Linux creator to work full-time on development

Linus Torvalds, the creator of the free Linux operating system, will join a computer-industry-backed group to work fulltime at speeding the adoption of Linux at corporations.

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

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

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

"It feels a bit strange to finally officially work on what I've been doing for the last 12 years, but with the upcoming (Linux release), it makes sense to be able to concentrate fully on Linux," Torvalds said in a news release issued jointly by Transmeta and OSDL.                            The source code, or underlying software blueprint, for Linux is freely available, and developers around the world collaborate to refine its development.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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