Xen, as well as big data strategies and open cloud platforms and tools. This conference will also cover open source best practices and how they relate to topics such as company data and APIs.

The Call for Proposals (CFP) is open now and closes June 1, 2012, along with the CFP for LinuxCon North America.

What is generally referred to as “cloud computing” is made up of a variety of open source projects and technologies. Usage of the cloud by enterprise users has been steadily climbing. In a recent survey of enterprise end users for instance, The Linux Foundation and Yeoman Technologies found a 34 percent increase over the previous year in organizations migrating applications to cloud-based computing. Of users in the cloud, 66 percent reported that they are using Linux as their primary platform.

Much-hyped for some time, it is clear that cloud computing this year is becoming a reality for businesses large and small, prompting The Linux Foundation and its members to debut this event designed to provide a collaboration and education space that educates users about open cloud technologies and open source best practices as they apply to the cloud.

“This conference is built on one belief: open works. We know this from experience and know that the cloud demands it in order to be successful for the long term,” said Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer services at The Linux Foundation. “Because Linux, open source software and collaborative development are the foundations of the cloud, it’s important to provide a vendor-neutral forum where those who are committed to openness can advance this work and users and industry can learn about ‘open’ as it is related to the cloud.” 

The CloudOpen program committee includes:
•    Greg DeKoenigsberg, vice president of community, Eucalyptus Systems
•    Mark Hinkle, director of cloud computing community, Citrix
•    Gerrit Huzienga, cloud architect, IBM
•    Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer services, The Linux Foundation
•    Stefano Maffulli, community manager, OpenStack
•    Stephen Spector, cloud evangelist, Dell
•    John Mark Walker, director of communities, Red Hat

Founding sponsors of CloudOpen include Canonical, Citrix, Dell, Eucalyptus Systems, HP, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, NEC, Puppet Labs and SUSE.

Keynote presenters, program and special event information will be available shortly. Early bird registration is $400 and is open through April 29, 2012. Registration thereafter will be $500. Attendees can also attend LinuxCon with their CloudOpen registration at no additional cost. For more information or to register for CloudOpen, please visit the Linux Foundation events website.
 
About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research, Linux videos and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, Tizen and Yocto are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds

Linux Mint Debian 201204 released!

New data points to demand for Linux skills, training in Asia

With the Linux Foundation Enterprise End User Summit coming up on April 30, we revisited the data collected for our Linux Adoption Trends report to find some of the global trends among enterprise Linux users.

While the report published in January focused on large enterprises with more than $500 million in sales or 500+ employees, this previously unreleased data highlights regional trends among enterprise users in Europe and Asia.

For the most part the regional data showed similar patterns of adoption with large enterprise users. But one result in particular stood out.

More than 34 percent of 257 organizations surveyed in Asia cited finding trained developers and/or systems administrators as the top factor impeding Linux from having more success. That’s about double the percentage of large enterprises (17.6 percent) and European enterprises (16.3 percent) that listed finding talent as the top impediment.

Contrast these results with those of a recent Dice report that show demand for Linux skills in the job market reached a new high in April and you begin to see the need for more Linux training, especially in Asia. The data also jibes with Randstad Technologies manager Chris Mader’s suggestion that a huge opportunity awaits IT staffing agencies in Asia.

This data just scratches the surface of emerging trends in Linux enterprise use. For more insight and information on enterprise Linux we recommend attending the Enterprise End User Summit April 30 - May 1 in New York. The event is also an opportunity to meet other users such as Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (see the video, below) that can help illuminate other development opportunities. For opportunities specific to the Asia/Pac markets, check out the LinuxCon Japan agenda. This event takes place June 6-8 in Yokohama.

The Linux Foundation Adds Five New Members from Japan

Ashisuto, Aisin AW, JVC KENWOOD Corporation, NTT DATA MSE and Turbo Systems prioritize Linux for the future of cars, mobile devices and more

SAN FRANCISCO, April 23, 2012 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that five new companies from Japan are joining the organization: Ashisuto, Aisin AW, JVC KENWOOD Corporation, NTT DATA MSE, and Turbo Systems.

Japan has long been a leader in Linux development and deployments. Technology leaders NEC, Fujitsu and Hitachi are among The Linux Foundation’s founding members, and the Japanese government in 2007 prioritized Linux and open source software for all software procurement. Today Japanese companies are again taking a leadership role as Linux becomes the dominant platform for software development in next-generation cars, mobile devices and more.

The Linux Foundation’s newest members will collaborate to advance Linux in these areas at LinuxCon Japan, taking place this year from June 6-8. This event aims to support collaboration between Japan and other Asia Pacific countries and the rest of the global Linux community. Later this year, companies will also participate in the Automotive Linux Summit.

More details on today’s new Linux Foundation members include:

Ashisuto is an independent distributor of software packages. The company has a 40-year history of delivering software, support and training services to large companies in three primary categories: information management, information usage and system control. It also provides support for open source software that includes OpenOffice.org, PostresSQL and Ubuntu.    

"By joining the Linux Foundation, we wish to contribute to expand the Linux market by sharing our expertise acquired through support services for Ubuntu as well as other software packages run on Linux,” said Masanao Kamiya, department manager for Open Source Software Division of Ashisuto.

Aisin AW in 1992 pioneered the field of car navigation systems, developing the world's first voice navigation system. Today, the company leads the world production of these systems and also provides products and services in the areas of automatic transmission, CVT, hybrid systems and EV drive systems.

“The Linux Foundation is bringing together the most important stakeholders in the areas of car and in-vehicle-infotainment software development,” said Satoshi Ninomoiya, Aisin AW. “It is critical that we be a part of that community and we’re looking forward to participating.”

JVC KENWOOD Corporation develops and manufacturers products and services for the car electronics, professional systems, home and mobile electronics, and entertainment businesses. It is joining The Linux Foundation take advantage of collaboration opportunities in these areas where Linux is becoming a dominant platform.

“At JVC KENWOOD Corporation, we address a variety of global markets. Linux plays a pivotal role in all of them, from car electronics to mobile devices to entertainment services,” said YOSHIO SONODA, senior manager of Strategic R&D Division, JVC KENWOOD Corporation. “The Linux Foundation is the one neutral forum where we can advance our work with Linux in all of these areas.”

NTT DATA MSE delivers systems development solutions and project management services with a focus on the embedded market and cloud services.

“Our Linux Foundation membership will help us meet the technology demands of the future of embedded software and automobiles through collaborative development,” said SHIGERU FUJITA, General Manager of Solution Planning Department, NTT DATA MSE. “We’re excited about the results of this approach to software development and business.”

Turbo Systems is an operating systems development vendor and is an established authority in Android development, Linux porting, and driver development. It has a long history in desktop, server and embedded Linux development, including Android porting, Board Support Packages (BSPs), streaming media servers and applications. Turbo Systems will be participating specifically in The Linux Foundation’s Consumer Electronics Workgroup and the Long Term Support Initiative.  

“The Linux Foundation is a natural host for work that advances Linux in the most cutting-edge environments, such consumer electronics, Android, embedded systems and long term support for the Linux kernel,” said Go Taniguchi, President and CEO, Turbo Systems. “We’re looking forward to the results of this lucrative relationship.”

“Japanese companies and developers are among the brightest in the world, and are important contributors to the advancement of Linux,” said Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer services at The Linux Foundation. “The Linux Foundation’s newest members from Japan will accelerate Linux development efforts across industries ranging from automotive to mobile and embedded development to communications technologies.”

About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research, Linux videos, and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.


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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Latest News

Open cloud top stories of the week

With the OpenStack Folsom Design Summit happening this week, much of the open cloud news has revolved around OpenStack's growing list of partners and analysis of the open source platform's role in the overall cloud ecosystem. Here are six stories featuring OpenStack, its partners and its prospects.

NOTE: This round-up of open cloud headlines is a new weekly feature on Linux.com. What were your top open cloud stories of the past week? Please let us know in the comments, below, or email editor Libby Clark, lclark (at) linuxfoundation.org. 

NEWS: 

Rackspace launches new OpenStack based cloud portfolio, IT World
The new Rackspace Cloud  includes "cloud servers, databases, block storage, networks, and monitoring, as well as a new control panel." It's more scaleable than the company's current platform and will eventually form the basis of Rackspace public cloud offerings.

Ubuntu wants to be your cloud and data-center Linux, ZDNet
Canonical's AWSOME (Any Web Service Over Me) cloud proxy is a hybrid cloud solution that deploys over Amazon Web Services and OpenStack.

Ubuntu-friendly HP cloud enters public beta, The VAR guy
The soon-to-be-released HP Cloud platform is built on open-source technologies including Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS and KVM.  

ANALYSIS:

Where enterprise enemies hug, NYTimes Bits Blog
OpenStack has united fierce competitors such as IBM, HP, Dell and Intel against Amazon Web Services. These 'frenemies' will have to distinguish themselves beyond the software to provide custom applications and services at low cost. 

Why open source is the key to cloud innovation, InfoWorld
This article outlines the seven defining properties of open source cloud computing, with a focus on interoperability and portability. 

The (Re)birth of the Next Big Cloud Provider, Wired
Recent acquisitions by Dell, a new supporter of the OpenStack Foundation, make it a serious contender in cloud services.

Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Receives One of World’s Highest Technology Honors

Torvalds is a laureate for the highly sought, internationally acclaimed Millennium Technology Prize

SAN FRANCISCO, April 19, 2012 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Linux Creator and Linux Foundation Fellow Linus Torvalds is a Millennium Technology Prize laureate. This prize, determined by the Technology Academy of Finland, is one of the world’s largest such prizes with candidates sought from across the world and from all fields of technology.

The Millennium Technology Prize is awarded every two years for innovations improving the quality of human life and encouraging sustainable development. Universities, research institutions, scientific and engineering academies, and high-tech companies from around the globe make nominations. The International Selection Committee, nominated by TAF Board, reviews the nominations and determines the year’s laureates. The Board makes the final decision on who will be the recipients of the prize, which is together established by Finnish industry and state.

The winner(s) of the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize will be awarded by the President of the Republic of Finland in a special ceremony, taking place June 13, 2012.

Previous winners include Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web; Professor Shuji Nakamura, inventor of new revolutionary light sources; Professor Robert Langer for his invention and development of innovative biomaterials for controlled drug release and tissue regeneration; and Professor Michael Gratzel for his innovative developments in dye-sensitized solar cells.

“The Millennium Technology Prize is like the Nobel Peace Prize of technology,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “Linus Torvalds embodies the innovation and collaborative spirit that this award stands for, and we congratulate him on this tremendous honor.”

Linus Torvalds created Linux in 1991. Since then it has become the world’s most ubiquitous operating system (OS): it powers the popular Android phones and eight out of 10 financial trades; it runs Amazon, Facebook, Google, Twitter and other major web networks. It is the dominant OS for supercomputers, supporting nine of 10 of these major systems, and is the preferable platform for cloud computing.

To learn more about the history of Linux, you can watch the “Story of Linux."

Also, see “How Linux is Built” with a brief illustration of the collaborative development process.

See more information about the Millennium Technology Prize.

About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshalling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.


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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Microsoft fields tough questions about open culture at the company

A flurry of press coverage came with the news two weeks ago that for the first time Microsoft had made the top-20 list in the Linux Foundation’s annual development report on top contributors to the Linux kernel. 

The announcement generated an audible buzz at the Collaboration Summit as well, where Microsoft engineers K.Y. Srinivasan and Tom Hanrahan presented “Microsoft’s journey to the Linux kernel.” They gave a technical talk, but much of the discussion revolved around Microsoft’s noticeable shift toward open source. And the pair fielded an intense round of questions from attendees, including kernel developers Greg Kroah-Hartman and James Bottomley.

Hanrahan began by asserting that Microsoft hadn’t done anything special to deserve the press attention. It was “just another company that decided to go down the path of contributing,” he said.

But the discussion opened wide when Kroah-Hartman didn’t accept that answer. To be fair, he said, Microsoft isn’t like every other company because it’s been “so anti-Linux.”

That attitude has been slowly changing within Microsoft, Hanrahan said, driven by customer demand for Linux integration. In fact, the biggest challenge Microsoft faced in the development process wasn’t resistance to Linux, but internal pressure to meet release deadlines. The Hyper-V team quickly learned that the open source community isn’t concerned as much with a company’s internal schedule but rather, with the quality of the code.

Hyper-V has benefited enormously from that extensive community exchange. Six Hyper-V drivers have now emerged from the kernel staging tree process with significant stability and performance improvements that expand what the drivers are capable of doing, Hanrahan said. And that was just the first phase of Microsoft’s work on Hyper-V.

The press attention and the obvious improvements to Hyper-V have also started to shift Microsoft’s internal culture to be more open and collaborative, Srinivasan said.

Has it also then, Bottomley asked, changed the way the Hyper-V group works to reflect a “more iterative feedback model?” And perhaps that model is creeping into other areas of the company?

“I’m not sure we’re there yet. But your feedback is important to help fix issues in a way that will help all operating systems on Hyper-V,” Srinivasan said. “We learned the hard way how best to deal with community comments and I suspect other companies have similar issues when they start working with open source.”

Overall, the presenters said, the community has been extremely helpful and welcoming throughout the past four years.

Said Srinivasan in conclusion: "Our goal is to make Linux a first-class citizen on Hyper-V."

Exclusive: Zipwhip to open source ‘Textspresso’ machine and release cloud texting for Ubuntu

It’s a pretty nice dream. On your morning commute, you send a text message to the office espresso machine with your order for a double Americano and the warm mug is waiting when you get in.

For Seattle-based cloud texting company Zipwhip, the dream is reality. Its engineers custom-built an espresso machine that takes orders via SMS using their own cloud messaging application. (Watch the video, it’s pretty sweet.)

To make this dream perfect, though, it’s got to be built with Linux. So we wanted to know: what’s the underlying technology?

Zipwhip CEO John Lauer quickly and enthusiastically responded, “we couldn’t survive without Linux.”

While the “Textspresso” machine isn’t for sale, it operates entirely on Java code and could easily be built with a Linux box, Lauer said. Zipwhip plans to open source the entire application and release circuit designs with Arduino code so you can build your own, he said.

But really, open source coffee serves as a nice demo for their true product, the Zipwhip Android app, which runs on a whole suite of Linux-based products.

Zipwhip sends text messages to and from your desktop or tablet – fully synchronized with your phone to delete messages or mark them as read – via the cloud. The four-year-old company now runs 150 virtual machines across three datacenters that handle nearly a billion text messages each month.

Its Linux infrastructure includes Ubuntu 10.04 servers; Couchbase/Membase; ActiveMQ; MySQL; Nginx; Cassandra for MMS and SMS messaging; MogileFS for external file attachments; Nagios; Keepalived; and OpenSwan.

Zipwhip is available now on Mac OS and Windows and the Linux app will be available in three weeks. Here’s an exclusive sneak peak at the Ubuntu application.

“We’re very proud of this, it lets you get your text messages popping up right on Ubuntu,” Lauer said. "We're huge proponents of the Linux community."

When a text message hits your Android phone, it also hits your desktop with a text bubble.

When you click reply, you get to type an inline message and hit Ctrl+Enter on your keyboard to quickly fire off the response.

The Zipwhip app runs in the notification area of your Ubuntu desktop—the same place apps like Skype run.

When you first install the app you have to login. If you have not created a Zipwhip account or installed the Zipwhip app on your Android phone, you can click register to do so.

Miss our Collaboration or Legal Summits? Here are some resources

Last week, we had our biggest turn-out ever for our Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit and our Legal Summit held immediately before. Collab has come a long way since the first meeting in 2007 at the Googleplex. While some of the issues and players have changed at heart the result is the same: a cross-section of people from the industry and community who may otherwise not meet collaborating together. We have assembled slides and videos from the week so if you weren't able to join us, please enjoy. 

I especially enjoyed Feargal O'Sullivan from NYSE's talk on OpenMama, the legal track on day two and Gerrit Huizenga's talk on cloud computing. I want to also especially thank our platinum sponsors Intel and Qualcomm and our gold and bronze sponsors who helped us hold this event. Both companies are truly fabulous partners for our work here at the Foundation and we should all thank them for their support of Linux. 

The week started with our Linux Foundation Legal Summit, which is a neutral, invite-only gathering of top attornies from members of The Linux Foundation and community legal leaders. This one-day event is part of an ongoing series of legal summits, where corporate attorneys can openly discuss current and upcoming legal considerations around Linux. These neutral, non-profit forums are the only ones of their kind, and are a really important part of our ongoing commitment to protect and advance the state of the Linux legal ecosystem. If you're interested in taking part in our legal activities, please see the form on this page or contact me. 

We're looking forward to more great content and collaboration at LinuxCon Japan, LinuxCon North America, the Automotive Linux Summit, and LinuxCon Europe. Please check out our complete schedule on our Linux events site.   Hope to see you there!

Linux Mint Debian 201204 RC (MATE/Cinnamon & Xfce) released!

Five ways to rev up Linux for the car industry

Linux is already being adopted by an increasing number of car makers such as GM and Jaguar predominantly for in-vehicle infotainment systems. But much work remains to ensure that Linux is automotive-grade. In this article we will discuss the opportunities for Linux in vehicles and the five requirements that need to be addressed to bring it up to speed.

Where does Linux fit into a car?

Today there can be over 100 electronic control modules (ECU) in a car performing a myriad of functions to assist the driver and provide comfort and convenience to the passengers. Anti-lock brakes and airbags; electronic climate control; central locking and unlocking systems; satellite navigation; in-vehicle infotainment systems. The list of features seems to be endless. But where does Linux fit into this picture?

Not everywhere. Many of these modules perform a small range of very specific tasks in a constraint environment for which a rather heavyweight general purpose operating system such as Linux is not a good fit. Examples are engine management, airbag control, anti-lock brakes, automatic gearbox etc. These will not benefit from features such as memory management, multitasking, multi-core and multi-cpu support and more that the Linux kernel offers.

However, there is one component in a modern car that seems to be predestined for Linux: the head unit. Formerly just a simple control for the car stereo, the head unit has evolved into a universal command center providing a unified user interface for entertainment, climate control, communication, navigation and more. It commonly features a color LCD display which can include touch capability for interaction but can also be controlled via wheels and knobs integrated in the center console or buttons placed in the steering wheel at the driver's fingertips and increasingly through natural speech.

Because the head unit has to integrate and perform a range of tasks and often interrupts one task to carry out another it could greatly benefit from Linux. And indeed this is where car makers today are looking to deploy Linux. Below are five requirements that need to be addressed for Linux to meet the automotive grade needs of electronic control modules.

(Note: Linux is also a good fit for is a wide number of systems and services that fall under the umbrella term telematics. These form the core of the connected car: automated emergency call with location flagging, remote vehicle security and tracking, real-time traffic information, location-based services, concierge services, payment services for toll roads and parking, remote diagnostics and repair, breakdown prevention and maintenance scheduling, live audio-visual content and video-on-demand, and many more. All of the telematics systems and services will not only require an in-vehicle component but also infrastructure components. More great opportunities for Linux, although outside the scope of this article.)

5 ways to bring Linux up to speed

1. Powerplay

More ECUs in a car inevitably means increased consumption of electric power. But because there is considerable investment in the current electronic architecture, energy conservation to stay within the confines of the current 14.2 V system is the mandate. ECUs must reduce the peak and average power consumption during operation as well as their standby draw by dropping into a completely passive mode, waking up when they are needed and then returning to a dormant state. Reducing the total number of ECUs by integrating their functions into one or taking advantage of multi-core CPUs is another approach.

In electric vehicles the power challenges are magnified because all the power has to be provided by the batteries: for propulsion as well as for heating, cooling and every electrically-powered device including brought-in media players, smartphones and other gadgets.

Power management is a relatively new discipline within Linux. Instrumentation allowing the Linux kernel to measure power consumption of hardware components and to control power usage by turning them off is necessary to meet the automotive, as well as mobile, power challenges.

2. On-demand Configuration and Adaptation

A vehicle's systems constantly change their mode of operation dependent on many external and internal factors. The electronic systems must be capable of dynamically reconfiguring themselves within milliseconds and without user interaction dependent on the situation and requirements.

Linux already provides a strong set of features with loadable kernel modules, udev and others. Other features may be required such as incrementally loadable kernel modules. For example, only the portion of a Bluetooth driver that handles the link management protocol (LMP) is loaded and once a connection is established the driver will load other portions according to the required Bluetooth profiles.

3. Startup, Shutdown and Loss of Power

Driver assist systems with audio-visual interfaces such as rear-view cameras, proximity sensor in the bumpers, etc., need to be ready and available within 2 to 3 seconds from starting the car. Vehicular communication buses must be initialized within as little as 50 ms from cold-starting the ECU.

Linux has made great progress in speeding up the boot process with systemd and other efforts, however, there is still more work necessary to accelerate system startup even more from various hardware states to meet all automotive requirements.

Behavior during shutdown and sudden loss of power are another area where designers of embedded systems need to take great care. At no time must an interrupted shutdown or a sudden loss of power leave the system in a state from which it cannot recover.

4. Remote Software Updates

At first glance this seems like an easy problem to solve. Any Linux system can update kernel and packages over the network. However, for embedded and automotive systems things are quite different from regular computers. Updates may need to be downloaded via cellular data networks as cars are typically not connected to wired or wireless data networks.

Bandwidth is very limited and quality-of-service may greatly vary. Updates need to be carried out transparently for the user since the user cannot or should not have to monitor the process. Certain vehicle states may prevent installing software or rebooting the ECU. In case of an error the system must be able to roll back an update autonomously and return to the previous state.

Linux package managers are a good start but they typically update the entire package, which very often is not necessary if only a few files of the package has changed. Differential or delta package updates could be a solution. Verification of update package integrity is a must. Checksums are pretty much standard and help discover accidental corruption but are no protection from malicious activity.

5. Caution! Malware Ahead!

As the connected car is becoming a reality so will remote attacks on its systems.Wireless and web-based systems for vehicle control such as unlocking doors, starting/stopping the engine, or immobilization intended as a theft deterrent could be manipulated to compromise cars belonging to unsuspecting owners.

If not secured, over-the-air software update mechanisms could be used to infiltrate vehicle systems with malware potentially compromising not only privacy but also safety and health of passengers.

To become automotive-grade Linux will need to implement additional security mechanisms throughout the system. That starts with secure bootloaders, software components signed with hardware keys, hardware security support in form of cryptographic modules, etc.

That's a Wrap: 2012 Linux Foundation Collab Summit Pictures

{lfnews}The day after one of The Linux Foundation events is always a bit like the day after a really great party: you're exhausted but in a good way. You're recounting all the great conversations you had and looking forward to the next time you get to see everyone again (perhaps, Enterprise End User Summit, LinuxCon Japan and/or LinuxCon North America).

To help get you through to the next time, and for those of you who are waiting to see everyone and collaborate in person again, here is another slideshow with some new pictures from The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit 2012.

Update Pack 4 is out!

Five favorite Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit sessions

As the annual Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit was wrapping up yesterday in San Francisco, we asked a few attendees to weigh in on their favorite sessions.

The invitation-only event brought together 430 Linux kernel developers, Linux Foundation members and other Linux community insiders for keynote talks, work sessions, training, project updates, industry trends and networking.

On day one, attendees heard seven keynotes on a variety of subjects from Facebook’s Open Compute Project, to upcoming Linux kernel updates and trends in cloud computing. The next two days were devoted to technical, legal and project-based sessions. (See the full schedule on the Linux Foundation events website.)

What was your favorite session at Collaboration Summit 2012?

"Mine! (Laughs) Removing stop machine from the tracing infrastructure. I got a lot of really good feedback. But really, the best session is the hallway track. Between sessions you find people and it’s when you get the most work done. Usually you get to sit people down and start hashing things out. People come from all over the world. It was weird, last night in the bar I was sitting there talking with eight developers, and I was the only American there." - Steven Rostedt, real-time Linux kernel maintainer at Red Hat (left).

"UEFI. It’s pretty entertaining. I’m looking forward to fireworks. This conference mostly isn’t contentious at all, which is quite nice. People get along. They’re friendly, which you don’t usually see at conferences. We get together and argue. We need to. But the UEFI stuff is probably going to be contentious. We’ve had nothing but issues for the last year. If everything is magically resolved, that will be nice. But I expect fireworks." - Adam Conrad, Canonical (right).

"The Yocto project sessions. I have been involved with the parent project for 8 years. What we did in the Yocto session was clear up all the confusion for new users. We explained how it works and how it was designed. So it was really useful." - Koen Kooi, software engineer, CircuitCo, which manufactures the BeagleBoard(not pictured).

"On the first day there was a session on the near future of the kernel, it’s a panel discussion of top Linux developers. Every year it’s really interesting and this year it was really great, as usual, seeing the top guns interacting the way they do with a really great sense of humor. You get an idea of where things are headed next year.

It’s interesting to see the people who end up at the top. You might think that, because they all used to be super coders and a lot of them still write a lot of code, you could actually wind up with a lot of antisocial people. But none of them really are that way. So it’s really great to see them in person being really funny all the time." - Greg Lindahl, CTO, Blekko search engine (left).

"Microsoft was my favorite presentation. It takes a lot of guts to be two guys from Microsoft showing up at a major Linux conference and getting up there to talk about how their company is embracing working with Linux. That is just awesome.

And now that they’re getting out of the staging tree and getting Windows Hyper-V support into Linux that’s what you want to see. You want to see everybody working together. It’s collaboration.

We’ve all grown up and gotten to the point where bashing Microsoft used to be fun. I think it still is fun but I think we’ve tempered that with a bit more pragmatism. We understand that open source can be on a Windows platform, there’s not just Linux or the kernel. There’s a lot of open source software out there and if we work together we can all win." - Jon Masters, prinicipal software engineer, Red Hat (right).

Announcing New Open Compliance Template

Almost two years ago, The Linux Foundation launched the Open Compliance Program to help companies manage their end-to-end open source license compliance processes.  We have continually added papers, training, tutorials, and dedicated Legal/Compliance session tracks at conferences like Collaboration Summit to help make compliance processes easier to understand, and more cost-effective to implement.

Today, we are releasing a new template that will help companies manage the flow of data through the compliance process. 

License compliance best practices require complete and accurate information about FOSS components being incorporated into the software supply chain. This requires a continual focus on ensuring the right information is collected and archived when a new FOSS component is to be introduced into a software product, from initial request to final shipment.

To help with this process we've just published a template for collecting information about a FOSS component and its usage, so that when a request is made to the company's internal open source review board, it can be easily and thoroughly evaluated.  This template will also help development organizations spend less time re-submitting missing data, and a standardized format can accelerate the approval process.

We will publish additional templates for usage guidelines, due diligence on a supplier's FOSS compliance practices, and more over the coming months.  In the meantime, we encourage you to download and reuse the request template.  And as always, if you need additional guidance on designing your FOSS compliance program, we can help with that too.

Slideshow: Live from Collaboration Summit

The morning keynote presenters were super insightful here at The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit. Useful ideas were shared that will be topics of further collaboration over the next couple of days. OpenMAMA, Open Compute, Tizen and Linux kernel development were among the topics discussed today. Here's a short slideshow with some great pictures of our speakers.

Facebook’s Open Compute Project seeks new ideas for efficient datacenters

When a Facebook user ‘likes’ something, adds a friend or uploads a photo gallery, he doesn’t necessarily think of what goes on at the back end. That ever-mounting pile of information collected each second from millions of users presents a significant challenge to efficient data storage and management - not to mention a potentially daunting financial and environmental cost.

To address these issues, Facebook engineers have designed their own custom servers and datacenters that cut costs 24 percent and energy use by 38 percent compared with traditional commercially available infrastructure, said Amir Michael, leader of Facebook’s storage hardware team. And the company believes even more savings are possible through the collaborative development process, he said.

With the Open Compute Project, Facebook is now sharing its design specifications and seeking input and ideas from the engineering community in an effort to boost those savings.

“It’s time we stop thinking about this type of infrastructure as proprietary,” Michael said in his keynote talk Tuesday at the Linux Collaboration Summit in San Francisco. “Let’s build this together.”

Open source hardware presents some unique challenges compared with open source software because it requires a factory for product development, Michael said. But Open Compute does model the open source software development process, maintaining a mailing list and holding developer summits. An incubation committee forms projects, creates a charter and then an advisory board member sponsors the project to make sure there’s  momentum and a deliverable behind it.

"It’s not just about ideas... we actually wanted to build things and take designs to actual hardware," Michael said.

Now about a year old, Open Compute has an impressive list of contributors, including Dell, Mellanox Technologies and Cloudera. But they’re looking for more partners to advance the project.

The project’s top priority is increased efficiency, in part by reducing server complexity.  The things that differentiate a Dell from an HP server “aren’t really innovation,” Michael said. Getting rid of those peripheral features creates operational efficiency.

Scalability is also important in considering a project's potential. Open Compute aims to build hardware for large-scale datacenter deployments.

The best way to get involved, Michael said, is to become a member and join one of Open Compute’s six working groups focused on storage, interoperability, systems management, datacenter design, motherboards or power infrastructure.

The Open Compute Foundation is structured so that no single vendor has outsized influence on the direction of the project and no member dues are collected, he said. Instead, the Open Compute Summit serves as a fundraiser for their efforts. Interested engineers are encouraged to attend the upcoming summit, set for May 2-3 in San Antonio.

How is Linux Built? Our new report and video.

When you work for the Linux Foundation you get a lot of questions on just how Linux is built. Given the massive scale of the development and ubiquity of Linux today, some of us in the community might think everyone understands how the largest collaborative project in computing works. How you submit a patch. How maintainers work with Linux creator Linus Torvalds. But because of Linux's unprecedented growth in mobile, embedded and cloud computing, among other areas, new companies and developers are looking to participate. More than ever before, actually.

In our "Who Writes Linux" report (http://go.linuxfoundation.org/who-writes-linux-2012) published today at The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit (https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/collaboration-summit), we find that more than 7800 individuals from about 800 companies have contributed to the Linux kernel since 2005 and that the rate of development continues to accelerate. The companies and developers contributing to the latest releases (since our last report, December 2010) represent a trend of success among organizations that invest in and contribute to the Linux.

Note the rankings of Texas Instruments, Broadcom and Samsung among the most active company sponsors of development since our last report. This just solidifies what we've been seeing over the last few years: more mobile and embedded companies are invested in Linux than every before. This helps make Linux better for all, and helps drive innovation for these companies. You will notice that there is change year to year of companies rising and falling within the ranks. This is a natural by-product of development cycles. As one project is merged, a company associated with it will rise in the ranks. This back and forth shows the strength of Linux: it's not just the same companies year after year.

Lastly, Microsoft appears for the first time among the list companies contributing most to Linux. While this might garner headlines this week, we see this again as just another proof point that the collaborative development model works and that even the oldest holdouts can't holdout anymore. The future is here.

To complement today's report and officially kick off our 2012 Linux events (http://events.linuxfoundation.org) season, we're debuting a new video today titled "How Linux is Built." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVpbFMhOAwE&feature=youtu.be) We had a lot of fun producing it and we hope it helps illustrate the collaborative development model in a way that inspires even more contributions the Linux operating system.

The Linux Foundation Releases Annual Linux Development Report

Report reveals new data on Linux kernel development: how fast is it going, who is doing it, and who is sponsoring it

SAN FRANCISCO, April 3, 2012 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced the immediate release of its latest report “Linux Kernel Development: How Fast It is Going, Who is Doing It, What They are Doing and Who is Sponsoring It.”

The report is released on roughly an annual basis to help illustrate the Linux kernel development process and the work that defines the largest collaborative development project in the history of computing. It covers work completed through the Linux kernel 3.2 release, with an emphasis on the releases made since the last update to this report in December 2010 (2.6.36 to 3.2).

Key findings from this year’s paper include:

§  More than 7,800 developers from almost 800 different companies have contributed to the Linux kernel since tracking began in 2005. Just since the last report, more than 1,000 developers representing nearly 200 companies have contributed to the kernel.

§  Seventy-five percent of all kernel development is done by developers who are being paid for their work. Long believed to be a basement community of developers, the Linux community is a worldwide, professional network of the best software talent in the world. This army of developers together builds the foundation from which innovations such as Android, cloud computing, KVM, Xen, and more are born and succeed.

§  The top 10 organizations sponsoring Linux kernel development since the last report (or Linux kernel 2.6.36) are Red Hat, Intel, Novell, IBM, Texas Instruments, Broadcom, Nokia, Samsung, Oracle and Google.[1]Mobile and embedded companies have been increasing their participation in recent years, not only adding more hardware support to the kernel but also taking responsibility for the advancement of core kernel areas.

§  For the first time, Microsoft appears on list of companies that are contributing to the Linux kernel. Ranking at number 17, the company that once called Linux a “cancer,” today is working within the collaborative development model to support its virtualization efforts and its customers. Because Linux has reached a state of ubiquity, in which both the enterprise and mobile computing markets are relying on the operating system, Microsoft is clearly working to adapt.

§  The rate of change since the last report is high and increasing, with between 8,000 and 12,000 patches going into each recent kernel release every two to three months. That’s nearly 6 new patches per hour since the last release of this report.  

“Linux is the platform for the future of computing. More developers and companies are contributing to the advancement of the operating system than ever before, especially in the areas of mobile, embedded and cloud computing,” said Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer services, The Linux Foundation. “The increasing participation represents the power of Linux to quickly adapt to new market opportunities, lower costs, and provide sustained long-term support.”

The report is co-authored by Jon Corbet, Linux kernel developer and editor of LWN.net; Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linux kernel maintainer and Linux Foundation fellow; and Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer services at The Linux Foundation.

To download the full report, please visit The Linux Foundation’s Publications website at: http://go.linuxfoundation.org/who-writes-linux-2012

The paper is being released today at The Linux Foundation’s Annual Collaboration Summit, the only invitation-only event where a cross-section of leaders from the Linux developer, industry and end user communities meet face-to-face to tackle today’s most pressing opportunities for the platform. The Summit serves Linux Foundation members, workgroup contributors and community members and is designed to accelerate collaboration and problem solving by bringing key stakeholders together in a neutral setting.

Keynote speakers include executives and developers from Facebook, Huawei, Intel, NYSE Technologies and more. For more information or to access the live streaming video, please visit: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/collaboration-summit


About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

###

Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

What Red Hat Has Done is Worth So Much More Than a Billion

Red Hat is widely expected to crack a billion dollars in revenue in today’s earning call. This achievement will finally put to bed the argument that "nobody can make money with open source." I want to congratulate Red Hat for this incredible achievement. However, I would also like to use this occasion to show that there is significantly more at play here. It isn't just the billion dollars Red Hat is making with open source; there are many more reasons why Linux and open source are fundamental building blocks of the future:

* Red Hat will today pass a billion dollars in revenue.

* The collective investment in Linux is $10billion - freely available to you.

* Billions of users a day use Linux systems in everything from their TV, to their ATM machine to the cell phone to the servers powering the cloud. B

* Billions of dollars are transacted on Linux systems running every major financial exchange EVERY day.

* The fastest Linux computer does 10 quadrillion operations a second (that is a thousand billion or a billiard in long scale countries).

* Facebook used Linux to build a company forecast to be worth one hundred billion dollars.

Credit where credit is due: Red Hat has worked extremely hard and extremely smart to leverage open source to make a billion dollars. Here at the Linux Foundation, we work with them everyday and I am continually impressed by their focus, their management and their consistent commitment to working upstream.

But even more significant to Red Hat's future prospects is the virtuous cycle that they now participate in. Platform economics have always been dominated by network effects. More users beget more applications, which beget more users and so on. This has resulted in great scale for particular companies who lock people into their network effect but has arguably not resulted in great innovation. Red Hat however, benefits from a different kind of network effect. A network effect centered around innovation.

Since Linux has grown, so have the benefits Red Hat receives (and gives to others). When Facebook contributes code to make their data centers more efficient, Red Hat benefits; when Red Hat contributes code to improve file systems, mobile device makers benefit; when mobile device makers contribute code to improve power consumption, super computer cooling costs go down; when super computer users contribute code to make Linux faster, Wall St. benefits with faster trading systems -- and so on and so forth. So you can see that the positive feedback loop that is represented in the billions of figures above shows no signs of slowing down. Congratulations to Red Hat but also to all Linux users and ecosystem members who participate in this virtuous circle.

Colllaboration Works, Even on Open Source License Compliance

Phil Odence is Vice President at Black Duck Software and helps lead the SPDX workgroup at The Linux Foundation. He will be moderating a keynote panel next week at The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit titled "Getting the Kinks Out of the Software Supply Chain."

Open compliance has become a bigger area of emphasis in the Linux and open source communities as the collaborative development model and software have become widely adopted. The topic is one in which we at The Linux Foundation receive many requests for resource and more information. As part of our series of Q&As with the Summit's keynote speakers, we asked Phil a few questions about the upcoming panel and the state of open source license compliance.

You will be moderating a keynote panel at The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit. Can you give us a teaser about what we can expect from the group?

Odence: Everyone on the panel represents a company dependent on a software supply chain and is passionate about achieving efficiency and license compliance. Their organizations are unique, so each has their own perspective. It will be a great combination of conceptual agreement and differing perspectives.

How has the global supply chain changed in recent years and how is this impacting open source license compliance?

Odence: Two things: 1) Software has gone from from being developed within four walls to across complex supply chains, and; 2) the use of open source has ramped dramatically. Companies assembling software don't have very good upstream visibility and at the same time know there's lots of open source in the code and therefore potentially many license requirements with which they need to comply.

What are some of the key challenges companies still face with regards to open source licenses and compliance? What is being done to address them?

Odence: It's a lot of work and it tends to be redundant, i.e. repeated down the supply chain. It's that frustration that has lead a number of companies to come together to work on SPDX. There are other components to the answer—polices, processes, eduction, tooling—but SPDX is a keystone.

Can you tell us more about SPDX and how it works?

Odence: It conceptually simple: A common way to represent what's in a software package and the associated license. There are devilish details, but the idea is that if everyone in a supply chain is sharing information in this way, it makes it much easier and cheaper to know what's in the software and what the licenses are.

The SPDX workgroup has really advanced work on how to ease open source license compliance. Can you tell us how the group was able to accomplish so much? Companies and community members can learn a lot from others about best practices on how to collaborate.

Odence: While the group is not developing software per se, from the outset we've run ourselves like an open source project without a lot of rules, hierarchy, structure or budget. Everyone involved is open source savvy so we can tell new participants, "We run like an open source project," and they get it. The support of The Linux Foundation was helpful in initially assembling a critical mass, and on a ongoing basis, the infrastructure and events have provided us logical gathering opportunities and places. I'm not sure we'd ever actually see each other without Linux events.

What's next for the SPDX group?

Odence: Each of our three teams has a clear, going forward focus. The Business Team needs to drive broader adoption across, as well as up and down supply chains. The Technical Team wrestles with evolving the spec to support hierarchy in an intuitive and simple way. The Legal Team has a real gem in the standard license list we developed; they are polishing that up and defining a process to expand it.

Literally our next step after the Collaboration Summit is the Forum we are running in San Jose on Friday, April 6. We welcome any locals who want an in-depth introduction to join us.

LMDE Update Pack 4 and alternatives to Gnome 2

openSUSE Tumbleweed status for the week of March 26, 2012

It's been about a year since I did a status report of what's going on in
the openSUSE:Tumbleweed repo, let me know if you find this actually
useful or not so that I can determine if I should keep it up.

• As everyone knows, Tumbleweed is running on top of openSUSE:12.1, the
  transition to 12.1 was rocky for some people who thought that
  Tumbleweed was somehow a "full" distro, and not just an add-on on top
  of a stable openSUSE release. To make things easier for future
  updates of the base openSUSE release, please point to the "current"
  repo, not the explicitly numbers repo. For more details how to do
  this, see the Tumbleweed wiki page.
• kernel 3.3.0 is in Tumbleweed, and seems to be working well so far.
• KDE 4.8 is now in Tumbleweed, be careful if you previously had added
  the KDE repo manually to your system, you should now remove it as I
  have no idea how well it will interact with this.
• Because of the KDE 4.8 update, LibreOffice was dropped from
  Tumbleweed. This is due to build issues with the package, not any
  runtime issue that I can determine. LibreOffice fails to build on
  Factory at the moment as well, and a bug is open about this, hopefully
  it gets resolved soon.
• XFCE has been updated in Tumbleweed to the latest version
• vim finally showed up, after a brief breakage that I caused, sorry
  about that, all should be good now.
• To preempt any questions about a GNOME update in Tumbleweed, I am
  looking into it, but it will not happen until it stabilizes in Factory
  first.

As always, if anyone knows of any packages they wish to see added to
Tumbleweed, please let me know.

Please read the wiki page for Tumbleweed if you have any basic questions
about what it is or how to use it. Any other questions, please ask them
on the opensuse-factory mailing list.

Cascade Cement, March 2012

Snowboarding in Cacsade Cement, March 2012 from Greg KH on Vimeo.

The cloud, KVM & NYSE Star at our upcoming Enterprise End User Summit

Today I am happy to announce the program and speakers for The Linux Foundation's Enterprise End User Summit (https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/enterprise-end-user-summit). This is one of our most unique events, bringing together the biggest and most technically advanced Linux users with the vendor and Linux kernel communities.

And, this year's event is really special for a variety of reasons: first, we learned earlier this year from our annual enterprise end user trends survey and report (http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/linux-foundation/linux-adopt...) that the world's largest companies are adding more Linux over the next 12 months to support cloud computing and "Big Data." There is much to discuss and work to advance in these areas at this year's Summit.

Second, we're meeting at the office of NYSE Technologies, and an amazing party is planned for the evening of April 30 on the NYSE trading floor.

Some highlights from the program released today include:

* NYSE Technologies' CEO will deliver a keynote on how and why the company is using collaboration to facilitate a capital markets community.

* STAC Analyst Peter Lankford will talk about the nature of trading technology and how Linux is advancing this area.

* Red Hat's Scott Crenshaw is VP of the Cloud Business Unit and will surface trends in cloud computing that help inform our work.

* IBM's Anthony Ligouri will address high-speed I/O and latency in the KVM hypervisor.

On Day Two, we're hosting a Filesystems panel on cloud, cluster and NFS that includes speakers Christoph Hellwig, Jeff Darcy (Red Hat) and Boyd Wilson (Omnibond). Red Hat's Ric Wheeler will moderate.

This event's Linux kernel developer panel will include Christiph Lameter and Dave Miller who will join Greg Kroah-Hartman to discuss what's next in the kernel and how users can contribute to these efforts.

Breakout sessions will address Dtrace, parallel file systems, OpenMAMA, Btrfs, open source storage, OS-level virtualization and extreme performance, among others.

All evidence points to continued growth for Linux among the world's largest IT users. We're excited to again host a forum in which this community can advance the state of the art of Linux. If you are an enterprise user pushing the boundaries of Linux and would benefit from attending, please request an invite to this free event.

Greg KH Readies for Collaboration Summit, Talks Raspberry Pi

Linux kernel maintainer and Linux Foundation Fellow Greg Kroah-Hartman will be moderating the highly-anticipated Linux kernel panel at the Collaboration Summit in a couple short weeks. He was generous enough to take a few moments recently to answer some questions about what we might hear from the Linux kernel panel, as well as some details on his recent work and projects. Oh, and we couldn't resist asking him about the new Raspberry Pi.

You will be moderating the Linux Kernel panel at the upcoming Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit. These are big attractions for attendees. What do you anticipate will be on the kernel panel's mind during that  first week in April?

Kroah-Hartman: Odds are we will all be relaxing after the big merge window for the 3.4-rc1 kernel. Also, the Filesystem and Memory management meetings will have just happened, so lots of good ideas will have come out of that.

This panel moderation role comes after two Q&A-style keynote sessions with Linus last year to celebrate 20 years of Linux. How does moderating a panel of developers differ from interviewing Linus on stage?

Kroah-Hartman: I will need to bring more than just one bottle of whisky :)

Seriously, it's much the same, but instead of just one person answering questions, there are three different viewpoints being offered, which can result in the conversation leading places you never expect. An example of this would be the kernel panel that happened last year at LinuxCon Japan, where the developers on stage got into a big technical argument with the kernel developers in the audience, much to the amusement of the rest of the audience. If done well, it can show the range of ideas the the kernel developer community has, and how while we don't always agree with each other, we work together to create something that works well for everyone.

You recently released Linux kernel 2.6.32.58 but cautioned that you would no longer be maintaining version 2.6.32 and recommended folks switch to Linux 3.0. Is there anything else you'd like to say about people moving to Linux 3.0?

Kroah-Hartman: For a longer discussion on the history of the 2.6.32 kernel, please see the article I posted recently. Almost no end user will be building their own kernel and need to know the differences here; their distro handles this for them automatically. But, for the technical user, they know how to build their own kernels, and moving to the 3.0 kernel release should provide no problem at all. If it does, please contact the kernel developers on the linux-kernel mailing list with their problems and we will be glad to work through it with them.

Can you give us some updates on the Device Driver Project and/or LTSI?

Kroah-Hartman: There's nothing new going on with the Device Driver project other than we are continuing to create drivers for companies that ask for them.  I know of at least two new drivers going into the 3.4 kernel release that came from this process, and if any company has a need for a Linux driver, they should contact us to make this happen.

LTSI is continuing forward as well. Our kernel tree is public, and starting to receive submissions for areas that users are asking for. I've been working with a number of different companies and groups after meeting with them at ELC 2012 to refine how LTSI can best work for their users. There will be a report at LinuxCon Japan 2012 in June about what is happening with LTSI since the last public report at ELC.

Have you seen the Raspberry Pi? Sold out in a day. Any chance you've gotten your hands on one? If so, what's your reaction?

Kroah-Hartman: I have not seen one in person, but will be trying to get one (I signed up for one as soon as it went on sale, but was too late.) It looks like a great project, much like the BeagleBone and Pandaboard, both of which I have here and use for kernel testing. Hopefully the Raspberry Pi developers can get their kernel patches into the mainline kernel.org release soon, so that it is easier for users to take advantage of their hardware.

As Data Grows, so Grows Linux

IDC recently announced its numbers for 2011 Q4 servers sales: overall server revenues are up for the year 5.8 percent, and shipments are up 4.2 percent. As The Reg reports, these shipment numbers are back to pre-recession levels.

What’s more interesting, though, is the trends that emerge from the very latest reporting quarter, Q4. Linux was the only operating system that saw a revenue increase in servers Q4, with a 2.2 percent rise. Windows lost 1.5 percent and Unix 10.7 percent.

IDC attributes some of that Linux success to its role in what the analyst firm calls “density-optimized” machines, which are really just white box servers, and are responsible for a lot of the growth in the server market. These machines have gained popularity in a space still squeezed on budget and that continues to be commoditized. But there are other factors at play for Linux’s success over its rivals.

Coming out of the recession, Linux is in a very different position than it was 10 years ago when we emerged from the last bubble. Today it's mature, tried, tested and supported by a global community that makes up the largest collaborative development project in the history of computing.

Our latest survey of the world’s largest enterprise Linux users found that Total Cost of Ownership, technical superiority and security were the top three drivers for Linux adoption. These points support Linux’s maturity and recent success. Everyone is running their data centers with Linux. Stock exchanges, supercomputers, transportation systems and much more are using Linux for mission-critical workloads.

Also helping Linux’s success here is the accelerated pace by which companies are migrating to the cloud. Long a buzzword, the cloud is getting real, right now. While there is still work to do for Linux and the cloud, there is no denying its dominant role in today’s biggest cloud companies: Amazon and Google to name just two.

The mass migration to cloud computing has been quickened due, in part, to the rising level of data: both the amount of data enterprises are dealing with but the also how fast that data is growing. IDC this week predicted that the “Big Data” business will be worth $16.9B in three years. There is a huge opportunity here for Linux vendors. Our Linux Adoption Trends report, shows that 72 percent of the world’s largest Linux users are planning to add more Linux servers in the next 12 months to support the rising level of data in the enterprise. Only 36 percent said they would be adding more Windows servers to support this trend.

The enterprise server market is a strong area for Linux, but it’s an incredibly competitive market. Together we’ll continue to advance Linux to win here. In fact, we’ll be meeting at the NYSE offices in April at our Annual Linux Foundation Enterprise End User Summit where some of the world’s largest companies will talk in depth about exactly the things I’ve touched on here.

Yet again we are seeing market winners are born from collaboration. And we have the numbers to back it up.

NYSE Opens Up About Giving Up Control

Things are really heating up in anticipation for the Sixth Annual Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit taking place April 3-5, 2012. Earlier this week, we talked to Gerrit Huizenga about Linux and cloud computing, and Amanda McPherson shared a peek at the behind-the-scenes work that will take place at The Linux Foundation's Member Legal Summit on April 2.

We also had the opportunity to talk to NYSE Technologies' Head of Global Alliances Feargal O'Sullivan. He will be a keynote presenter at the Collaboration Summit and will be talking about "Open Middleware Standards for the Capital Markets and Beyond."

Can you give us a bit of a teaser on your keynote presentation and tell us how NYSE Technologies identified an opportunity to open source its messaging API and help create the OpenMAMA project?

O'Sullivan: We considered open sourcing our Middleware Agnostic Messaging API for a number of years before finally making it happen late last year. One of the major reasons to do so was to allow our community of users to help develop the additional middleware 'bridges' we wanted to support faster than we could on our own. Of course, we were concerned about losing control of the process and, quite frankly, about opening our revenue generating Market Data Platform to increased competition.

The change came around January 2011 when we first presented the idea to our Technical Advisory Group. We proposed it as part of our overall strategy of building a community around an open infrastructure platform with common standards for capital markets participants. The idea received unanimous support and a level of enthusiasm that took even us by surprise. What it told us is that the industry suffered from 'vendor lock-in' due to proprietary APIs, which stifle both competition and innovation, as well as increasing total cost of ownership.

OpenMAMA returns choice to the user, forcing vendors to compete on features and value, which is better for everyone.

What is your biggest lesson learned that you can share with others who might be considering open sourcing technology?

O'Sullivan: Our biggest lesson learned was not to try to go it alone! When we first engaged The Linux Foundation, we had little experience in open sourcing software. We quickly learned that for OpenMAMA to be successful it needed the neutrality and credibility of being a truly open source project. That isn't as simple as it sounds; had we chosen the wrong license, or hosted OpenMAMA on a server in one of our data centers, it would have seriously undermined the project. Without the benefit of The Linux Foundation's experience, we wouldn't have known any better until it was too late.

What do you consider the advantages of open sourcing this technology?

O'Sullivan: OpenMAMA's true value lies in its agnostic architecture, which allows developers to code to a single API while enabling administrators to switch between supported middleware platforms to meet the requirements of the environment where the application is deployed. However, before being open sourced, MAMA only supported middleware platforms that made commercial sense for NYSE Technologies to develop. This meant leaving out other valuable middleware platforms because we didn't have the time or resources to support each one. Open sourcing unlocks the full potential of the API by giving control to the end users. Ultimately, OpenMAMA will make NYSE Technologies' clients happier and our products more functional.

How is the OpenMAMA project doing? Can you give us some updates?

O'Sullivan: So far, the OpenMAMA project has demonstrated a level of success that even we are finding hard to believe. Our approach was to open the C portion of the API at the launch in October 2011 and then contribute the remaining functionality in April 2012. In parallel we formed the OpenMAMA Steering Committee comprised of users, vendors and direct competitors, to govern the project. This gives the committee time to form a cohesive group and set the direction of the project, while in parallel giving the technical working groups time to evaluate the code and decide what their priorities are for the roadmap. On April 30, when we contribute the final pieces of the API, and when everyone gathers for The Linux Foundation's Enterprise End User Summit (which we are hosting at the New York Stock Exchange this year), the community will be fully prepared to take this project forward.

We're definitely looking forward to visiting your space in April! Can you tell us more about your decision to host this year's Enterprise End User Summit and why the event is a priority for your organization?

O'Sullivan: We at NYSE Technologies have always been keen users of open source technology. Furthermore, it is well known that the entire capital markets community heavily depends on Linux and other open source initiatives. So we see this as the perfect venue to release the final pieces of the OpenMAMA stack and to continue advocating its value proposition to all interested participants.

That, and everyone loves a party!

More details on O'Sullivan's keynote, as well as the other keynote presentations and sessions can be found on The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit website. If you're not already attending, you can still request an invitation.

Linux Servers Keep Growing, Windows and Unix Keep Shrinking

2011 saw, according to IDC, Linux servers grow while Windows and Unix servers numbers shrank. In 2012, Linux’s server future looks brighter than ever...

More at ZDNet

Patents, Legal Collaboration and our Legal Summit

Unfortunately legal issues, specially patents lawsuits, are much in the news. From Yahoo suing Facebook to the ongoing battles surrounding Apple and other mobile device providers, my RSS and social media feeds seem to have more and more articles about legal issues everyday.

Wired published a great article today from an ex-Yahoo developer on how his work was weaponized for a patent war. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/03/opinion-baio-yahoo-patent-lie/
He writes: "I thought I was giving them a shield, but turns out I gave them a missile with my name permanently engraved on it." This case, among other similar ones, points out the need quite urgently for reform of our software patent system. When companies struggle, especially large ones, it's often easier to litigate than innovate.

But amid the patent wars there has been some good news. OIN last week announced they are expanding their patent pool to cover other important projects such as KVM, Git and others projects. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/linux-patent-defense-group-expands... As SVN writes: "Patents owned by Open Invention Network are available royalty-free to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against the OIN’s broad Linux Definitions." Keith Bergelt of OIN will be speaking at our upcoming CollaborationSummit on this Linux definition. Keith will take people through the changes in the definitions, as well as the updating of the 1000s of packages already included in their coverage. This is important stuff and I'm very happy to feature Keith as a speaker.

We are continuing our active role in the legal landscape by marshaling the power of collaboration with our members. Before next month's Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit, we will be holding our Linux Foundation Legal Summit, where counsels and attorneys from our members come together with our legal experts and others from around the industry to plot the best defense for Linux and free software. There is power in collaboration; certainly with software but also with legal issues. It's a core part of our mission to enable this legal collaboration and spear head programs, like our Open Compliance program, that simplify and improve legal matters in our community. And as mentioned above, we also have a track on legal and compliance issues at the Collaboration Summit. This year Bradley Kuhn was kind enough to assist me in creating the track and I'm happy to say we have a who's who of leaders in the open source legal industry.

We are featuring
-- Aaron Williamson of the SFLC on the Evolving Form of Free Software Organization
-- Bradley from the Software Freedom Conservancy on GPL Compliance
-- Richard Fontana from Red Hat will talk about the Decline of the GPL and what to do about it
-- Karen Sandler from the GNOME Foundation will talk about real world trademark management for free software projects

And on day one of Collaboration Summit we will have a keynote on the SPDX project, one of the best examples of collaborative legal issues. You can read details about full the schedule of CollabSummit: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/collaboration-summit/schedule
Information on our legal summit: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/legal-summit
I hope to see many of you there.

Can Linux Win in Cloud Computing?

Gerrit Huizenga is Cloud Architect at IBM (and fellow Portland-er) and will be speaking at the upcoming Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit in a keynote session titled "The Clouds Are Coming: Are We Ready?" Linux is often heralded as the platform for the cloud, but Huizenga warns that while it is in the best technical position to warrant this title, there is work to do to make this a reality.

Huizenga took a few moments earlier this week to chat with us as he prepares for his controversial presentation at the Summit.

You will be speaking at The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit about Linux and the cloud. Can you give us a teaser on what we can expect from your talk?

Huizenga: Clouds are on the top of every IT departments list of new and key technologies to invest in. Obviously high on those lists are things like VMware and Amazon EC2. But where is the open source community in terms of comparable solutions which can be easily set up and deployed? Is it possible to build a cloud with just open source technologies? Would that cloud be a "meets min" sort of cloud, or can you build a full fledged, enterprise-grade cloud with open source today? What about using a hybrid of open source and proprietary solutions? Is that possible, or are we locked in to purely proprietary solutions today? Will Open Standards help us? What are some recommendations today for building clouds?

Linux is often applauded as the "platform for the cloud." Do you think this is accurate? If not, what still needs to be done? If so, what is it about Linux that gives it this reputation?

Huizenga: Linux definitely has the potential to be a key platform for the cloud. However, it isn't there yet. There are a few technology inhibitors with respect to Linux as the primary cloud platform, as well as a number of market place challenges. Those challenges can be addressed but there is definitely some work to do in that space.

What are the advantages of Linux for both public and private clouds?

Huizenga: It depends a bit about whether you consider Linux as a guest or virtual server in a cloud, or whether it is the hosting platform of the cloud. The more we enable Linux as a guest within the various hypervisors, and enable Linux to be managed within the cloud, the greater the chance of standardizing on Linux as the "packaging format" for applications.

This increases the overall presence of Linux in the market place and in some ways simplifies ISV's lives in porting applications to clouds. As a hosting platform, one of the biggest advantages for cloud operators is the potential cost/pricing model for Linux and the overall impact on the cost of operating a cloud. And, the level of openness that Linux provides should simplify the ability to support the cloud infrastructure and over time increase the number of services that can be provided by a cloud. But we still have quite a bit of work to do to make Linux a ubiquitous cloud platform.

What is happening at the Linux development level to support the rapidly maturing cloud opportunity? What does the community need from other Linux users and developers to help accelerate its development and address these challenges?

Huizenga: I'll talk about some of the KVM technologies that we need to continue to develop to enable cloud, as well as some of the work on virtual server building & packaging, DevOps, Deployment, and Management. There are plenty of places for the open source community to contribute and several talks at the Collaboration Summit should dive further into the details as well.

What do you make of Microsoft running Linux on Azure?

Huizenga: Anything that lets us run Linux in more places must be good!

More information about Huizenga's talk can be found on The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit schedule. If you're interested in joining us, you can also request an invitation to attend.

Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit Keynotes Announced

The Linux Foundation has announced the keynote speakers and track highlights for this year's Collaboration Summit. The invitation-only Summit will take place 3-5 April in San Francisco and will include keynotes by Frank Frankovsky, Facebook's Director of Hardware Design who will talk about the company's Open Compute project, Gerrit Huizenga from IBM, and Huawei's CTO Timo Jokiaho...

Read more at The H

Open Source Coopetition Fueled by Linux Foundation Growth

Working with direct rivals may have been unthinkable 10 years ago, but Linux, open source and organizations such as The Linux Foundation have highlighted how solving common problems and easing customer pain and friction in using and choosing different technologies can truly drive innovation and traction in the market...

More at LinuxInsider

Linux Mint 12 LXDE released!

The 2.6.32 Linux kernel

Last week I released the 2.6.32.58 kernel
and said it would be the last one of this series that I was releasing.
Given that this was one of the most successful kernel series out there,
by number of users, I figured it was worth a brief history of how this
came to be, and what I have learned from it.

Stable kernel releases

The first stable kernel release, under the "new" model of development,
happened with the 2.6.11.1 release, way back on March 4, 2005, almost 7
years ago to today day. Since then, the stable series has been very
successfully released for every kernel that Linus releases, following
the rules outlined in the file Documentation/stable _ kernel _ rules.txt
in the kernel tree.

For more details about how the stable kernel series came to be about,
and how it all works, see the presentation I gave a few years ago at the
Tokyo LinuxCon conference, 2010.

Originally both me and Chris Wright started releasing the stable
kernels, but a few years back, Chris retired from this, and it's been
just me ever since.

One important part of the stable releases was the idea of "throw it on
the floor" when Linus would release a new kernel. This worked really
well for the community users of the stable kernel, but how about the
"enterprise" Linux distros?

Enterprise Kernels

My day job at the time was at Novell/SUSE, and we were about to release
a product based on the 2.6.16 kernel, SLE10. As engineers, we were
staring down the long hallway of pain we were going to have to endure in
order to maintain this specific kernel version for the next 5-7 years
for our customers. A large part of maintaining an enterprise kernel is
digging through the upstream kernel.org bugfixes and backporting them to
the kernel where needed. As this was essentially the same thing that I
was already doing as part of my upstream stable kernel work, and I had
all of the scripts and workflow already created, I decided to try to see
how well I could maintain the 2.6.16 kernel for a longer period of time
than just the 2-3 months I currently was.

So, with the 2.6.16.1 kernel release, done on March 27, 2006, I started
the 2.6.16 kernel series that would go on to live longer than any kernel
release I had ever managed. In the end, I put up with that kernel for
855 days, longer than I had ever imagined possible.

I don't remember if I publicly announced this anywhere, but as time
went on, I just kept the 2.6.16 kernel alive, backporting patches to it,
and doing releases. This base on which to do the SLE10 releases
proved invaluable to me and to the users of the SLE10 product. They
gained a lot more bugfixes than we had ever found previously, and it
made managing the kernel easier in that we now had a base that was
"known good" to constantly build upon. To me, this experiment paid off
very well, and others noticed, with community users of the 2.6.16 kernel
relying on it for their systems as well, for they too wanted a longterm
kernel for some machines that could be supported by the community.

Over time, I noticed that as the kernel.org releases moved on, the
amount of patches that actually applied to the older kernel dropped off
more and more, with a steep drop-off somewhere around 2 years.

The work that went into keeping this kernel alive, and the experience
gained from keeping it working for such a long time for enterprise
customers, made me write up a proposal about The Future of Enterprise
Linux
Kernels
in June of 2007. Also, at the same time, I gave a talk at the Linux
Kernel summit (I think it was that year) about this same topic. I
pushed hard at that meeting, saying something like "Living at one kernel
version for the lifetime of an enterprise Linux release is wrong."

Despite my goal of getting rid of enterprise Linux distro kernels
sticking at a single release, my job went on, and work started at Novell
to plan for the SLE11 SP1 release.

The Cabal meets in secret

The kernel developer community is a very tight-knit one. Despite
working for companies that compete with each other, we work together
daily through email, make fun of each other on IRC, and drink beer
together in different cities around the world every few months at
various conferences.

During a few of these meetings, in mid to late 2009, the kernel
developers working for all of the various distros quickly figured out
that the timeline for the next major releases of a number of products
appeared to be lining up to happen all near the same timeframe.
Because of the success of the 2.6.16 kernel, and how it worked to
provide a solid base for a distro to work off of for a long time, we all
agreed, informally, to push for a specific kernel release within our
communities/companies that I would then maintain in the kernel.org
community in the same way I had done for the 2.6.16 kernel release.

We all drifted back to our companies, and planted the seeds that maybe
something like the 2.6.32 kernel would be a nice one to do our product
on. This planting worked so well, I had to refrain from fits of
laughter in one meeting where a project manager got up and said, "We
decided that the 2.6.32 kernel would be the best for our product, what
does engineering think about this?"

This successfully cumulated in the release of SLE11 SP1, Debian
"Squeeze", RHEL 6, Oracle Linux 6, and Ubuntu 10.4 LTS, all based on the
2.6.32 kernel.

Hacking the business models of these different and competing groups, to
coordinate on this specific kernel, was one of the (previously) unsung
successes of how the community really can achieve remarkable things if
they decide to do it.

We did it, now to get down to work keeping this kernel alive.

Success is almost the death of us

Because it was a widespread "secret" that the 2.6.32 kernel was going to
be the base of all of these different enterprise releases, a lot of
development groups all started rushing to complete things in time for
this kernel release. In the end, when 2.6.32 was released on December
2, 2009, it was the third largest kernel ever developed, by number of
changes, with 10,998 of them resulting in the rate of 5.46 patches per
hour being applied to it over its release cycle (2.6.29 and 2.6.30 had
beaten it with 11,718 and 11,989 patches respectively.)

Because of this fixed deadline, it seemed that a number of areas of the
kernel were a bit more "unstable" than normal, but the release and
testing process of the enterprise distros soon shook all of that mess
out by the time they were finally released a number of months later.
The worries that we had chosen wrong and rushed things, was now gone.

How long does it live?

With the 2.6.32 kernel being the base of these longterm enterprise
distros, it was originally guessed that it would be hanging around for
many many years to come. But, my old argument about how moving a kernel
forward for an enterprise distro finally sunk in for 2 of the 3 major
players. Both Oracle Linux and SLES 11, in their latest releases these
few months, have moved to the 3.0 kernel as the base of them, despite
leaving almost all other parts of the distro alone. They did this to
take advantage of the better support for hardware, newer features, newer
filesystems, and the hundreds of thousands of different changes that has
happened in the kernel.org releases since way back in 2009.

Debian is planning on their next stable release, and it will be on a
newer kernel, and Ubuntu of course has long moved off of the
2.6.32-based kernel for their (monthly?) releases.

So, with the big users of the 2.6.32 kernel moving on, I've decided to
no longer support the 2.6.32 kernel. That's not to say it's going to be
dead now. The ever capable Willy Tarreau (the 2.4 kernel maintainer)
is going to be keeping it alive, slowly, with a very reduced release
schedule as time sees fit.

What about RHEL?

Yes, I know, what about RHEL? It turned out that Red Hat wasn't
interested in taking advantage of the stable kernel releases of the
2.6.32 kernel that I made. They have their reasons, and they are valid,
I'm not trying to say they aren't, but it turned out that these releases
I did really didn't provide them much value from their normal operation
of how they maintain their kernel. They are sticking with the 2.6.32
kernel for their RHEL 6 product for the near future as far as I can
tell, and it works quite well for them and their customers, with one of
the largest installed base of any distro out there. I think they pick
and choose pieces of the 2.6.32-stable releases as needed, but due to
them only releasing a large "one giant patch" for their kernel package,
it's a bit hard to tell what they are really doing there.

The numbers

So, how did the 2.6.32 kernel stack up?

It lived (in my hands) for 823 days (only the 2.6.16 kernel lived longer
at 855 days). It ended up containing 3,349 patches that matched up with
patches in Linus's kernel tree, the most of any stable kernel release by
far (2.6.16 only had 991 patches, the next closest was 2.6.27 with 1,596
patches, 3.0 already has 1448 patches after 133 days, so it might end up
being the largest eventually.)

The 2.6.32 kernel was the basis of all of the enterprise distros of the
time, still running, and will still supported by the major enterprise
Linux vendors for many years in the future, so it will live on.

The future

The lessons learned in maintaining the 2.6.32 kernel have cumulated in
the proposal I made last year for the longterm kernel.

With the proposed longterm kernel releases being chosen once a year,
it's obvious that I'm not giving up on the model of maintaining specific
kernel versions for longer than a few months. But the Linux user and
developer community has spread way beyond the enterprise Linux
distributions over the past few years. They are no longer the primary
consumer of the kernel, and it's obvious that the embedded market also
needs this type of support. Because of that, I'm working with the LTSI
project, to provide a base that a
wider range of distros and products can base themselves on.

Will we ever see all of the major distros ever end up basing themselves
on the same kernel version? The odds are now less than before, given
their shifting release cycles (some faster, some slower than before),
and the move forward to newer kernel releases instead of trying to patch
together a single kernel for many many years, a move I strongly support.

But, you never know. If you see a group of kernel developers sitting in
the corner at a conference, laughing and drinking beer, perhaps they are
really plotting how to convince their managers that the idea was really
theirs on what kernel they should be picking for the next product...

Thanks

I would personally like to thank the Debian kernel developers,
specifically Ben Hutchings, Maximilian Attems, Dann Frazier, Bastian
Blank, and Moritz Muehlenhoff. They went above and beyond what any
"normal" developer would have done, ferreting patches out of the
kernel.org releases and the different vendor kernels and bug tracking
systems, backporting them to the 2.6.32 kernel, testing, and then
forwarding them on to me. Their dedication to their user community is
amazing for such a "volunteer" group of developers.

I firmly believe that without their help, the 2.6.32 kernel would not
have been the success that it was. The users of Red Hat and SuSE
products owe them a great debt.

Buy them a beer the next time you see them, they more than deserve it.

The Linux Foundation Announces Keynotes, Co-located Events for Annual Collaboration Summit

Highlights

* Linux insiders will come together first week in April for collaboration on legal, enterprise, social, and mobile opportunities for the platform

* Keynotes confirmed from Facebook, Huawei and NYSE Technologies, among others

* Co-located with Linux Foundation’s Member Legal Summit and Linux Storage, Filesystem and Memory Management Summit

SAN FRANCISCO, March 8, 2012 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced exclusive keynotes for its Sixth Annual Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit. The Summit takes place April 3-5, 2012 at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco.

The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit is the only invitation-only event where a cross-section of leaders from the Linux developer, industry and end user communities meet face-to-face to tackle today’s most pressing opportunities for the platform. The Summit serves Linux Foundation members, workgroup contributors and community members and is designed to accelerate collaboration and problem solving by bringing key stakeholders together in a neutral setting.

Confirmed keynote speakers include Facebook’s Frank Frankovsky, Huawei’s Timo Jokiaho, Intel’s Imad Sousou and NYSE Technology’s Feargal O’Sullivan. These companies together represent Linux’s fundamental role in today’s most advanced computing environments. Social networks, financial institutions, and mobile and embedded device makers are pushing the limits on operating systems and redefining mission critical workloads.

Highlights from Day One of the Collaboration Summit include a welcome address from Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin, followed by these keynote sessions:

* Facebook’s Frank Frankovsky will share an update on the Open Compute project and how openness and collaborative development are transforming the data center.

* Huawei’s Chief Technology Officer Timo Jokiaho will discuss how Linux is helping mobile carriers meet the data demands of consumers. Huawei is a global information and communications technology company with solutions for telecom networks, devices and cloud computing, among others.    

* Feargal O’Sullivan heads up Global Alliances at NYSE Technologies and will talk about the OpenMAMA project, including how the company identified an opportunity to open source its messaging API technology, the process it underwent to do so, and why it chose The Linux Foundation to host it.   

* IBM’s Gerrit Huizenga will give a reality check on the state of Linux and the cloud in a presentation titled “The Clouds Are Coming: Are We Ready?”

* The exclusive Linux Kernel Panel this year is hosted by Linux Foundation Fellow and Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman and includes James Bottomley of Parallels, John Linville of Red Hat and Keith Packard of Intel.

* Director of Intel’s Open Source Technology Center Imad Sousou will illustrate for Collaboration Summit attendees the importance of Linux at Intel.

* Black Duck’s Phil Odence will host a keynote panel titled “Getting the Kinks Out of the Software Supply Chain.” The panel will explore SPDX implementation and share examples of how this standard is reducing the cost associated with open source compliance. Panelists include: Mark Gisi, Wind River Systems; Scott Lammons, HP; and Jack Manbeck, Texas Instruments.

During days two and three of the event, attendees will split into workgroup meetings to address topics such as HPC/HA, Filesystems, Linux Standard Base (LSB), LTSI, OpenMAMA, Tizen, Tracing, UEFI, Yocto Project, and more.

A dedicated legal track will take place on Day Two of the Summit. Topics range from understanding the General Public License (GPL) to legal and compliance issues to the Linux system legal definition. Speakers include: Keith Bergelt, Open Invention Network; Richard Fontana, Red Hat; Mark Gisi, Wind River Systems; Bradley Kuhn, Software Freedom Conservancy; Karen Sandler, GNOME Foundation; and Aaron Williamson, Software Freedom Law Center.

“The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit is a very important event for companies and developers working the most with the Linux kernel community,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “Major advancements on Linux are achieved every year at the Summit and the keynote speakers help illustrate the ripest opportunities for the platform in the year ahead.”

Co-Located Events Increase Collaboration

Starting one day prior to the Collaboration Summit, The Linux Foundation Member Legal Summit takes place April 2, 2012 at the Hotel Nikko. This event provides the only neutral, nonprofit legal forum where leading attorneys from companies deploying Linux and open source based solutions, as well as the community, can work together to focus on the issues of greatest common interest and concern. For more information about this event, please visit: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/legal-summit

Also taking place at the Hotel Nikko during the week of The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit is the Linux Storage, Filesystem and Memory Management Summit. It will be held April 1-2, 2012 and will give developers and researchers an intimate forum in which to advance Linux in these areas. For more information about this event, please visit: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/lsfmm-summit

Onsite Linux Training Opportunities Maximize Attendance

In parallel with the Collaboration Summit program, the following Linux training courses will be available onsite at the Hotel Nikko: Advanced Linux Performance Tuning and Overview of Open Source Compliance. These courses are prepared by well-known Linux developers and provide a unique opportunity for colleagues to train together while attending the conference. For more information, please visit: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/collaboration-summit/linux-training

To review the complete Annual Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit schedule, please visit: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/collaboration-summit/schedule

To request an invitation, please visit: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/collaboration-summit/request-an-invitation

The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit is made possible with generous support from Platinum sponsor Intel and Gold sponsors Huawei and IBM, among others.

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, Tizen and Yocto are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Fluendo, Lineo Solutions, Mocana and NVIDIA Join The Linux Foundation

New members collaborate on Linux in the areas of mobile, embedded, security and multimedia

SAN FRANCISCO, March 7, 2012 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that four companies are joining the organization: Fluendo, Lineo Solutions, Mocana and NVIDIA. While

Linux continues to see strong gains in the enterprise market (Read: Linux Adoption Trends 2012: A Survey of Enterprise End Users), its accelerated growth in other areas such as mobile and embedded development, security and multimedia is undeniable. Companies see the benefits of Linux and the collaborative development model as key advantages in the future of computing and are adopting the operating system for a variety of applications.

More details on today’s new Linux Foundation members:

Fluendo is a leading multimedia software development company and GStreamer expert. The company specializes in software development and consulting services to enable multimedia on a variety of devices and operating systems. Fluendo employs several of the central developers of GStreamer, an open source framework, and provides a wide range of products under and above GStreamer, such as legal playback plugins, a DVD Player and a media center.

“By joining The Linux Foundation we can build upon our community collaboration on the technical, promotional and legal fronts,” said Muriel Paumier-Moscardini, CEO of Fluendo. “Linux is an integral part of multimedia systems and we are committed to contributing to its advancement in this area. We are convinced that this partnership is a great opportunity to contribute with the Linux ecosystem from a technical, legal and commercial perspective.”

Lineo Solutions is based in Japan and has more than 19 years of experience in Linux and embedded systems development. The company helps its customers speed time to market with professional services, tools and training in this area. “Linux is leading the way forward in the mobile and embedded software space,” said Akira Kobayashi, President, Lineo Solutions.

“The Linux Foundation understands this and has moved to prioritize a variety of mobile and embedded Linux initiatives in which we are looking forward to participating.”

Mocana is a device-agnostic security platform that protects mobile devices, apps and the information and services that run across them. Devices from more than 180 companies leverage the Mocana device security platform, including enterprise and consumer electronics from Cisco, Honeywell, Dell, General Electric, General Dynamics, Avaya and Harris, among others. The World Economic Forum in Geneva recently selected Mocana as one of its 25 “Technology Pioneers for 2012.”

“As the Internet evolves into the Internet of Things, security needs to evolve, too. Technologies and best practices developed over the past 20 years for networks of PCs need to be totally rethought when most of the nodes on the network are now non-PC devices, like phones, tablets, medical implants, smart grid meters, industrial automation and consumer electronics. As one of the most robust & security-friendly operating systems, Linux provides us a dependable platform for delivering the confidence consumers and enterprise users need,” said Kurt Stammberger, CISSP, VP Market Development Mocana. “By joining The Linux Foundation, we have immediate access to the technical collaboration and resources we need to help secure the Internet of Things."

NVIDIA invented the Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) in 1999. These multi-core processors enable PC gamers to enjoy fully immersive worlds and professionals to design everything from the latest cars to digital film characters. Their parallel processing capabilities provide researchers and scientists with the ability to efficiently run high-performance applications, and they are deployed in supercomputing sites around the world. More recently, NVIDIA has moved into the fast-growing mobile computing market, where its processors power phones and tablets, as well as auto infotainment systems.

“NVIDIA is strongly committed to enabling world-class experiences and innovation with our GPU and mobile products. Membership in The Linux Foundation will accelerate our collaboration with the organizations and individuals instrumental in shaping the future of Linux, enabling a great experience for users and developers of Linux,” said Scott Pritchett, VP of Linux Platform Software at NVIDIA.

“The ongoing support from companies and organizations across industries and geographies demonstrates not only Linux’s ubiquity but also its ability to quickly adapt for a variety of technical and market opportunities,” said Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer services at The Linux Foundation. “Fluendo, Lineo Solutions, Mocana and NVIDIA each represent important areas of the Linux ecosystem and their contributions will immediately help advance the operating system.”


About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Slideshow: Five Years of Linux Collaboration

{lfnews}One of our most special events of the year is just a month away, the Annual Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit. This Summit is unique because it's the first event we ever hosted (2007 on the Google campus) and aims to bring together Linux Foundation members with other distinguished community members to work on very specific opportunities for Linux. This year, the event will be at the Hotel Nikko from April 3-5.

As we prepare for the Collaboration Summit, we wanted to share with you a little trip down memory lane. This year is the sixth annual event, so this slideshow shares pictures from five years of Linux collaboration. From Google's campus to Austin, Texas to Hotel Kabuki, come with us as we remember why this event continues to be so amazing.

Why the Next Steve Jobs Needs a Raspberry Pi, Not Patents

Nicholas Negroponte is always ahead of his time. When he envisioned One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), the average price for a PC was still hundreds of dollars. The industry rallied around his vision for a low-cost PC that anyone could use but couldn’t fathom innovative technology at the $100 price point he claimed he could hit.

But a little bit of time goes a long way: In the case of the newest low-cost computer, the Raspberry Pi, his vision is not only alive and well but selling out (Raspberry Pi Computers Sell Out On Launch).

Computing for everyone, starting with children, was the idea behind OLPC. And while the Raspberry Pi does target students, which is the most admirable of goals, it also puts a lot of computing power into the hands of anyone looking to create something interesting. $25 for a computing device is just incredible.

So why does this matter? Because it is showing just how well Moore's law is at work and how consequently important free software is to the world of computing. For the price of four Raspberry Pi's, you can't even get a copy of Windows 7 at Best Buy. And that is just for the upgrade version.

Innovation is happening because the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg can grab free software and low cost hardware and DO SOMETHING. Zuckerberg even took the time to point out the power of the hacker way as he filed one of the biggest IPO’s of the decade. The next technology innovator doesn't have to spend a fortune prototyping ideas or taking out licenses with everybody under the sun. With $25 and free software you can get started building something cool.

In fact, the only thing holding back this form of innovation is the billion dollar price of patents these days. This speaks miles to the power of getting the tools of innovation into the hands of many and the sad state of our current patent system. The only thing that holds back the next Steve Jobs is being sued by the company started by the late Steve Jobs.

Linux Mint 12 LXDE RC released!

The Greatness of Git

When Linus Torvalds says he is going to work on a side project he doesn't think small and he doesn’t work slowly.

When he created “Git,” the software source control and collaboration system that runs Linux kernel development, he started writing code on a Sunday (April 3, 2005) and emerged just a few days later with a new revision control system that today is regarded as one of the best pieces of software ever written (second, at least, to Linux, of course).

Andrew Morton said when introducing Linus to speak about Git to an audience at Google, Git is “expressly designed to make you feel less intelligent than you thought you were.”

Software Freedom Law Center Founder and co-author of the GPL Eben Moglen said during a keynote panel at LinuxCon last August: “Linus was presented with a nasty weekend once upon a time and out of it came Git. Another brilliant achievement, you understand. A work of superb design that is going to change the software industry and the world...because one man had one itch one weekend that was really biting, and he had to invent something. And he’s a brilliantly inventive man and scored another hole in one.”

Git had to be great in order to support the unmatched rate of development that Linux requires. Today, the Linux community applies more than five patches per hour to the kernel and to date has written more than 15 million lines of code. The sheer size of Linux development has made the project one from which others have borrowed both collaborative development lessons and and tools - like Git. Today Git is used by the Linux community, as well as developers working on projects that range from Ruby on Rails to Android to Perl and Eclipse, and many more.

The popularity of Git is also resulting in it becoming part of the technology vernacular, with businesses based on Git flourishing.

Consider GitHub. This is an amazing code repository that uses the Git revision control system and has become one of the most popular places to host and collaborate on software. This service is being used by more than a million people to store over two million code repositories.

Could Git also be getting into publishing? Maybe. Wired.com reporter Bob McMillan recently took GitHub for spin, publishing his story about the repository in the repository. 

“GitHub was originally designed for software developers...But nowadays, it’s also being used to oversee stuff outside the programming world, including DNA data and Senate bills that may turn into laws and all sorts of other stuff you can put into a text file, such as, well, a Wired article.”

He might have gotten a little more than he bargained for with all the collaboration, but his experiment demonstrates its power.

GitHire is another new online application and service that builds upon Git for finding the world’s best programmers. GitHire will crawl git repositories, find and rank programmers based on their code and reputation and provide employers with a short list of the world’s best talent most relevant to their needs. If you’re a software developer and doubted it before, code is most definitely the new resume.  

There are a number of other examples, as well as native Git for Windows, Git implementations in other languages, tutorial businesses based on Git, and more.

The measure of truly great software development is use. When others use it and build new projects and/or businesses from it, you know it’s truly great. This is the essence of Linux and open source software development. By writing the best code and sharing it with the world, everything gets better, faster, and there becomes even more new ways to collaborate and share.

Tizen Software Platform Gains Momentum and Adds Industry Support

Huawei joins Tizen Association Board of Directors as Updated Platform is Introduced 28

February 2012 – BARCELONA, SPAIN – Tizen Association and Linux Foundation today announced important progress updates that advance the Tizen software platform towards market introduction. Included in today’s announcement is the release of the beta release of the Tizen platform source code and SDK and the news that Huawei has joined the Tizen Association Board of Directors.

As announced today by the Tizen Technical Steering Group on tizen.org, developers are encouraged to start working with the new features and functionality of the Tizen beta source code and SDK and provide feedback to help improve the platform during the final stages of its development. The beta release features an updated UI framework and web APIs for easier development of rich web applications and the Tizen SDK now features Windows® operating system support in addition to Ubuntu to provide developers with greater choice in managing their projects. Developers can obtain further details from the blog post and download the beta SDK at http://www.tizen.org.

“It is very pleasing that Tizen continues to make good progress while capturing broad industry leadership,” said Morgan Gillis, executive director of Tizen Association. “The new platform seeks to give device vendors freedom to differentiate and to assist operators in all regions to compile user propositions in a flexible way which is attuned to the specific requirements of their markets.”

Within today’s news it is also confirmed that Huawei has joined the Tizen Association Board with the intention of creating and commercializing Tizen handsets for a range of markets and so comes together with the other Board companies who are guiding Tizen to serve the need of the industry at-large for an independent device software platform and ecosystem.

“We are very happy to join fellow industry leaders on the Board of Tizen Association,” said Glory Zhang, spokesperson for Huawei Device. “Our ongoing goal is to work closely with our customers and partners to bring truly innovative handset propositions to consumers in all markets and the new Tizen ecosystem complements our existing areas of focus and provides fresh opportunity for tremendously strengthening Huawei’s brand name in the mobile segment.”

“We warmly welcome Huawei to Tizen Association,” said Kiyohito Nagata of NTT DOCOMO, chairperson of Tizen Association. “The open source approach and strong industry guidance through the Tizen Association Board are designed to make Tizen attractive to a wide range of companies and developers -- we look forward to seeing many instances of mutual success within the new ecosystem.”

Tizen is an open source, cross-architecture, standards-based device software platform featuring a standards-based HTML5 and W3C standards enabling device-independent applications to be produced efficiently for cross-platform deployment. This approach leverages the robustness and flexibility of HTML5 which is rapidly emerging as a preferred application environment for mobile applications.

About Tizen Association

Tizen Association is a dedicated consortium of mobile industry leaders working together to guide the industry role of Tizen, including gathering of requirements, identification and facilitation of service models, and overall industry marketing and education. The Board of Tizen Association comprises Huawei, Intel, NEC CASIO, NTT DOCOMO, Orange, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung, SK Telecom, Telefónica and Vodafone. A full description of Tizen Association can be found at www.tizenassociation.org.

About Huawei Device

Huawei Device believes that everyone can be the center of information and that the world would be a better place if access and information barriers were knocked down. Its strong suite of mobile phones, mobile broadband devices and home devices is testimony to Huawei Device's focus on customers and its commitment to providing user-friendly mobile internet experiences through ongoing innovation. Based on more than two decades of success in the information and communications industry, and with our own channel expertise, operational capabilities and global partner resources, Huawei Device is transforming from a company that sells millions of devices in single transactions to large businesses, to a “Business-to-People” (B2P) brand that also sells individual devices directly to millions of people. As at the end of 2011, Huawei Device serves more than 500 operators all over the world. For more information, visit Huawei Device online: www.huaweidevice.com.

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growt of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

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The Linux Foundation and Tizen are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

What Greg Does

With my recent job change, I'm starting to run into a bunch of
people asking "What exactly are you going to be doing now?"

I've tried responding by describing the kernel related stuff I've been
doing for the past years, and it turns out that a lot of people didn't
even realize I was doing that.

So, here's a short list of some of the things that I'm going to be doing
at my new job, and most importantly, how you can track what I do yourself,
so that I never have to write a status report again...

Stable kernel releases

I've been releasing the Linux kernel stable releases since way back when
they first started up, in mid 2005. Early on, the most excellent kernel
developer Chris Wright helped out with this task, but for the past few
years, I've been doing this on my own.

These releases take the last kernel released by Linus and add any needed
bugfixes and other related patches that have gone into Linus's
development tree, and package it all up in a format that users can use
themselves during the 2-3 month development cycle time while the kernel
developers are madly working on creating the next kernel release.

For a description of what entails a change that is acceptable into the
stable kernel releases, and how to get a patch accepted, please see the
file Documentation/stable _ kernel _ rules.txt in the
kernel source tree.

Every year I pick a specific kernel version and declare that as
"longterm". That kernel gets support from me for bugfixes and related
things for two years before it is gracefully retired to a more leisurely
release cycle by the capable extra-extra longterm maintainer. For
details on how the longterm kernel works, and how it is picked, see
this older post I wrote on the topic.

If you want to be notified of when these kernels are released, you can
do one of the following:

• read lwn.net, they post the announcements mere hours after they
  happen. They also post lots of other wonderful things, if you aren't
  reading this site already, you are missing out.
• subscribe to the linux-kernel or stable mailing lists. Note, you will
  get a lot of other traffic, but it's all good, you wanted to know what
  was going on in Linux kernel development directly from the developers
  themselves, right?
• subscribe to my twitter feed. You might get other random
  blatherings there, but I do post the announcements to it.
• watch the Linux G+ feed, the releases are all announced there.
• subscribe to the google calender feeds of the kernel releases. This
  is maintained by the talented Tsugikazu Shibata (high powered
  executive by day, Linux kernel developer by night) and can be found
  here for the stable kernel releases, here
  for the main Linux kernel releases, and here for the kernel
  development releases.

Kernel subsystem maintainer

When I'm not releasing stable kernels, I also maintain a number of
different kernel subsystems. These entail USB, driver core, staging,
tty, and a variety of other bits of the kernel. Being a maintainer
means you read patches from submitters, handle questions from both
developers and users about things related to the subsystem (usually bug
reports). If a patch looks acceptable, you test it if possible, and
apply it to the relevant git tree and push it publicly, and notify the
author that it was accepted. Every weekday, these git trees get merged
together in the linux-next release, and inevitably, problems are
reported and it's up to the maintainer to fix them when they affect
their portion of the kernel.

If you are curious as to exactly what portions of the kernel I maintain,
look at the MAINTAINERS file in the kernel source tree
and search for my name. Those entries will show you exactly where the
git tree for the subsystem lives, as well as the proper mailing list to
contact if you have questions in those areas.

If you want to follow the development done in these various areas, and
what patches I apply, you can subscribe to the RSS feed of the
individual git trees listed in the MAINTAINERS file, or you can follow
along on the various different mailing lists.

Kernel development

When not releasing kernels or reviewing patches from others, I
occasionally get time to fix bugs, rework existing code to solve
problems or extend it in various ways, or even rarer, write a new driver
for some random hardware device. This is one area that I should be
doing more of now that I have extra time available.

Right now I'm working on a driver for a USB to serial device that Linux
doesn't support, and I have some ideas for how portions of the driver
core can be reworked to handle some areas better (most of that has been
suggested by Kay years ago, I really should get around to implementing
them...) I also have some ideas on cleaning up some cruftier portions
of the kernel that haven't seen any love for many years, but that's more
of a long-term goal, no specifics yet.

If you want to follow along with this development, just watch the main
kernel tree for commits by me. That can be done by either subscribing
to the rss feed for the kernel tree, or just using git and doing simple
searches.

I keep my kernel development and maintainership scripts and directory
structure in a public github repo, if you are curious
about how this type of thing works. There's lots of scripts helpfully
named "do.sh" which I really should rename to be a bit more descriptive,
but make sense to me relative to the directory they are located in.

I also have lots of talks, scripts, and other minor projects in my
public github repo, if you are curious as to other
things I work on over time.

Linux Driver Project

Despite the creaky web page, the Linux Driver project is
continuing on quite well. We have written a number of new drivers now
included in the main kernel tree, as well as maintaining the staging
portion of the kernel. I'll be working on revamping the web site to
make it a bit more obvious as to what is going on here, but again, the
best way to follow this work is to watch the mailing list.

LTSI kernel maintainership

As has been announced in various places, the LTSI project (Long Term
Support Initiative) has started up with the goal to provide a kernel
that the consumer electronic companies can use to help reduce their
maintenance burden, and to provide a common area where they can learn how
to get involved in upstream kernel development.

I'm helping in setting the kernel tree for that project
up, and getting some of the procedures and processes in place for it to
succeed in the long run. For now, until it really gets up and going,
I'm also going to be maintaining the tree myself, handling the patches
and working on the support scripts to make it easier to develop using
it. If you want to track this work, watch the kernel tree, or join the
public mailing list.

I'm also talking with lots of different companies that create chips used
in consumer devices that have traditionally been out of the main kernel
tree, and with others that are active upstream developers, to try to get
them all working better together. I'm also working with the Yocto
project to see how the two projects can work together in sharing their
kernel needs.

To follow the development of this kernel, you can subscribe to the
mailing list, read the archives, or just watch the git tree.

Distribution work

I'm still going to continue my maintenance of the openSUSE
Tumbleweed distro, as I've come to rely on it, and it
really takes almost no time at all to keep up and working properly. To
follow along with any Tumbleweed questions/concerns, please read the
openSUSE-Factory mailing list. The scripts used to maintain the
Tumbleweed distro, and the list of packages in it, can be seen, and
watched, in the tumbleweed github repo.

I'm also going to continue to remain a Gentoo developer, and
will have time to do more package maintenance there, which I have not
had the opportunity over the past few years.

Both of these are distros that I use every day on my development systems
and my servers, and are great community-based distributions.

Travel

"You traveled last year as much as people think you do."
-- my wife

As usual, I'll be attending all of the various Linux Foundation
events held all around the world, as well as other different
conferences that I'm invited to and can find time to get to. Odds are
I'll also be traveling to different companies to work with their kernel
developers on how to get them to integrate better with the upstream
kernel community, or how the LTSI kernel can help them out.

So once again, my frequent flier miles status will probably not be
downgraded this year, much to my very patient family's despair.

Is that all?

So, hopefully that explains a bit of what I'll be doing in the near
future for the upcoming years. Needless to say, I'm thrilled to be
working for the Linux Foundation and that they are supporting me in all
of this. If there's anything that anyone is thinking I should be doing
but seem not to be, please let me know. I want to make Linux
succeed and thrive, and whatever I can do to help that out, I will.

Time to update your email address book

sed -i 's/gregkh@suse.de/gregkh@linuxfoundation.org/g' .addressbook

Why Linux Jobs Are Burning Up the Tech Market: Q&A with Dice.com's Alice Hill

The Linux Foundation, in partnership with Dice.com, today released the results of the first-ever Linux Jobs Report. Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin breaks down the significance of those findings in his blog. In this special interview, we talk to Dice Managing Director Alice Hill for her perspective on what is most interesting about the 2012 Linux Jobs Report and the outlook for Linux professionals.

What do you think is the most important finding from the 2012 Linux Jobs Report? Why?

Hill: Linux is firmly at the core of software development and system administration and still growing. What the survey respondents tell us about Linux as a priority for 2012 echoes recruitment posting activity on Dice. We have seen demand in areas like mobile and cloud take off, but Linux-related jobs are a consistent leader. In fact, Linux job postings on Dice.com are up 17 percent year/year and is one of the top 10 most requested skills.

What surprised you about the results? Why?

Hill: It’s not a surprise to us that Linux talent is in demand, but what is surprising is the fact that 85 percent of companies report having difficulty finding qualified Linux professionals. That’s substantial. Linux is a core skill and employers understand this. Now tech professionals need to recognize the opportunity and join this community.

Dice works closely with recruiters and hiring managers. What are you hearing about demand or points of pain for Linux talent?

Hill: Hiring managers tell us they’re looking for Linux talent who can not only build and update complex systems, but also contribute to the success of the tech department and the company overall.

We advise hiring managers to watch for shortages in certain high demand areas like Linux and to work hard on retention. Aside from salary, offering the option to telecommute or to take on new and challenging projects have been powerful retention tools and work to ward off poaching.

Looking beyond 2012, what would you predict the Linux jobs market will look like?

Hill: At Dice.com we don't really predict specific job markets, but we do study our data, which is a leading indicator of growth and movement in certain skills and tech metro areas. Linux talent is not only in demand in 46 states, but as we saw in our salary survey, these professionals are also commanding salary increases after two years of flat salaries overall. Linux garners an average annual salary of more than $86,000, above the national average of $81,000.

Software programming and development skills have been getting a lot of attention nationally. What kinds of things can employers and universities do to encourage more men and women pursue this line of work?

Hill: I think we've seen that tech in general, and programming and development specifically, has been where demand is. Even in an uncertain economy, tech unemployment rates fall well below the national average. With a shortage of computer science grads, as evidenced by a report Dice did last May, this only fuels the demand for more skilled entry-level developers. Shortages put pressure on tech wages, and some colleges and universities are creating exciting new programs to get students accredited sooner and into the workforce faster to capitalize on these higher salaries. It's a great time to be in this field.

Thank you to Alice for taking the time to give us her insights. Please feel free to download the full 2012 Linux Jobs Report .

Why Linux Jobs Are Burning Up the Tech Market: Q&A with Dice.om's Alice Hill

The Linux Foundation, in partnership with Dice.com, today released the results of the first-ever Linux Jobs Report. Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin breaks down the significance of those findings in his blog. In this special interview, we talk to Dice Managing Director Alice Hill for her perspective on what is most interesting about the 2012 Linux Jobs Report and the outlook for Linux professionals.

What do you think is the most important finding from the 2012 Linux Jobs Report? Why?

Hill: Linux is firmly at the core of software development and system administration and still growing. What the survey respondents tell us about Linux as a priority for 2012 echoes recruitment posting activity on Dice. We have seen demand in areas like mobile and cloud take off, but Linux-related jobs are a consistent leader. In fact, Linux job postings on Dice.com are up 17 percent year/year and is one of the top 10 most requested skills.

What surprised you about the results? Why?

Hill: It’s not a surprise to us that Linux talent is in demand, but what is surprising is the fact that 85 percent of companies report having difficulty finding qualified Linux professionals. That’s substantial. Linux is a core skill and employers understand this. Now tech professionals need to recognize the opportunity and join this community.

Dice works closely with recruiters and hiring managers. What are you hearing about demand or points of pain for Linux talent?

Hill: Hiring managers tell us they’re looking for Linux talent who can not only build and update complex systems, but also contribute to the success of the tech department and the company overall.

We advise hiring managers to watch for shortages in certain high demand areas like Linux and to work hard on retention. Aside from salary, offering the option to telecommute or to take on new and challenging projects have been powerful retention tools and work to ward off poaching.

Looking beyond 2012, what would you predict the Linux jobs market will look like?

Hill: At Dice.com we don't really predict specific job markets, but we do study our data, which is a leading indicator of growth and movement in certain skills and tech metro areas. Linux talent is not only in demand in 46 states, but as we saw in our salary survey, these professionals are also commanding salary increases after two years of flat salaries overall. Linux garners an average annual salary of more than $86,000, above the national average of $81,000.

Software programming and development skills have been getting a lot of attention nationally. What kinds of things can employers and universities do to encourage more men and women pursue this line of work?

Hill: I think we've seen that tech in general, and programming and development specifically, has been where demand is. Even in an uncertain economy, tech unemployment rates fall well below the national average. With a shortage of computer science grads, as evidenced by a report Dice did last May, this only fuels the demand for more skilled entry-level developers. Shortages put pressure on tech wages, and some colleges and universities are creating exciting new programs to get students accredited sooner and into the workforce faster to capitalize on these higher salaries. It's a great time to be in this field.

Thank you to Alice for taking the time to give us her insights. Please feel free to download the full 2012 Linux Jobs Report .

Wired: World Clamors for Linux Coders

Wired's Caleb Garling reports on the first-ever Linux Jobs Report, talks to Jim Zemlin and Greg Kroah-Hartman.

Need a Job? New Study Says Learn Linux.

No one disputes that that tech jobs are fueling the economy in the U.S. and around the world. The U.S. President said in his recent State of the Union address that there are twice as many openings in the science and technology sector as there are people to fill them. But where exactly are these jobs? And, who exactly is landing them?

Today, we have new data that helps us understand where are the tech jobs and that tells us we need more trained people in the most profitable and rewarding areas of tech.

The first-ever Linux Jobs Report released today surfaces two of the most lucrative areas in the tech jobs market - Linux development and Linux systems administration. Eighty-one percent of recruiters surveyed for the report say hiring Linux talent is a priority in the year ahead. And, 63% percent will hire Linux talent over candidates with other skill areas.

A NYU Professor recently said "code is the literacy of the future" (CNN: Computer Geeks King in Job Hunt). We agree. And, we believe that Linux is an important currency in that future. It powers the Internet. It runs Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and millions of other Internet technology companies. It runs the world's supercomputers, data centers, smartphones, financial institutions and stock exchanges, and the list goes on. It's no surprise that with its widespread ubiquity that today there is also growing demand for talent to support it. In fact, when the Linux Jobs Report survey respondents were asked why hiring Linux talent was a priority in the year ahead, most reported their companies are growing, increasing their use of Linux and requiring in-house expertise to support the OS.

But the Linux Jobs Report also finds a wrinkle in an otherwise positive story: Linux and open source developers can be hard to find. Eight-five percent of those surveyed say that finding Linux talent is really difficult.

Google, Facebook, Amazon, Qualcomm, IBM, Intel and hundreds of other companies who rely on Linux to support their businesses, especially their highly-valued data centers and embedded systems, are paying big bucks to find and retain Linux talent. The Linux Jobs Report shows that nearly 1/3 of the companies surveyed are giving pay increases to these professionals that are above the industry norm. Dice's 2012 Salary Report backs this up, showing that Linux professionals have seen salaries go up by 5% over the last few years, while tech professionals overall have seen just a 2% increase. The 15% bump in bonus payouts to Linux professionals just solidifies the point.

It's become glaringly obvious that students and mid-level career professionals who can confidently write Linux code can also write their own ticket to long-term job security. It’s a really good time to know Linux.

Getting involved in open source projects and understanding the open development model are more important than ever, and the good news is that the “University of Open Source” is open to everyone. There are no entrance exams, no admissions counselors, and no student loans; all you need is a connection to the Internet. And, it doesn't matter where you live or what your local economy is dictating. In a world that is flat, Linux and open source software development is a global opportunity for job seekers working anywhere, any time. 

Looking for a place to start? Check out Jon Corbet’s guide on participating in the Linux kernel community. We also invite you to check out our Linux training courses, which are taught by leaders from the Linux and Linux kernel communities.

Get all the results from the Linux Jobs Survey and Report by downloading it here: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/linux-foundation/2012-linux-jobs-report

Wall Street Journal: Linux Popularity Sparks Salary Jump

The Wall Street Journal reports on the 2012 Linux Jobs Report

2012 Linux Job Forecast: Demand is on the Rise

Highlights:

• Eight in ten recruiters say hiring Linux talent is a priority in 2012

• Managers report they’re hiring more Linux professionals relative to other skill areas in the next six months

• Linux professionals are hard to find, garnering higher salaries and better bonuses

NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO, February 14, 2012 – The first-ever report forecasting the Linux job market shows demand for Linux skills is on the rise but that finding talent is difficult. This is triggering better salaries and bonuses for Linux professionals.

The 2012 Linux Jobs Report released today shares the results of a recent survey of more than 2,000 hiring managers. The survey was conducted by Dice, the leading career site for technology and engineering professionals, and The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the growth of Linux.

Key statistics from the report include:

Eighty-one percent of survey respondents say that hiring Linux talent is a priority in 2012. This urgency is driving a substantial increase in recruiting activity, with nearly half (47%) of hiring managers expecting to add more Linux professionals to their firms in early 2012 and 63 percent noting Linux hires are increasing relative to jobs created in other skill areas.

But, a full 85 percent report having difficulty finding qualified Linux professionals to fill these positions, pointing to the need for more skilled Linux talent.

In an economy where contract and temp-to-hire positions have become more prevalent, Linux professionals garner more full-time positions and better salaries, bonuses and perks. While average pay increases for tech professionals averaged just two percent in 2011, professionals with Linux skills have seen a five percent increase in salaries and a 15 percent jump in bonus payouts over the same timeframe.

Seventy-five percent of respondents cited the mid-level professional with three to five years of experience as their most-sought hires, especially those with development or systems administration skills.

“Linux jobs have become some of the hottest jobs in all of tech,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “Clearly, hiring managers throughout the IT tech sector understand this and are aggressively seeking Linux professionals. It is our job to meet this demand by ensuring developers and systems admins have access to the community networking opportunities and Linux training they need to take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity.”

With the tech industry having twice as many openings as professionals who can do the job , college grads to mid-career professionals are considering how to take advantage of that opportunity. Software programming has been highly touted as a lucrative area of technology, and with the increasing use of Linux and open source software across industries, Linux know-how is topping the list of most highly sought expertise in this area.

“In the last ten years, there’s been no tech skill that matches Linux in terms of growth in hiring requests and size of demand and clearly it’s not done,” said Alice Hill, Managing Director, Dice.com. “The best Linux candidates have options and we need more talented professionals to join the community. Linux is simply a core skill for anyone pursuing a career in software development or systems administration.”

To download the complete report, please visit: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/linux-foundation/2012-linux-jobs-report

The 2012 Linux Jobs Report Methodology

From December 6 to December 16, 2011, Dice and The Linux Foundation surveyed hiring managers at corporations, Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs), government organizations, and staffing agencies. More than 2,300 responded with 42 percent indicating their company was headquartered in the United States, 27 percent in Europe, 11 percent in Asia, seven percent in South America, as well as Africa, Australia/New Zealand, Japan, the Middle East, Mexico and Central America. Respondents needed to have hired at least one Linux professional in the last year, or plan to hire Linux professionals in 2012 to participate in the survey, and were allowed to check as many responses to questions as appropriate.

About Dice

Dice, a Dice Holdings, Inc. service, is the leading career site for technology and engineering professionals. With a 21-year track record of meeting the ever-changing needs of technology professionals, companies and recruiters, our specialty focus and exposure to highly skilled professional communities enable employers to reach hard-to-find, experienced and qualified technology and engineering candidates. www.Dice.com

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

###

Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Forbes: Geek Picture of the Day

A 1999 picture of Linux creator Linus Torvalds makes picture of the day on Forbes.com

The Embedded and Mobile Linux Trends Shaping 2012

We’re preparing for our weeklong extravaganza of mobile and embedded development next week. Android Builders Summit kicks off Monday and ELC follows on Wednesday, taking place February 15-17, 2012. For the really hard-core, we’ve even lined up some hands-on mobile and embedded Linux training courses over the weekend. I'm especially looking forward to the Yocto Project crash course.

This is a great way to kick off our annual events calendar for 2012, and it provides me a good excuse to share my take on the state of embedded Linux.

The face of embedded software development is changing fast. The power and functionality of mobile and embedded devices are reaching new levels of performance  previously found in general purpose systems, such as desktop and mobile computers. The classic definition of an embedded system being "a computer system designed for specific control functions within a larger system" may still hold true for control modules found in cars, machinery and other core embedded applications. However, the lines are becoming blurry when it comes to mobile devices, Smart TVs and other consumer electronics products. These devices now allow users to customize their look and feel and user experience, installing third-party software applications, downloading media, and more, which a few years ago was only possible with personal computers.

Following is a breakdown of the trends I see shaping the embedded Linux area and the ways that engineers write software for these systems in the year ahead.

Convergence of development and deployment platforms

If you are a veteran embedded engineer you very well know that the systems you once utilized to develop software were substantially different from the systems you were developing for. In the majority of cases, the target systems had a different processor architecture, different I/O functionality, substantially less processing power, different or no memory management, and many other diverging characteristics. System-on-Chips (SoC) integrating processor cores of general purpose CPUs with peripheral devices typically found in embedded systems into a single chip allows software developers to tap into a large software pool previously written for general purpose CPUs. The most prominent example is certainly the Linux kernel.

Before the advent of SoCs, Linux was not a good choice for embedded or mobile systems. General purpose CPUs required too many external peripheral devices to be economically used in an embedded system, and microcontrollers typically used in such systems did not fulfill the memory management requirements of the Linux kernel. A second hurdle for Linux in embedded system design was the need for a read/write file system. Not too long ago, file system meant the use of hard drives, which are not practical for embedded and/or mobile use. Memory Technology Devices (MTD) are now closing the gap. SoCs and MTDs are enabling the use of Linux in embedded and mobile devices.

The utilization of Linux for embedded devices is naturally bringing deployment and development platforms together. Now, developers can use the exact same software development tools they are familiar with on their Linux development system to write software for a Linux-based target. The same processor architecture on development system and target may even make the use of cross-development tools unnecessary. In some cases, developers are even given the possibility of directly developing software on the target itself. Many SoCs have integrated graphics and USB ports, making connecting a display, keyboard and mouse a breeze. Development boards available for most processor architectures provide all the necessary functionality in single board computer form factor to jumpstart embedded software development.

Emulation and simulation

In the past, embedded hardware and software development were mostly serialized. Software development did not start until the first prototype of the hardware was available for the software engineers. Emulators allow software engineers to test new features even before they are accessible in the form of hardware. For example, the QEMU open source machine emulator and virtualizer can easily be used to test new CPU instructions and compilers to create code for these instructions long before the first silicon gets in the hands of software developers. Simulation can be utilized to test new APIs for sensors and other hardware devices. GUI simulators facilitate rapid prototyping of user interfaces.

Virtualization

The original intent of the Java platform was to provide a hardware independent platform for interactive television. It was too advanced for the digital cable television industry at the time but its adoption by the Android mobile operating system as application development and deployment platform proved that the concept of virtualization for embedded and mobile systems is fundamentally correct. Virtualization provides several benefits for embedded and mobile systems: secure partitioning of applications, migration of legacy applications, platform-independent application ecosystems. Depending on the focus for the virtualization, different solutions are appropriate. Secure partitioning of native applications can be achieved with a hypervisor. A hypervisor may also be the solution for migrating existing and consolidating existing software on a new platform. Ecosystems for third-party applications are a major differentiator for mobile devices. While Java is Android's technology for building an application ecosystem, web browsers, WebKit, HTML5 and other web technologies provide the abstraction layers necessary to build application ecosystems that extend across many different device types and categories using a variety of hardware technologies, processor architectures and operating system.

HTML5

Ecosystems for third-party applications are a vital part of mobile device platforms and will undoubtedly influence purchasing decisions for other consumer electronics products such as Smart TVs, and potentially cars, in the near future. The more applications that are available for a particular platform, the more valuable it becomes in the perception of the consumer. If you trust the forecasts of market analysts, then the battle of the ecosystems has just begun.  And within the next couple of years, two to three prevailing software platforms (with their respective ecosystems) will evolve as the winners. The winners will bring on board the critical mass of application developers providing a steady stream of new applications to maintain the attractiveness of the platform to consumers. In my opinion, HTML5 will make the discussion about the winning mobile platform moot and end the predicted battle of the ecosystems.

A major headache for mobile application developers is the rapidly increasing number of variances in devices, form factor, screen resolution, operating system versions, etc. An application designed for a mobile phone with a 4" screen typically viewed in portrait orientation will most likely not provide the same user experience on a tablet with a 10" screen commonly viewed in landscape orientation. Current mobile software platforms and their respective application development environments do not provide an adequate solution. HTML through CSS, allows easy separation of presentation from business logic making it straight forward for developers to change the visual layout of their applications and have it automatically adapt to the form factor and orientation of the device. HTML and CSS also give developers more freedom to design their own look-and-feel. Current SDKs for mobile applications are rather limiting in how developers can create differentiating user experiences.

New markup tags introduced with HTML5 further close the gap between native and web applications. Web applications can now access sensors, cameras and other hardware devices found on mobile platforms, store application-specific information on the device and play media through standardized tags and objects.

With these features, HTML5 provides a unique opportunity to create an application ecosystem for embedded and mobile devices that is truly independent from the underlying hardware and software platform. This ecosystem will benefit all parties involved with the value chain: the device manufacturers, the application developers and the consumers. None of them will have to make the decision for a particular platform wondering if the investment will be voided by becoming obsolete before returning the expected value.

Security and privacy

A steady and rapidly increasing number of embedded devices are either directly or indirectly connected to the Internet. This poses new challenges for embedded system developers. Even if an embedded device is only connected to a private network, engineers now must keep security in mind since other devices on the private network could act as bridges, deliberately or involuntarily, providing outside access to those devices. For instance, an engine management module in a car connected to the vehicle's private network could potentially become exposed to the Internet through an infotainment head-unit connected to the same private network while also being connected to the Internet via data modem and cell phone network. Encrypted data communication on private networks and embedded firewalls to protect them will soon become standard for embedded systems.

The widespread proliferation of smartphones may enable botnets of entirely new dimensions. Access to platform sensors, such as GPS, makes it easy to physically locate the bots and aggregate the ones close in location for attacks in specific areas. For example, thousands of compromised smartphones in a Super Bowl stadium could be used to create a mass panic or do other harm. Embedded and mobile device designers must devise technologies to protect the platforms against viruses, Trojan horses and other malware.

As more and more users of smartphones use them for online banking, financial transactions at store checkouts and to unlock their cars, among other applications, the protection of the private data stored on these devices becomes mandatory. But not only the data that the user explicitly stores on the device is at risk. but also the data that the user indirectly creates while carrying and using the device: the places he visits, the stores she pays, the pictures of places and people he takes, the tunes she plays, etc. While each piece of data by itself may be meaningless the combination of it together with information found online through social media networks and personal websites may expose the person to identity theft and more. It is not a trivial task to enable user convenience and at the same time keep the user's personal information safe from unauthorized access.

Embedded and mobile system developers must learn to understand the threats, be aware of them and proactively design their software accordingly. There is no absolute security and privacy; however, a simple message during installation that an application accesses the user's contact list, the data network, the camera, etc., and asks the user whether to proceed or not is not merely a security concept but simply an excuse.

The Future Belongs to Embedded and Mobile Computing

The future of computing is in embedded and mobile. Orders of magnitude more of these systems will be deployed and used for a myriad of applications than have ever been for PCs or other computers. The possibilities and opportunities seem limitless but so seem the challenges. However, lessons learned from the personal computing era and the Internet still apply. As embedded and general purpose computing platforms converge, embedded and mobile developers must adapt to harvest the benefits and meet the challenges.

Zuckerberg is Spot on with “Hacker Way” (but The Linux Community Already Knew That)

Facebook filed its IPO last week , which is big news in and of itself. However, what struck me most was the letter from Mark Zuckerberg to potential investors that puts an exclamation point on something that the Linux community has been practicing for years: first - don't do it for the money, second maintain the hacker way. And, the money follows.

Zuckerberg points out that Facebook wasn't started to become a company. It was a cause. It was an idea -- to connect people. Linus Torvalds had a similar idea 20 years ago when he started Linux as a way to collectively develop software. Linus kicked off the project “just for fun” and has repeatedly stated that his motivation behind Linux is solving interesting problems with code.

In the letter, Zuckerberg clearly demonstrates how he and his company have been inspired by the core principles that Linux and the open source software movement started twenty years ago.

Just take a look at these statements:

“People sharing more — even if just with their close friends or families — creates a more open culture and leads to a better understanding of the lives and perspectives of others.”

“Hacker culture is extremely open and meritocratic. Hackers believe that the best idea and implementation should always win — not the person who is best at lobbying for an idea or the person who manages the most people.”

“The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it — often in the face of people who say it’s impossible or are content with the status quo.”

“We think the world’s information infrastructure should resemble the social graph — a network built from the bottom up or peer-to-peer, rather than the monolithic, top-down structure that has existed to date. We also believe that giving people control over what they share is a fundamental principle of this rewiring.”

Sound familiar? Zuckerberg’s interpretation of the “hacker way” could be cut and pasted from the daily workings of Linux kernel development for the last two decades:

"Code wins arguments."

"Quickly releasing and learning from smaller iterations."

"The best idea and implementation should always win."  

Linux is the quintessential example of the hacker way. As an example, if you don't think that code wins arguments, post some bad code along with the best-crafted argument in the world to the Linux kernel mailing list and see how it goes.   

Linux is the fastest moving collaborative software project in the history of computing; it releases every three months and in small iterations with literally thousands of code changes in every release.  In fact Linux is often a leading indicator of things to come.  Virtualization technology, high performance computing, and more are often developed in the open first in Linux and then productized by companies later.  

Of course, Facebook wasn’t just inspired by the hacker ethos. It is built on hacker code itself: Linux and a wide variety of open source technology. In fact, the economics that come with having open source software at its base makes Facebook’s filing even that much more compelling. Without the cost and flexibility advantages of open source, Facebook would be tied into proprietary contracts that would impede its ability to add users without the need to generate significant revenue. Before open source it was simply too difficult to scale, and the risk of your costs rising without your control was just too great. Zuckerberg made a brilliant decision -- albeit inevitable -- when he built Facebook on Linux using open source components. Would this IPO even be happening had he written Facebook as a Windows application?

It is no coincidence that one of the greatest entrepreneurial success stories of the last decade is deeply rooted in one of the greatest technology innovations of the last two decades: Linux and open development. Facebook is a great example of code + ethos that is driving great things.  
 

TechCrunch: What Startups Can Learn from Linux

Scott Merrill posts today about what startups, including Facebook, can learn from Linux... More at TechCrunch

LinuxDevices acquired ...

Android fragmentation not so serious, says study

SODIMM-sized Cortex-A8 module sports CAN bus, onboard flash

Linux Mint 12 KDE released!

Monthly Stats – January 2012

Monthly Stats – December 2011

Sprint's seven-inch tablet is just $100 on contract

COM Express module has power-saving, soldered-on Cores

HTC announces fix for Android Wi-Fi security flaw

Defunct email service offers handhelds to hackers

Openmoko smartphone reborn as hackable GTA04

Ruggedized Atom E600 module ships in EMC-proof enclosure

Eurotech module adopts 32nm Atom

Radisys unveils 'first' ruggedized Core i7 COM Express module

NTT Docomo's Android phones have Mickey Mouse user interface

Red Hat unveils 10-year support plan

'Low power' server packs 64 Xeon processors

Linux multiseat solution advances to Ethernet with HP thin client

Get Your Embedded Linux On: Join Me at Yocto Project Developer Day

Building an embedded Linux distribution can be a daunting task. From the Board Support Package (BSP) to Kernel configuration, root file system setup and the selection many additional software package there are many choices to make and taking the wrong turn can easily lead to a dead end and many hours of wasted time.

The Yocto Project greatly simplifies this process with a set of proven tools and recipes allowing you to build you own custom Linux distribution tailored to your requirements.

During The Linux Foundation's Embedded Linux Conference at the Hotel Sofitel San Francisco Bay in Redwood Shores from February 15 through 17, you have the unique opportunity to build your competence in embedded Linux and the Yocto Project.

On the day before the conference, February 14, the first-ever Yocto Project Developer Day you will have the opportunity to meet the Yocto Project's supporting organizations and many experts who will be presenting sessions and labs.

Stay a little longer and right after the conference on Saturday/Sunday February 18/19, you can deepen your Yocto Project knowledge with a 2-day crash course offered by The Linux Foundation.

Join me for two days of hands-on learning fun, building Linux system images to boot in an emulator and on a Beagleboard. First you will get an introduction into the Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded and how they relate. Then we will dive into the Poky Build Process, the core of the Yocto Project, and the Bitbake build orchestrator. You will learn about metadata layers, recipes and classes and how to use them to customize your distribution built by the Yocto Project.

What will you need? You know your way around on a Linux system and are not afraid of a commnad shell. You can use any of the standard text editors such as vi or emacs. You understand the basics of compiling and linking programs and constructing Makefile.

What to bring? Tag along your laptop with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS 32-bit installed on it. Or alternatively, have VirtualBox 4.1.8 installed on your system. We can provide you with an appliance ready to be imported in VirtualBox.

I am looking forward to seeing you soon in Redwood Shores!

Stable kernel release candidates

I thought it would be easier to do a round of stable kernel releases in
the middle of the larger kernel merge window, to prevent the next round
from being so big (given that there are a lot of patches usually
applying during the -rc1 merge window cycle).

So, I've now done:

• Linux 2.6.32.54-rc1 release
• Linux 3.0.17-rc1 release
• Linux 3.1.9-rc1 release
• Linux 3.2.1-rc1 release

Please go test and let me know if there are any problems with any of
these kernels. If I've missed any patches that you feel should be in
them, also please let me know.

Note, this is most likely going to be the LAST 3.1.y kernel
release, so please move off to the 3.2 kernel at this point in time.
Maintaining so many different kernel branches all at once is not
trivial, and I want to minimize it if at all possible.

Stable kernel tree status, January 9, 2012

As 3.2 is now out, here's a note as to the current status of the
different stable/longterm kernel trees.

First off, please everyone remember to mark any patch that you want to
have applied to the stable kernel trees with a simple:

Cc: stable

marking in the Signed-off-by: area. Once the patch hits Linus's tree, I
will automatically be notified of it and it will be applied if possible.
If it does not applied, you will be notified of that.

Note that the address is stable@vger.kernel.org, not the older address
that used to be used before October of 2011.

At this time, all stable and longterm kernel trees are being maintained
in one big git tree, located at:

git.kernel.org:/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git

There are different branches for every different major kernel version.

Here's the different active kernel versions that I am maintaining at the moment:

• 3.2.y - this will be maintained until 3.3 comes out
• 3.1.y - there will be only one, maybe two, more releases of this tree
• 3.0.y - this is the new "longterm" kernel release, it will be
  maintained for 2 years at the minimum by me.
• 2.6.32.y - this is the previous "longterm" kernel release. It is
  approaching it's end-of-life, and I think I only have
  another month or so doing releases of this. After I am
  finished with it, it might be picked up by someone else, but
  I'm not going to promise anything.

All other longterm kernels are being maintained in various forms
(usually quite sporadically, if at all), by other people, and I can not
speak for their lifetime at all, that is up to those individuals.

If anyone has any questions about any of this, please
let me know.

Leading Kernel Maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman Joins The Linux Foundation

Kroah-Hartman joins distinguished group of Linux Foundation fellows, including Linus Torvalds, to advance the operating system

SAN FRANCISCO, February 1, 2012 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Greg Kroah-Hartman is joining the organization as Fellow.

Kroah-Hartman is among a distinguished group of software developers that maintain Linux at the kernel level. In his role as Linux Foundation Fellow, Kroah-Hartman will continue his work as the maintainer for the Linux stable kernel branch and a variety of subsystems while working in a fully neutral environment. He will also work more closely with Linux Foundation members, workgroups, Labs projects, and staff on key initiatives to advance Linux.

The Linux Foundation Fellowship program provides financial support to software developers working on Linux and open source community projects. Under the auspices of this fund, The Linux Foundation works with users, vendors and developers to identify where and how additional work or resources could accelerate development efforts and spur the adoption of Linux and open source software.

“The Linux Foundation does extremely valuable work, and I am proud to join the organization,” said Greg Kroah-Hartman. “I’m excited to continue my work on the Linux kernel alongside the best developers in the world and to increase collaboration among Linux Foundation members and kernel developers.”

“Greg is among the world’s most talented software developers and is providing unmatched contributions to the advancement of Linux,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “We’re looking forward to working even more closely with Greg and to allow him to expand his focus on the kernel.”

Kroah-Hartman created and maintains the Linux Driver Project. He is also currently the maintainer for the Linux stable kernel branch and a variety of different subsystems that include USB, staging, driver core, tty, and sysfs, among others. Most recently, he was a Fellow at SUSE. Kroah-Hartman is an adviser to Oregon State University’s Open Source Lab, a member of The Linux Foundation's Technical Advisory Board, has delivered a variety of keynote addresses at developer and industry events, and has authored two books covering Linux device drivers and Linux kernel development.

The Linux Foundation Fellows today include Till Kamppeter, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Janina Sajka, Richard Purdie and Linus Torvalds. Previous Fellows include Steve Hemminger, Andrew Morton, Andrew Tridgell and Ted Ts’o. For more information on Linux Foundation Fellows, please visit the Linux Foundation Fellowship website.

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Review: Razr Maxx boasts best Android smartphone battery

Mini PC can use SSD as cache, supports Sandy Bridge CPUs

Samsung's Android tablet/smartphone hybrid will debut in mid-February

Linux-based home energy gateway supports ZigBee Smart Energy 2.0

Tilera ships 36- and 16-core RISC processors

Samsung spins another S phone, and Motorola announces unlocked Razr

Qseven module sports a TI ARM-plus-DSP chip

Review: Verizon's LG Spectrum offers speed, long life -- and weird UI customization

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Android smartphones down, tablets up, say reports

America's first 'WhiteFi' network goes live

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Chromebooks pick up steam in the classroom

WebOS' Enyo 2.0 dev platform goes cross-platform, adopts Apache license

Tiny server offers modular design

Half-size PICMG card supports Core processors

Coverity code analyzer to integrate with Wind River Linux embedded tools

TI ships Linux-ready DLP eval module for pico projectors

Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Arch Linux patch Linux kernel exploit

KDE 4.8 adds adaptive power management, new windowing tricks

Free Embedded Linux Training at Yocto Developer Day on February 14th

Use of Linux in the mobile/embedded space is exploding, and we find many companies are adopting the open source Yocto project to build custom embedded Linux systems. The project is hosting a free day of training on Yocto on Feb 14th as part of the Embedded Linux Conference. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn Yocto if you're a beginner or get more advanced if you are already familiar with the tool. Find out more about Yocto Developer Day.

Yocto includes the BitBake build tool, a large set of customizable build metadata, the EGLIBC library, Eclipse-based graphical user interfaces for both the build system and an accompanying Application Development Toolkit that is automatically generated, and several other tools that bring some order to the occasional chaos of developing systems with embedded Linux - and indeed, embedded systems in general. The Yocto Project supports multiple Intel architectures, multiple ARM architectures, MIPS, and PowerPC with standard BSPs and QEMU-based emulators. The build system that is customizable end-to-end but still easy to use. The project is supported by major embedded hardware vendors, embedded Linux operating system vendors, the OpenEmbedded Project, and many other organizations, with a governance structure based on the open source tenets of transparency and meritocracy. It's one of the Linux Foundation Labs projects I am most excited about. Seating is limited for this free training, so early registration is highly encouraged. The ELC schedule is out and this Yocto training, combined with the conference and Android Builders Summit held concurrently, should make for a fabulous week of embedded Linux. 

For those of you who want a bit more embedded Linux, we are also hosting two in-depth training courses on the weekend following the conference:

LF410 Embedded Linux Development: A Crash Course (View Course Overview)

Saturday, February 18th - Sunday, February 19th
9:00am - 5:00pm (Pacific Time)
 

LF404 Building Embedded Linux with Yocto: Crash Course (View Course Overview)
Saturday, February 18th - Sunday, February 19th
9:00am - 5:00pm (Pacific Time)

You can find out more about these embedded Linux classes. These courses are hands on and intense. Let me know if you have any questions. See you at the Hotel Sofitel! 

BusinessWeek: HP Plans September Release of Open Source webOS

BusinessWeek's Aaron Ricadela talks to Jim Zemlin about HP's webOS roadmap.

4Linux, Erlang Solutions and Linux Professional Institute Join The Linux Foundation

Training and consulting companies come together to help meet demand for Linux-specific knowledge, advance the platform 

SAN FRANCISCO, January 25, 2012 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that three companies are joining the organization: 4Linux, Erlang Solutions and Linux Professional Institute (LPI).

While the national and international job markets continue to struggle, the IT market offers a brighter outlok, according to technology jobs board Dice.com. And wihtin the IT market, indicators point to Linux jobs as an area of specific growth. This is trigger new demands for training and consulting services focused on the platform. By joining The Linux Foundation, 4Linux and Erlang Solutions and LPI can collaborate on educational programs, network with industry peers and collaborate with the Linux community to advance the operating system for specific opportunities.

More details on today’s new Linux Foundation members:

4Linux is a leading Brazilian company providing solutions, training and services based on free and open source software. The 4Linux technical team is highly qualified and experienced in infrastructure and middleware architecture for mission-critical workloads. 4Linux has implemented open source solutions for the Federal Government Bank of Brazil (Caixa Economica Federal), which serves more than 50 million Brazilians. 4Linux also provides basic and advanced e-learning classes in Portuguese throughout the world.

“In 2011, when Linux celebrated its 20^th anniversary, 4Linux celebrated its 10-year anniversary. This was a very successful story in the Brazilian market, and we decided to expand our work into the global market,” said Rodolfo Gobbi, general director, 4Linux. “Our membership with The Linux Foundation is one of the actions in this direction that will allow us to collaborate with a worldwide network of developers vendors and users who are all, like 4Linux, working toward the same goal: advancing and supporting Linux.”

Erlang Solutions provides businesses with scalable solutions that are based on the general purpose Erlang programming language and runtime system. Through the creation, integration, delivery and lifetime support of products and services, Erlang Solutions supports the Erlang user community with industry-leading research, development, training and worldwide support. The company has offices in London, Stockholm and Krakow.

 “Erlang and Linux are a powerful combination for scalable cloud solutions,” said Marcus Taylor, commercial director and co-founder, Erlang Solutions. “That’s why our Linux Foundation membership is so important to us. We see this as the ideal forum to bring together our two communities. Through collaboration, we can advance Linux and Erlang in a way that supports our work and our clients, while giving back to the Linux community.”

Linux Professional Institute (LPI) represents a worldwide network of affiliates, training partners, industry representatives, enterprise customers, community professionals, and academic organizations that support programs and services to further lifelong professional careers in Linux and open source technologies. LPI is globally recognized Linux certifications are delivered in thousands of locations worldwide and in multiple languages.

"LPI represents many Linux professionals from around the globe and we have been promoting the professional use of Linux and open source since 1999. Our membership in The Linux Foundation is a natural partnership for us given our long-standing history of industry and community cooperation. We look forward to working with The Linux Foundation to enhance the open source ecosystem that supports innovation and evolution in this dynamic industry," said Jim Lacey, president and CEO of LPI.

"Linux is reaching a tipping point where its penetratio across industries is creating high demand for knowledgeable professionals who can work on the platform in a variety of environments," said Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer services at The Linux Foundation. "4Linux, Erlang Solutions and Linux Professional Institute are examples of organizations what are contributing to the work we're all doing  as a community to help meet this demand, and we look forward to collaborating with them."


About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

###

Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

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TechCrunch: Linux Foundation Expects Gains for Enterprise Linux in 2012

Scott Merrill reports on today's report "Linux Adoption Trends 2012"

A lot has happened since late 2010, and the Linux Foundation survey reflects that. In “Linux Adoption Trends 2012: A Survey of Enterprise End Users” we find that a substantial number of enterprise users “expressed concern with the rapid growth of data, and Linux is clearly the platform of choice to address it.” Less than half of respondents are planning to use Windows to handle their “Big Data” requirements.

Cloud Pro: Linux: A Strategic Asset for Cloud, Big Data

Jennifer Scott reports on the cloud- and big data-specific stats from The Linux Foundation's "Linux Adoption Trends 2012" report.

ZDNet: Big Business, Big Linux

Steven Vaughan-Nichols reports on the latest report from The Linux Foundation: "Linux Adoption Trends 2012: A Survey of Enterprise End Users."

The Linux Foundation Releases Enterprise Linux User Report

World’s largest enterprises will add more Linux to support cloud computing, “Big Data” – all at the expense of Windows and Unix

SAN FRANCISCO, January 19, 2012 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced the immediate release of its latest report “Linux Adoption Trends 2012: A Survey of Enterprise End Users,” which shares new data representing Linux’s dominant role in supporting cloud computing, “Big Data” and new, “greenfield” deployments.

The data in the report reflects the results of the second invitation-only survey of The Linux Foundation’s Enterprise End User Council as well as other companies and government organizations. The first Enterprise Linux survey and report was released in October 2010.

This year’s survey was conducted in partnership with Yeoman Technology Group late last year and received responses from nearly 1900 individuals. Like the 2010 report, it filters the data to surface trends among the world’s largest enterprise companies and government organizations – identified by 428 respondents at organizations with $500 million or more in annual revenues or greater than 500 employees. The number of respondents from the largest enterprises in the world grew by more than 10% this year, providing an even better picture of enterprise Linux adoption trends.

The 2012 Enterprise Linux survey shows that affinity among new and veteran Linux users continues to increase at the expense of Windows and Unix. Part of this growth is due to Linux’s role in two of today’s biggest IT trends: supporting the increasing level of “Big Data” and achieving productivity and security gains with virtualization and cloud computing. Enterprise Linux users show steady progress on all of these fronts and a clear preference for Linux as the foundation for these trends. Key findings from this year’s report include:

* Even as IT spending forecasts remain soft, enterprise users are adding more Linux: 

Eight out of ten respondents say that they have both added Linux servers in the last 12 months and plan to add more in the next 12 months, with the same number planning to add more Linux in the next five years. Only 21.7% of respondents are planning an increase in Windows servers during that same period (next five years).

* More than 75% of respondents expressed concern about supporting "Big Data," and nearly 72% are choosing Linux to support it: 

Most enterprises expressed concern with the rapid growth of data, and Linux is clearly the platform of choice to address it. Only 35.9% are planning to use Windows to meet the demands of this new environment.

* Linux users see fewer issue impeding the operating system's success, with technical issues cited among respondents dropping 40% from last year's report: 

Technical issues cited by Linux users dropped 40%, from 20.3% in 2010 to 12.2% today. Twenty-two percent fewer respondents cite perception by management as an issue, and 10% fewer say there are no issues at all impeding the success of Linux. 

* The largest collaborative development project gains more contributions from enterprise users: This year's survey surfaced a nearly 12-point increase in those participating in Linux Foundation activities, an 8-point increase among respondents who are working on code, and a 5-point increase in those who are testing submitting bugs.

* TCO, feature set and overall security top Linux benefits: More than two-thirds of respondents consider Linux to be more secure than other operating systems.

“The Linux Foundation strives to provide unique research that informs the industry and its members on Linux adoption and that can illustrate a more complete picture of the state of Linux. This year’s Enterprise End User survey and report does just that, especially in the areas of overall growth and support for cloud computing and big data,” said Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer services, The Linux Foundation. “By understanding how the world’s largest and most advanced enterprise managers are using Linux, we can work to advance the operating system in priority areas.”

The Enterprise Linux User survey is not intended to be an assessment of the overall penetration of Linux in the market, nor is it designed as a cross-platform study. It’s also important to note that enterprise users who are motivated to take a survey from The Linux Foundation are not an unbiased lot, but the size of these organizations, their buying power and technical prowess – as filtered by The Linux Foundation and Yeoman – can provide important guidance both for Linux vendors and developers, as well as their competitors.

To download the full report, please visit The Linux Foundation’s Publications website.

The Linux Foundation End User Council will meet with vendors and the developer community this April 30-May 1, 2012 at The Linux Foundation’s Enterprise End User Summit. The event will take place this year at the NYSE offices. More information can be found on The Linux Foundation’s events website.


About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

###

Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Linux Mint 12 KDE RC released!

The Linux Foundation Announces 2012 Event and Onsite Linux Training Schedule

World's premier Linux events bring global community of administrators, developers and vendors together in collaboration

LinuxCon North America co-located in San Diego with Linux Kernel Summit and Linux Plumbers Conference; Barcelona to host LinuxCon Europe 2012

Exclusive discounts available for early event and training registration

SAN FRANCISCO, January 12, 2012 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced its 2012 event and onsite Linux training schedule. The organization is also opening the Call for Presentations (CFPs) for its remaining 2012 event lineup, which includes LinuxCon conferences in North America, Japan and Europe.

LinuxCon North America will take place this year in San Diego, Calif., where it will be co-located with the Linux Plumbers Conference and exclusive Linux Kernel Summit. Hosting these events together in one location will ensure the brightest minds in Linux are together in one place to advance the state of the art of the Linux platform. LinuxCon Europe, which debuted to a sold out crowd in Prague in 2011, will be in Barcelona, Spain this year. Embedded Linux Conference Europe and KVM Forum will also take place in Barcelona. LinuxCon Japan returns to Yokohama.

“The Linux Foundation’s 2012 event lineup and onsite Linux training schedule are designed to facilitate face-to-face collaboration among the community’s best and brightest,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “These neutral forums help advance the most pressing opportunities for Linux and bring to bear the highest quality technical content. We’re especially excited about the trifecta of events taking place in San Diego. This area is a hotbed for software development and embedded design.”

The Linux Foundation has also designed an annual event-specific Linux training schedule to help attendees maximize their educational experiences onsite. The Linux Foundation’s courses are designed to give attendees hands on experience and the advanced technical skills needed to thrive in their careers today. With all indicators showing an increasing demand for Linux talent, this program helps prepare new and veteran professionals for the best Linux jobs.

To view the 2012 onsite Linux training schedule, please visit: https://training.linuxfoundation.org/about/types-of-linux-training/events-training

The Linux Foundation is offering a special promotion to those who want to commit early and book their registration for this year’s events and/or onsite training courses. The first 50 people to register for any LinuxCon event will receive a 35 percent discount by using the code ‘12PM35’ when registering online. In addition, a 35 percent discount is available for onsite training courses and is limited to five people per course. The code is ‘JANSPESH’ and is valid through January 31, 2012. These event and training offers will go quickly, so people who are interested are encouraged to register now.

The Linux Foundation’s 2012 Schedule of Events

Android Builders Summit

February 13-14, 2012, Hotel Sofitel SF Bay, Redwood Shores, Calif. 

A technical summit for OEMs, their device manufacturers, integrators, custom builders, and the growing Android and Linux Kernel developer communities.

Embedded Linux Conference

February 15-17, 2012, Hotel Sofitel SF Bay, Redwood Shores, Calif. 

The premier vendor-neutral technical conference for companies and developers using Linux in embedded products.

Linux Storage, Filesystems and MM Summit

April 1-2, 2012, Hotel Nikko, San Francisco, Calif.

Invitation-only event that brings together developers and researchers who work with the Linux storage and file system stack.

Linux Foundation Member Legal Summit

April 2-4, 2012, Hotel Nikko, San Francisco, Calif. 

Invitation-only event where legal counsel from member organizations collaborate on protecting and advancing Linux and open source.

Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit

April 3-5, 2012, Hotel Nikko, San Francisco, Calif. 

An exclusive, invitation-only summit that brings together core kernel developers, distribution maintainers, ISVs, end users, system vendors and other community organizations for plenary sessions and workgroup meetings that help solve the most pressing issues facing Linux today.

Linux Foundation Enterprise End User Summit

April 30-May 1, 2012, New York Stock Exchange, New York, New York 

An invitation-only event that brings together high-performance end users with the highest-level Linux community developers.

LinuxCon Japan

June 6-8, 2012, Pacifico Yokohama, Yokohama, Japan 

The premier Linux conference in Asia that brings together a unique blend of core developers, administrators, users, community managers and industry experts.

Linux Kernel Summit

August 26-28, 2012, Sheraton San Diego, San Diego, Calif. 

This Summit brings together the world's leading core kernel developers to discuss the state of the existing kernel and to plan the next development cycle.

LinuxCon North America & Linux Plumbers Conference

August 29-31, 2012, Sheraton San Diego, San Diego, Calif. 

LinuxCon is the leading annual technical conference in North America, providing a needed collaboration and education space for the Linux community.

LinuxCon Europe& Embedded Linux Conference Europe

November 5-7, 2012, Hotel Fira Palace, Barcelona, Spain

LinuxCon Europe brings together the European Linux community to collaborate and advance Linux for the region. ELC Europe is in its 7th year and has the largest collection of sessions dedicated exclusively to embedded Linux and embedded Linux developers.

KVM Forum

November 7-9, 2012, Hotel Fira Palace, Barcelona, Spain 

Brings together the community of developers working on and defining the KVM hypervisor.

For more information on any of these events, including registration and CFP details, please visit the Linux Foundation events page at: http://events.linuxfoundation.org.

The Linux Foundation's events provide a neutral, collaborative environment that advances the state of the art of the Linux platform and provides networking and education in the technical, business and legal arenas, including professional Linux training opportunities. Pressing issues facing Linux are solved in these open forums where the Linux community collaborates on everything from the next kernel release to workgroup milestones to major enterprise deployments.

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

###

Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Linux Mint signs a partnership with Blue Systems

Introducing Cinnamon

ComputerWorld UK: Interview with Jim Zemlin

Glyn Moody recently interviewed Jim Zemlin while in Prague. Here are the details from that conversation.

Monthly Stats – November 2011

ZDNet: Finding a Linux Job

Steven Vaughan-Nichols reports on some additional insights from the upcoming Linux Foundation Linux Jobs infographic.

IT World: Dowsing Linux Jobs and Skills

Brian Proffitt takes a close look at the data surfaced in The Linux Foundation's latest snapshot on Linux jobs.

LinuxInsider: Open Source and the Open Road

The Linux Foundation's Rudolf Streif is interviewed in this story about Linux's role in the cars of the future.

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ZDNet: Customizaton, Costs Key to Linux HPC Dominance

Excerpt: Linux...allows vendors to build a price-competitive machine faster than when using proprietary operating systems, Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer programs at The Linux Foundation, pointed out.

The executive said in her e-mail that supercomputers are generally custom-designed and deeply tuned for the specific workload, very expensive, and have low sales volumes. This is why the open source operating system's low cost appeals to IT vendors.

"With Linux, anyone can see and optimize the source code, and work done by one company can be extremely beneficial for others. After all, about 90 percent of the kernel is architecture-agnostic. When selling a supercomputer, the time to first boot is critically intertwined with profitability," McPherson explained.

By contrast, commercial servers are like assembly lines where vendors figure out what the customers need, pick a suitable OS and system, and churn out machines that are optimized for most of the identified workloads, she said.

More at ZDNet

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Misc. news

The Linux Foundation Announces Four New Members from Around the Globe

New members hail from Brazil, Japan, Canada and the U.S.; each focused on advancing Linux for next-generation computing

SAN FRANCISCO, November 15, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that four companies are joining the organization: DENSO Corporation, Integrated Computer Solutions (ICS), ProFUSION Embedded Systems and Savoir-Faire Linux.

These companies are joining The Linux Foundation to advance the Linux operating system for next-generation electronics, such as connected automobiles, phones and televisions, as well as for industrial automation and the development of mobile and web applications.

The Linux Foundation’s new members are also taking advantage of upcoming events that include LinuxCon Brazil November 17-18, 2011, and the first-ever Automotive Linux Summit November 28, 2011.

Today’s new Linux Foundation members include:

DENSO Corporation is headquartered in Japan and is a leading supplier of advanced automotive technology, systems and components for all the world’s major automakers. It operates in 35 countries and regions with more than 120,000 employees. The company is also on the Steering Committee for The Linux Foundation’s Automotive Linux Summit.

“The automotive market is at the beginning of a major technology revolution, and Linux is poised to play an important role,” said Hiroaki Tanaka, General Manager, DENSO Corporation. “DENSO is investing in the Linux platform to maximize its use of the operating system as the foundation for car computing for the long-term. We’re excited about the future of Linux in the auto industry.”

Integrated Computer Solutions (ICS) is headquartered in the USA and provides product development services and training for clients developing sophisticated, multi-touch applications for modern devices running Linux. It provides independent support for the LGPL version of Qt, and helps developers deliver applications for a broad range of touch-based devices, including tablets, handsets, in-vehicle infotainment systems and desktops.

“Embedded and mobile application development on Linux is growing fast, and we’re in a position to help navigate that growth with the community and our customers,” said Peter Winston, CEO, ICS. “Having long been proponents of open source technologies, our Linux Foundation membership will allow us to accelerate that work and to participate in the collaborative development process, ensuring that Linux-based applications continue to grow.”

ProFUSION Embedded Systems develops Linux and Android embedded software technologies for devices such as digital TV set-top boxes, media centers, Internet tablets and mobile phones. Based in Brazil, the company’s expert developers and consultants are known for working on the Linux kernel and graphical user interfaces, including work on the stack for Tizen. ProFUSION Embedded Systems will be presenting three talks at LinuxCon Brazil next week, one of which is titled “Tips and Tricks to Develop Software for CE Products on Low-End Hardware.”

“Linux is the leading operating system for embedded development, and it’s important for ProFUSION to contribute to this growing community through membership at The Linux Foundation,” said Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri, Director, ProFUSION Embedded Systems. “We’re looking forward to the collaboration opportunities at LinuxCon Brazil and through other initiatives such as the Yocto Project in the coming year.”

Savoir-Faire Linux is headquartered in Canada and helps companies maximize their return on investment through seamless integration of Linux and open source software in existing business environments. The company specializes in embedded Linux development, enterprise application consulting, and infrastructure design and support. Savoir-Faire Linux is also responsible for more than 100 contributions to various open source projects, including the Linux kernel.

“The Linux Foundation is a great place for an embedded Linux specialist to network with technology and thought leaders. Together, we can more effectively promote the real-time capabilities of Linux and benefit from the adoption of this powerful OS, in both industrial environments and consumer electronics,” said Dr. Abhay Ghatpande, director of Industry Solutions, Savoir-Faire Linux.

“Companies and organizations are coming to Linux from every industry and every region around the globe. The collective commitment to the platform is advancing Linux for a new generation of computing as we look towards the next 20 years,” said Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer programs at The Linux Foundation. “We’re very excited to welcome these leading companies to The Linux Foundation.”


About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

###  

Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

The Linux Foundation Announces Program for Automotive Linux Summit

BMW, Nissan and Toyota are among the companies keynoting at this first-time event

SAN FRANCISCO, November 14, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced its program for the first-ever Automotive Linux Summit taking place November 28, 2011 in Yokohama, Japan.

The Automotive Linux Summit will bring together the brightest minds from the automotive industry, the Linux developer community and the mobility ecosystem. As the premier vendor-neutral business and technical conference focused on Linux and automotive technologies, attendees can expect to learn about how to use Linux and open source software in automotive applications, ranging from in-vehicle on-board systems to cloud solutions for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications.

This one-day event is packed with six keynote presentations from major car manufacturers and the Linux kernel community. It also includes 15 breakout sessions, which will cover best practices for Linux in automotive, HTML5 technology in cars, compliance, and In-Vehicle-Infotainment, among other topics. The confirmed keynote speakers include:

♣ Toyota’s Ken-ichi Murata, project general manager, Electronics Development Division #1. Murata will present “Opening Up the Automotive Industry.”

♣ Nissan’s Toshiro Muramatsu and BMW’s Head of Infotainment Architecture Design Graham Smethurst will join The Linux Foundation’s Jim Zemlin and Toyota’s Ken-ichi Murata for a closing panel on “How Can We Make It Happen?”

♣ Intel Japan’s Director and Vice President Yoshie Munakata will address how shared technology will accelerate innovation in the automotive marketplace.

♣ Graham Smethurst, who is also president of the GENIVI Alliance, will share the organization’s lessons learned with open source software.

♣ Linux kernel developer and SUSE’s Greg Kroah-Hartman will present a history of the Linux kernel and the kernel community.

♣ Symbio’s CTO of Device Creation, Juha-Matti Liukkonen, will talk about how next generation IVI systems are built.

♣ The Linux Foundation’s Jim Zemlin will open the event with an overview on the challenges to overcome for Linux in the automotive space.

“Linux has a competitive advantage in the automotive industry due to its ability to support the long-term support needs of automakers,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “But we’re at the very beginning of what Linux will do to revolutionize the way people interact with their cars. The Automotive Linux Summit will help advance that work.”

To review the complete Automotive Linux Summit program, please visit the Linux Foundation Events website. To register for the event, please visit: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/automotive-linux-summit/register.

The Automotive Linux Summit is made possible, in part, due to its generous sponsors. Platinum sponsors include Intel and Symbio. GENIVI is a Gold sponsor. Silver sponsors include Black Duck, Clarion, Fujitsu Ten, Nomovok, Palamida and Renesas.

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

###

Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen and the Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” RC released!

Monthly Stats – October 2011

Need Linux Skills: 12 Places to Learn Online

PC World reports on online Linux training opportunities.

Linux Mint 12 Preview

Forbes: OpenMAMA Project

Forbes contributor Tom Groenfeldt reports on NYSE Technologies and OpenMAMA project, hosted by The Linux Foundation

Push for Trading Technology Standards

The venture will allow other market participants to develop software code originally by NYSE Technologies, the IT services arm of NYSE Euronext, for the parts of trading conducted by a computer’s middleware.

The project will be hosted by Linux Foundation...

More at FinancialTimes.com

PC World: Secure Boot Need Not be a Problem

There's been considerable concern in recent weeks over the secure boot mechanism planned for Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8, primarily among Linux users and others worried that the technology will make it impossible to run alternative operating systems on Windows 8 certified PCs.

Such fears were only compounded when the Free Software Foundation weighed in with its own statement of concern about what the technology might mean for users of free and open source software.

On Friday, however, the Linux Foundation added its own voice and perspective to the mix with an explanation of why secure boot doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing for Linux users.

More on this story from Katherine Noyes at PCWorld

Wired: Wall St. Won't Share the Wealth But It Will Share The Code

Wired.com's Cade Metz reports on new OpenMAMA project hosted by Linux Foundation and supported by NYSE, J.P. Morgan, Bank of America and others.

Financial Services Industry Leads Collaboration on New OpenMAMA Project

The Linux Foundation to host development on common messaging interface that speeds time to market for new applications

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., October 31, 2011 – Major industry leaders today joined forces to announce the OpenMAMA open source project.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch, EMC, Exegy, Fixnetix, J.P. Morgan and NYSE Technologies will form the Steering Group to collaborate on OpenMAMA, a high performance Middleware Agnostic Messaging API (MAMA) that provides a common, consistent layer over a variety of message-oriented middlewares.

OpenMAMA will be hosted by The Linux Foundation, which provides a neutral framework and governance infrastructure on top of which communities can innovate. OpenMAMA joins a variety of other projects hosted by the organization as part of Linux Foundation Labs. Companies that participate on projects hosted at The Linux Foundation use collaboration to advance Linux and open source technologies. A new course offered by The Linux Foundation titled “Practical Guide to Open Source Development” helps companies understand this process.

Until now there has not been a common open source API that connects multiple transports to applications. The move to high volume, low latency messaging in multiple market sectors has created the need for an open source project and standard. The OpenMAMA project will provide a way for companies to collaborate across industries and accelerate adoption of this common API for any architecture.

As a middleware agnostic project, OpenMAMA enables users to embrace new middleware technologies and applications as the market changes. It also helps organizations speed time to market for “event-driven” applications and ensures high performance, both in terms of throughput and message latency.

To see supporting comments about OpenMAMA, please visit: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2011/10/support-openmama-project

The financial services industry is often recognized for developing advanced technologies that accelerate complex transactions. Linux has become the dominant operating system in this environment due, in part, to its ability to support the largest number of complex transactions in real-time. For example, NYSE, which is the world’s largest exchange and runs on Linux, generates 1.5 million quotes and processes 250,000 orders every second.

Companies in financial services, telecommunications and High Performance Computing (HPC), among other industries, are looking to open source software and best practices to drive this same kind of innovation at the middleware level.

“The open source development model is powerful. By collaborating on the OpenMAMA project, companies can accelerate technology advancements while adapting to industry changes,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “By providing support and infrastructure for important projects like OpenMAMA, we can help advance Linux and open source software.”

The MAMA API was originally conceived in 2002 with the goal of enabling banks and hedge funds to distribute market data throughout their ticker plants regardless of the underlying middleware. This resulted in reduced development times, lower costs and broader support for a range of interconnected systems and applications.

To start participating in the OpenMAMA project, please visit: http://www.openmama.org.

About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

###
 
Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Support for OpenMAMA Project

EMC
“Big data is increasing the complexity of messaging technologies. EMC believes that open development and collaboration on the OpenMAMA project can reduce this complexity and speed innovation throughout the financial services industry as well as other markets. We’re looking forward to the work we’ll do as Steering Group members of the project,” said Richard Reichgut, Principal, Industry Solutions Group, Financial Services, EMC. 

Exegy
“The MAMA API is a strong technology that enjoys wide adoption in our industry.  By forming an open source project, we help to accelerate its development and drive standardization,” said Scott Parsons, Chief Technology Officer at Exegy. “The project opens the door for rapid innovation and thereby allows new technologies to have a broader impact in a shorter time frame.”

Fixnetix
“Fixnetix is pleased to participate in the OpenMAMA steering group as we strongly believe collaborative efforts will yield the best results,” says Anthony Kingsnorth, Director of Operations, Fixnetix. “Demands for new technology are constant. The steering group’s work will offer stronger insight into making available the best products and solutions.”

Intel
"Collaborative development is critical to accelerating market adoption of technologies that can benefit everyone - from the developers to the consumers of technology," said Doug Fisher, corporate vice president and general manager of the Systems Software Division, Software and Services Group at Intel. "The OpenMAMA Project will help foster strong adoption of a common messaging API starting in financial services followed closely by other industries, such as telecommunications and high-performance computing."

NYSE Technologies
"By open sourcing our MAMA API and collaborating with so many of our respected peers on the steering group, NYSE Technologies is proud to help shape a capital markets community that can share the most innovative technologies from a range of service providers alongside its market participants,” said Stanley Young, CEO, NYSE Technologies. “We know that this kind of collaboration can accelerate technology adoption and technical advancement in some very interesting ways.”

Boing Boing: Cory Doctorow: How to Make a Computer that Doesn't Lock out GNU/Linux

UEFI is a new hardware standard nominally aimed at stopping malicious software, but it could also make it illegal to replace Windows or MacOS with GNU/Linux on your computer. The Linux Foundation has written a technical memo...

More at Boing Boing

The Linux Foundation Announces Consumer Electronics Long Term Stable Kernel Initiative

New kernel tree addresses electronics makers' need for regular updates and long-term support

PRAGUE {LinuxCon Europe} October 26, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced it is hosting a new project created by its Consumer Electronics (CE) workgroup.

The new project, the Long Term Support Initiative (LTSI), provides for both an annual release of a Linux kernel suitable for supporting the lifespan of consumer electronics products and regular updates of those releases for two years.

LTSI is an industry-wide project created and supported by Hitachi, LG Electronics, NEC, Panasonic, Qualcomm Atheros, Renesas Electronics Corporation, Samsung Electronics, Sony and Toshiba and hosted at The Linux Foundation to maintain a common Linux base for use in a variety of consumer electronics products. The project creates and maintains a long-term industry tree, which is expected to be stable in quality for the typical lifetime of a consumer electronics product, typically 2-3 years.

Please visit The Linux Foundation Announcements page to see comments from the supporting companies.

This new initiative is crucial because device makers are doing significant back-porting, bug testing and driver development on their own, which carries substantial cost in terms of time-to-market, as well as development and engineering effort to maintain those custom kernels. Through collaboration in this initiative, these CE vendors will reduce the duplication of effort currently prevalent in the consumer electronics industry.

“The CE industry has leveraged Linux to reduce costs and speed time to market. Now they are taking the next step to reduce the costly duplication of effort at work maintaining custom kernels,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “LTSI is an important effort because it will allow vendors to share the work of maintaining a common kernel for the consumer electronics industry, resulting in more use of Linux in the industry and increasing contributions from CE makers to the advancement of Linux.”

The LTSI tree is expected to be the usable base for the majority of embedded systems, as well as the base for ecosystem players (e.g., semiconductor vendors, set-vendors, software component vendors, distributors, and system/application framework providers). The LTSI project will combine the innovative features in newer kernels needed by CE vendors with a stable kernel, while helping those vendors get their code upstream to benefit the entire Linux community. The goal is to reduce the number of private trees currently in use in the CE industry and encourage more collaboration and sharing of development resources.

“The vendors in the CE Workgroup are excited to work with the Linux kernelcommunity on this project,” said NEC executive and Linux Foundation boardmember Tsugikazu Shibata. “We need kernels that are both regularly updatedand well maintained, and LTSI will provide that.”

“I am very happy to be working with the LTSI group to help them get their device-specific code into the mainline kernel.org tree through this initiative,” said Greg Kroah-Hartman, fellow at SUSE and member of the Technical Advisory board of The Linux Foundation.

For more information about LTSI, please visit: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/celf.


About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month and include important Linux video resources. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

###

Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Industry Support for Long Term Support Initiative (LTSI)

NEC
“NEC welcomes this announcement as a key member to support The Linux Foundation,” Chikara Imafuku, Executive Engineer, leading Android Technology Center of NEC Corporation, stated. "There are a number of common issues using Linux between community and broader range of Consumer Electronics industry. Long-Term-Support Initiative for Linux should solve such issues and also give benefit to much wider industries. I believe this initiative will build better Linux ecosystem in the industry."

Sony

“The Long Term Support Initiative is an example of how The Linux Foundation is able to enhance industry and community cooperation in utilizing Linux for consumer electronics products,” said Keiichiro Shimada, SVP of Sony Corporation. "The LTSI created by The Linux Foundation’s Consumer Electronics workgroup will advance Linux in CE products by providing a way in which companies can work together and share resources for maintaining Linux for these products.”

Panasonic  

“LTSI will be very beneficial for consumer electronics industry by saving time and cost,” said Kazuo Kajimoto, Director System Engineering Center of Panasonic Corporation. “LTSI which is supported not only by industry engineers but by all Linux community will bring high quality and stability for next generation consumer electronics products.”

Qualcomm

"Qualcomm Atheros welcomes this LTSI initiative", said Phil Kearney, Director of Engineering at Qualcomm Atheros. "We recognize similar shifts in the router industry as faced by embedded Linux consumer products. As router capabilities expand to support the growth of IP-based devices throughout the connected home, the new applications demand recent (yet stable) kernel versions. Gaining this type of directed support from the Linux Foundation will decrease integration burdens and speed time to market -- it's a win-win."

Renesas Electronics Corporation

Hiromi Watanabe, General Manager of SoC Software Platform Division atRenesas Electronics Corporation said, "Linux becomes one of mostimportant operating system for embedded device now. RenesasElectronics supports LTSI project as it would solve existing Linuxkernel version fragmentation issues that makes significant customersupport overhead. We hope it also encourage corporate developers tocollaborate community engineer to eliminate duplicated work currentlyhappening on each production support."

Samsung Electronics 

“We believe the LTSI project is well aligned to address Samsung’s needs. We are delighted to have an opportunity to contribute to open source communities via this project,” said WonJoo Park, Vice President in Digital Media & Communications R&D Center, Samsung Electronics.

Toshiba

"LTSI will accomplish a way to streamline Linux kernel support for consumer electronics products, while bringing community and industry closely together. This is to be the first leap to solve new, exciting problems and let Linux make innovations continuously with us for the Long Term," said Toshinori Odaka, Director of Corporate Software Engineering Center, Toshiba Corporation.

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The Linux Foundation Announces Five New European Members

Europe-based software services companies commit to the advancement of Linux

PRAGUE {LinuxCon Europe}, October 26, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that five Europe-based companies are joining the organization: AboveIT, Comarch, CSR, Symbio and Tieto.

These companies are joining The Linux Foundation to collaborate on advancing Linux in the enterprise and in mobile computing. They join seven other new members from Europe announced earlier this month and are coming together to collaborate this week at the first-ever LinuxCon Europe taking place in Prague, Czech Republic.  

Today’s new Linux Foundation members include:  

Above IT is a Dutch ICT integrator that implements the newest open source technology while optimizing business processes for the Small and Medium Business (SMB), enterprise, government, education and embedded systems markets.

“Linux is the foundation for all of our open source software development and business in general. The choice for open source technology is driven by the market demand for innovation, agility, and continuity of services in sectors like SMB, education, industry and government institutions. Above IT recognizes the innovative power of technologies like open virtualization and open standards as enablers of business agility. By joining The Linux Foundation, we will be able to push our technology to the edge with more direct collaboration with a worldwide community of developers, vendors and IT users,” said Dimitri van der Spek, CEO, AboveIT. 

Comarchhas been an active player in the mobile and embedded software domains since 2001. Through a variety of projects in the area of mobile software development, integration, quality assurance, interoperability and cross-platform consulting services, Comarch has proven its deep technical knowledge, know-how and market understanding. With more than 3,500 employees, Comarch can offer flexibility and scalability in building business partnerships and expertise alliances.

“Linux-based solutions have always been an important part of Comarch’s offering since the company was created in 1993. We want to share our experience in virtually all Linux flavors, including desktops, servers, clusters, mobile/embedded and automotive platforms,” said Dariusz Filipski, R&D Director, Open Source, Mobile Solutions & Services, Comarch. “Membership in The Linux Foundation will bring us closer to our business partners as well as open source communities to streamline our efforts for providing what’s best in open technologies.”

CSR  is a leading global provider of personal wireless technology, including Bluetooth, GPS, FM and Wi-Fi to industry leaders in consumer electronics, mobile handsets and the automotive industry. Its technology has been adopted by market leaders in a wide range of mobile consumer devices. With close to 3,000 employees and a longstanding Bluetooth market leadership position, CSR brings a wealth of knowledge to the Linux community,

"Linux is at the heart of networking and wireless technologies,” said Ahmet Alpdemir, SVP Mobile, CSR. “Our Linux Foundation membership will inform our Linux and open source strategies and allow us to collaborate on advancing Linux in this area.”

Symbio is a global software R&D company providing software product engineering to industry leaders in mobile phones, consumer electronics, automotive In-Vehicle-Infotainment (IVI), industrial systems, and internet and cloud services. The backbone of Symbio’s expertise for consumer devices is a deep understanding of Linux architecture and system performance. Symbio utilizes a Design Centric Development (DCD) approach paired with agile programming methods to help its clients meet the ever-increasing demand for more consumer-friendly, user-experience driven device software. Symbio’s main locations are in China, Finland, Sweden and the USA.

“Linux plays a central role in the work we do for our clients developing consumer devices, automotive IVI or industrial systems. Let’s face it, most of the projects we carry out are pretty demanding, and Linux provides the flexibility, accessibility and technical feasibility for us to meet those high demands,” said Konsta Hansson, VP & General Manager, Symbio. “We’re looking forward to fruitful collaboration with the Linux community and contributing to the promotion, protection and advancement of the Linux operating system.”

Tieto is based in Northern Europe and provides IT and product engineering services. With about 18,000 experts on staff, the company focuses on offering specialized IT solutions and services complemented by a strong technology platform.

“The Linux community is global and diverse, representing interests of companies and individuals from around the world. We’re proud to be a part of this community. The Linux Foundation membership allows us to formalize our commitment to this community. As a result, our customers, such as network equipment providers, mobile device manufacturers, automotive sector and smart products engineering businesses, can even better capture the benefits of this platform,” said Ville Aittomäki, Head of Devices R&D, Tieto.

“Europe is a hotbed for Linux and open source development and business, which is why we created LinuxCon Europe and why we’re so excited to welcome more members from this region,” said Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer programs at The Linux Foundation. “We’re looking forward to the collaboration opportunities with AboveIT, Comarch, CSR, Symbio and Tieto this week and in year ahead.”  

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

###

Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Yocto Project Introduces New Features

The Linux Foundation-hosted Yocto Project fosters growing community of embedded Linux developers, technologies and products

PRAGUE {LinuxCon Europe}, October 26, 2011 – The Yocto Project, a hosted project at The Linux Foundation, today announced the availability of Yocto Project Release 1.1, as well as a variety of one-year milestones for the project.

The Linux Foundation today also announced it will become the host for the Embedded GNU C Library (EGLIBC), further broadening and strengthening a common set of tools for embedded Linux development.

The EGLIBC library is an add-on to the GNU C library (glibc) and is optimized for use in embedded development. Until now, Mentor Graphics, the founder and chief maintainer of the project through its acquisition of CodeSourcery, hosted the EGLIBC library. Other participants have included Freescale, MIPS Technologies, MontaVista Software and Wind River, among others.

The Yocto Project was announced one year ago (October 2010) to provide developers with greater consistency in the software and tools they’re using across multiple architectures for embedded Linux development. The collaborative project brings together the elements needed to make the normally difficult embedded Linux development process much easier. The following milestones and activities are contributing to a vibrant community for embedded development:

• Alignment of OpenEmbedded technology and the inclusion of OpenEmbedded representation in the Yocto Project governance structure. The projects share a common core that consists of software build recipes and core Linux components that prevent fragmentation and reinforce the OpenEmbedded methodology as an open standard for embedded Linux build systems.

• Contribution of tools and technologies such as Cross-prelink, EGLIBC, Pseudo, Shoeleather Lab (for automated testing) and Swabber have been contributed from Intel, Mentor Graphics, MontaVista Software and Wind River.

• Commercial adoption with examples such as FIC’s Pegasus platform powered by Tridium’s Niagara Framework. The Pegasus platform is an industrial tablet design that was quickly ported to Linux based on existing Yocto Project Board Support Packages. Tridium is a world leader in software frameworks, automation infrastructure technology and device-to-enterprise integration solution, and FIC is a global designer and manufacturer of mobile and commercial hardware solutions.

• Board Support Packages that include Intel’s Atom-PC, Freescale’s MPC8315e-RDB, TI’s BeagleBoard and Ubiquiti’s RouterStation Pro, among others.

The new Yocto Project Release 1.1 is based on Linux kernel 3.0 and consists of the following new features and resources that enable developers and third parties to more quickly and easily build embedded Linux systems:

• Multi-lib: Reduces storage and memory footprint by allowing the system developer to mix and match binaries.

• Hob: An improved graphical user experience enables developers to select target architecture, image and layer combinations, and to select or remove individual packages before building, making the use of the Yocto tools even easier.

• Layer Tooling: Eases the integration and development of layers by “flattening” them together into a collection of meta-data, making it much easier for third parties to develop and release layers.

• Initial support for x32, allowing execution of 32-bit code with all the benefits of 64-bit mode bringing performance and footprint improvements on x86 processors.

• Small footprint/fast boot layers that make it easier to develop tiny embedded systems (less than 8MB of memory) with Yocto.

• New packages and components include 3G cellular data support and advanced btrfs filesystem, which improve applicability of the Yocto Project tools to new segments.

• New Yocto Project Developer Guide: This document provides important information on how to get started in open source, Board Support Package and kernel development.

“Since its introduction one year ago this week, the Yocto Project has exploded into a strong open source community of developers, users and vendors working together to advance Linux in the mobile and embedded markets,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “The Yocto Project has quickly become a trusted upstream resource for embedded vendors who need to quickly and easily develop products for a variety of architectures, and get to market fast.”

Companies and organizations participating in the project include Dell, Intel, Mentor Graphics, MontaVista, OpenEmbedded eV, Texas Instruments, Timesys, and Wind River, among others. The Yocto Project participants are meeting this week at LinuxCon Europe and the Embedded Linux Conference in Prague, Czech Republic. For more information on these events, please visit the Linux Foundation conferences site. For more information about the Yocto Project, please visit: http://www.yoctoproject.org.

Supporting Quotes

Intel

“The Yocto Project provides an opportunity to help Intel customers differentiate and create unique solutions in the embedded market segment,” said Ton Steenman, vice president and general manager, Intelligent Systems Group, Intel. “Intel remains committed to choice in operating systems and our Intelligent Systems roadmap for embedded views the Yocto Project as a way to provide our customers with a flexible Linux enabling vehicle.”

Mentor Graphics

“The EGLIBC library is a fundamental technology to an embedded Linux system. By integrating it with the Yocto Project and hosting it at The Linux Foundation, we can accelerate the development of EGLIBC,” said Mark Mitchell, Director of Tools, Mentor Graphics Embedded Software Division. “The new Shoeleather Lab hosted by Mentor Graphics will aid the Yocto Project by providing a neutral site for connecting developers to leading-edge hardware platforms, facilitating critical porting and optimization activities around Yocto and EGLIBC.”

MontaVista Software

“The Yocto Project is providing key resources specific to the embedded Linux developer community,” said Dan Cauchy, VP of Marketing and Business Development, MontaVista Software. “We’re glad to be collaborating with our industry peers in improving embedded Linux development.”

Texas Instruments

“The alignment of the Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded continues to accelerate our development," said Jason Kridner, ARM microprocessors community development manager at TI. "We're active in the Yocto Project because it moves as fast as we do to meet the market demands for embedded Linux development. We're proud to be a part of this community."

Wind River

“The adoption of the Yocto Project validates the market demand for a common set of embedded Linux development tools,” said Paul Anderson, vice president of Linux products at Wind River. “As a founding member and active maintainer, Wind River is firmly committed to the success of the Yocto Project and will continue its contributions of code, resources, infrastructure, and tools, as well as draw from the Yocto Project as an upstream source for our commercial Linux releases.”

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

###

Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Opera 11.52-1100-1linuxmint upgrade

Automotive World: Linux Foundation Announces First Auto Summit

The Linux Foundation, the non-profit organisation dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux open source software, announced on 10 October the first ever Automotive Linux Summit...

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The Linux Foundation Announces New Members from Throughout Europe

Europe-based companies invet in protecting, promoting and advancing the Linux operating system

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The Linux Foundation Announces First Ever Automotive Linux Summit, Call for Participation

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SAN FRANCISCO, October 10, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced the first ever Automotive Linux Summit. The event will take place November 28, 2011 at the Pacifico Yokohama in Yokohama, Japan.

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Changes in Enterprise Computing Bring New Members to Linux Foundation

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The Korean consumer electronics giant may be looking to purchase Meego to use as its own proprietary mobile operating system.

A Happy Four Years To An Open-Source ATI/AMD

It was four years ago, on the 6th of September 2007, that I exclusively broke the news on AMD's open-source strategy that would end up greatly changing the open-source Linux graphics driver landscape...

Fedora Graphics Test Week, Again

The Fedora Project is having another Graphics Test Week. This time around it's for testing the Intel, Nouveau, and Radeon drivers for the forthcoming Fedora 16 release...

AMD Spins its First 'Bulldozer' Chip

AMD says it has begun shipping a & Interlagos& Opteron 6200 server chip, offering up to sixteen cores. This 32nm-fabbed processor is the first to be based on the chipmaker's long-promised & Bulldozer& architecture, expected to trickle down to desktops and other devices in the future....

AMD Ships First “Bulldozer” Processors to Big Super Installations

Despite recent rumors of delays, today AMD announced revenue shipments of the first processors based on its new x86 “Bulldozer” architecture.

KDE Ships Software Compilation 4.7.1

The KDE team has announced the release of KDE SC 4.7.1. This is the first monthly point release following the major release of KDE SC 4.7...

Security Advisories for Wednesday

CentOS has issued the 6-month notification for C4: End Of Life. Fedora has updated rubygem-actionpack (F15; F14: multiple vulnerabilities), rubygem-activesupport (F15; F14: cross-site scripting), F14: ca-certificates (certificate removal), F14: libsndfile (arbitrary code execution), F14: dhcp (denial of service), and F14: pidgin (denial of service). openSUSE has updated coreutils (command injection),...

Velocity Micro Introduces Two Sub-$300 Android Slates

Two new little Android tablets have joined the ever-growing tablet race, this time from Velocity Micro. Both the 8-inch Cruz T408 and the 10-inch Cruz T410 are nice enough, but what’ll really catch your eye are the pricetags.

HP TouchPad Screen Can Now Support Android

The team at TouchDroid has succeeded in developing drivers for the HP TouchPad that allow it to run Android 2.3.5, with full touch screen capability.

openSUSE 12.1 to Get a Beta

The openSUSE project has announced that the sixth milestone for version 12.1 of the distribution will be reclassified as a beta to reflect the current state of development. Those interested in testing it are encouraged to plan "Beta Pizza parties" around the world when it arrives...

BleachBit Leaves Your File System Sparkling and Grime-Free

One of the most essential computer maintenance tasks is pruning outdated and orphaned files from the deep, dark dungeons within the Linux filing system. These disconnected scraps and bits are endemic to the file structure in any operating system, Linux included. Weeding the Linux software garden is not something that...

Video: First Results from the LHC Experiment and the Role of HPC

In this video, Christoph Grab from ETH Zurich describes how HPC plays a central role in the analysis of the data from the Large Hadron Collider. A tip of the hat goes to the Swiss HPC Service Provider Community for pointing us to this story. Related posts:Video: The Role of...

Feedback Requested: Filesystem Hierarchy Standard Released

Just before LinuxCon North America in Vancouver, The Linux Foundation released a draft proposal for an update to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS)...

Firefox and Thunderbird Updates

New versions of Firefox (6.0.2 and 3.6.22) and Thunderbird (6.0.2, 7.0 beta, and 3.1.14 are out. These releases remove trust exceptions for certificates issued by Staat der Nederlanden.

More Cowbell with Hydrogen Drum Machine on Linux

Linux is a superior audio production platform, and one of its shining stars is the Hydrogen Drum Machine. Hydrogen is an advanced software drum synthesizer that is easy to learn, and yet packed full of great features.

Octopress: Create Static Sites with a Full-Featured Framework

Static sites have better performance than dynamic sites, but you lose a lot of features by giving up a content management system (CMS), right? Maybe not, if you have a framework like Octopress. Last week I looked at static sites and cloud services, but even Todd Hoff's excellent coverage put me off a bit.

Memo to Kid Coders: Enterprise software Exists

If you live or spend time in Silicon Valley, it's easy to forget that enterprise software exists, or that it still drives $245 billion in annual revenue, according to Gartner.…...

Seven-inch Amazon Android Tablet Said to Offer Kindle UI, $250 Price

Amazon's Android tablet is a seven-inch, Kindle-branded device that will feature a customized operating system and sell for $250, according to a TechCrunch reporter who claims to have spent an hour with the device. In other Android tablet news, Samsung pulled its freshly announced Galaxy Tab 7.7 from the IFA...

openSUSE Celebrates Beta 1 with BetaPizza Parties!

The openSUSE community is happy to announce that the 6th Milestone of the upcoming release will be renamed openSUSE 12.1 Beta 1.

Apache2: How To Redirect Users To Mobile Or Normal Web Site Based On Device Using mod_rewrite

Since the massive rise of smartphones and tablets like the iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets, BlackBerries, etc. you might have considered creating a mobile version of your web site. This tutorial explains how...

The Next Internet: What's Holding Us Back?

Tim Berners-Lee, to his credit, did not invent the Internet. He did have one good idea. He was not the first person or even the twelfth with the same idea, but he did make it work.

Baidu Announces Android fork and Teams Up With Dell

China's largest search engine company has announced the development of its own Android fork, to include a set of online application services, development tools and an online store...

VMware CEO Cites Patent Weakness Among Newer Tech Players

Do prominent social media companies own enough patents? While the Facebooks and Twitters of the world have risen to prominence on the basis of many innovations, these companies are still young, and there are some technology industry veterans who think that their patent portfolios are weak enough to cause them legal trouble in the years ahead.

Report: Ruby Creator Sets Sights on Mobile App Development

Ruby, the open source programming language, has been a phenomenon in the development community for many years running now.

Monthly Stats – August 2011

Weekend Project: Bootstrap Your Site with Bootstrap

Ever had a Web project in mind, but got stalled at the prospect of having to worry about the site design? If code, and not design, is your strong point you'll want to take a look at Twitter's Bootstrap. This weekend, you can prettify an existing Web site or start a Web project you've been putting off with a full design toolkit.

Linux-based RFID Vendors Combine Forces on Latest Readers

Trimble's ThingMagic division has integrated Linux-based Mercury5e (M5e) embedded UHF RFID (radio frequency identification) reader modules into long-range RFID readers from TagMaster. Aimed primarily at the railway industry, TagMaster's XT-2 is already shipping, and the XT-3 and XT-3HD Readers are on the way and available with an open source Linux...

Reconfigurable Computers to Boost Science

Marlene Cimons from the National Science Foundation writes that science could receive a huge boost from adaptable computing. It’s a new and innovative way to build and use computers,” says Alan George, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Florida and director of the Center for High-Performance Reconfigurable Computing. With reconfigurable computing, the architecture of the processor...

We Won and We Didn't Notice (The H)

The H has an extended interview with Jeremy Allison. "People were sloppy. Code was sloppy, and it can't be that any more. Again, this is the same for proprietary software. If you're writing something simple just to test something out, you can throw it together with a minimum of fuss.

Ubuntu 11.10 Beta Gives Software Center a Mac-Like Makeover

The Canonical-backed Ubuntu project released the first beta of Ubuntu 11.10 (& Oneiric Ocelot& ), featuring both an improved Dash interface for the Unity desktop and a makeover for the Ubuntu Software Center that resembles the Mac App Store. Ubuntu 11.10 moves up to Linux 3.0.3, the Firefox 7.0 browser,...

Gizmodo: Linux Turns 20

“We get it. Linux is just for nerds. Not mere nerds — we’re all nerds — Linux nerds. It’s a hobbyist OS for contrarians. It’s an antique. An oddity. Pointless. Right? Very, very wrong. Happy birthday, Linux — let’s celebrate you like we should…”
More at Gizomodo

The Telegraph: Linux at 20, The Quiet Giant

Christopher Williams reports on Linux as the fabric of computing on its 20th anniversary

CNN: At 20 Linux is Ubiquitous

CNN’s Mark Milian reports on Linux’s 20th anniversary

IDG: Linux at 20

IDG’s Neil McAllister writes a comprehensive feature on Linux’s birthday and its opportunities and challenges in the future.

Linux Mint Debian 201108 RC (Gnome and Xfce) released!

SPDX Workgroup Releases Software Package Data Exchange Standard to Widespread Industry Support

Standard format for communicating open source license and copyright information throughout supply chain ensures better, easier compliance

LINUXCON, Vancouver, B.C., August 17, 2011 – The SPDX workgroup, hosted by The Linux Foundation, today announced the release of version 1.0 of its Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX™) standard.

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Widespread Industry Support for SPDX 1.0

Antelink
“SPDX gives us an easy way to get data about licenses in open source projects,” said Guillaume Rousseau, CEO, Antelink. “As a participant in the SPDX beta program, we have found the SPDX specification to be simple, straightforward and easy to work with. We’re very happy to support the SPDX efforts, and look forward to implementing SPDX 1.0 in our search engine of open source files!”

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Linux Mint 11 LXDE released!

Linux Marking 20 Years in Vancouver, B.C.

Blogger Stephen Hui reports on the LinuxCon event and wishes community a happy birthday!

The Linux Foundation Announces Linux Training Scholarship Recipients

Five winners chosen from nearly 200 submissions, representing a new generation of Linux developers

SAN FRANCISCO, August 9, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced the recipients of its 2011 Linux Training Scholarship Program.

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Monthly Stats – July 2011

IBTimes.com: Version 3.0 Released, Celebrates 20 Years of Linux

“The open-source project took on a life of its own, truly becoming the collaborative project of an entire world of programmers — usually unpaid, usually in their spare time. Along the way, companies, foundations, support groups and other organizations sprang up around Linux (or, as some precise types will stress, GNU/Linux or GNU+Linux). Some of these are doing something special to celebrate two decades of Linux, especially the Linux Foundation (from timelines and videos to the Bootlegger’s Ball at LinuxCon in Vancouver next month).”

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Linux Mint 11 LXDE RC2 released!

Upcoming releases

basysKom, Codero, Gluster and Nixu Open Join The Linux Foundation

Linux Foundation’s newest members represent Linux’s ubiquity and adaptability across industries

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., July 13 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that four new members are joining the organization: basysKom, Codero, Gluster and Nixu Open.

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Linux Mint signs a partnership with AYKsolutions

Introducing Update Packs in Linux Mint Debian

Monthly Stats – June 2011

eWeek: Toyota Joins Linux Foundation, Revs Up Car Infotainment

Darryl Taft reports on Toyota joining The Linux Foundation and includes information on the 20th Anniversary of Linux and LinuxCon

ZDNet: The Open Source Car

Steven Vaughan-Nichols reports on Toyota joining The Linux Foundation

Toyota Joins Linux Foundation

Toyota looks towards open innovation and collaboration to help transform auto industry

SAN FRANCISCO, July 5, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Toyota is its newest member.

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PC World: The HP TouchPad’s Best Feature is Linux

Katherine Noyes assesses the new TouchPad and its Linux-based WebOS

Linux Mint 11 LXDE RC released!

LexisNexis Joins Linux Foundation

LexisNexis Risk Solutions further commits to open collaboration and Linux to support “Big Data” after HPCC Systems open source platform announcement

SAN FRANCISCO, June 17, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that LexisNexis® Risk Solutions is its newest member.

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The Linux Foundation Announces LinuxCon Program, Confirms Linux Creator Linus Torvalds to Mark 20th Anniversary of Linux in Vancouver

Linux luminaries congregate this summer in Vancouver B.C. to collaborate on all matters Linux

SAN FRANCISCO, June 15, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced its program and schedule for this year’s LinuxCon North America event taking place in Vancouver, B.C. August 17-19, 2011.

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The Linux Foundation Announces New Linux Training Scholarships, Student Day at LinuxCon

Linux Foundation will award five scholarships and host a student-focused day at LinuxCon designed to help train the developers who will shape the next 20 years of computing

SAN FRANCISCO, June 7, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced its new Linux Training Scholarship Program and Linux Learners’ Student Day.

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Monthly Stats – May 2011

Linux Mint 11 “Katya” released!

Linux Mint 11 “Katya” RC released!

Ixonos Joins Linux Foundation

Leading developer of mobile software and solutions to collaborate on mobile Linux platforms

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., May 9, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Ixonos is its newest member.

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Monthly Stats – April 2011

Linux Mint 11 – Preview

Server issues (solved)

The Linux Foundation Announces LinuxCon Japan Keynotes, Support for Tsunami Relief

News Highlights

• Linux creator Linus Torvalds tops LinuxCon Japan agenda, will share his thoughts on the 20th Anniversary of Linux

• A dedicated day titled, “Open Forum: Power of Collaboration in Crisis,” will facilitate collaboration among open source project leaders working on technology to address crisis

• The Linux Foundation to donate program funds to tsunami relief efforts

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Server issues

The Linux Foundation Announces 20th Anniversary of Linux T-shirt Design Contest

Community vote will determine best design to mark this year’s important milestone; design to be featured as official LinuxCon event T-shirt and in Linux.com Store

SAN FRANCISCO, April 26, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced the 20th Anniversary of Linux T-shirt Design Contest.

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Yahoo! Joins Linux Foundation

Search pioneer and premier digital media company powers its business with Linux, supports ongoing development and initiatives

SAN FRANCISCO April 20, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Yahoo! is its newest member.

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Igalia Joins Linux Foundation

10-year open source contributor to support Linux Foundation activities

SAN FRANCISCO April 19, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Igalia is its newest member.

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The Linux Foundation Announces LinuxCon North America Keynote Speakers and 20th Anniversary Gala

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

Top mobile and enterprise Linux executives lead keynote agenda: Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst to address enterprise Linux at 20 years and HP Chief Technology Officer Phil McKinney to discuss WebOS

Internet and society author Clay Shirky will illustrate how collaboration is shaping today’s global culture

LinuxCon Gala to mark official 20th Anniversary of Linux celebration and gather an unprecedented who’s who of Linux’ past, present and future

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Renesas Electronics Joins Linux Foundation

Provider of semiconductor solutions will participate in Consumer Electronics workgroup, LinuxCon Japan

SAN FRANCISCO {Embedded Linux Conference} April 11, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Renesas Electronics Corporation is its newest member.

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Linux Foundation Announces 2011 Video Contest: Linux Creator Linus Torvalds to Pick Best 20th Anniversary Video

Annual video contest will celebrate 20 years of Linux, “Father of Linux” to choose the best among community favorites

SAN FRANCISCO {The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit} - April 6, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced its 2011 Video Contest: the 20th Anniversary of Linux. This is the third year The Linux Foundation has hosted the contest, which is an evolution of the original “We’re Linux” video competition.

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The Linux Foundation Announces High Availability Working Group

New demands on high-availability computing are met with collaborative approach to hosting projects, prioritizing features

SAN FRANCISCO {Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit} April 6, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced the formation of the High Availability (HA) Working Group.

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The Linux Foundation Releases Carrier Grade Linux 5.0 Specification

Increased emphasis on high-end data reliability and security across industries inform latest Carrier Grade Linux requirements

SAN FRANCISCO {The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit}, April 6, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced the availability of Carrier Grade Linux Version 5.0 specification (CGL 5.0).

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The Linux Foundation Announces Yocto Project Steering Group and Release 1.0

First major release of common embedded Linux tools includes developer interface and build system improvements for developers

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The Linux Foundation Announces 2011 Linux.com Gurus

Annual recognition of most active Linux.com community members helps to surface unique Linux talent to potential employers

SAN FRANCISCO, March 28, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced the Top Five 2011 Linux.com Linux Gurus, including the Ultimate Linux Guru who is the Linux.com member who accumulated the most contribution and participation points over the last year.

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The Linux Foundation Announces MeeGo TV Working Group

MeeGo Smart TV Working Group begins its work to bring open framework and innovation to television ecosystem

LONDON {IPTV World Forum}, March 22, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced the formation of the MeeGo™ Smart TV Working Group.

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PingWin Software Joins Linux Foundation

Russian-based systems integrator to work on open compliance program, among other Linux and open source initiatives

SAN FRANCISCO, March 14, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that PingWin Software is its newest member.

PingWin Software is a leading systems integrator in Russia and is focused on Linux and open source software integration. PingWin Software is the first Russian company to join The Linux Foundation.

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Panasonic Joins Linux Foundation

Global consumer electronics leader joins at Gold level to help inform the direction of embedded Linux and open compliance initiatives

SAN FRANCISCO, March 9, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Panasonic is joining the organization as a Gold member.

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