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Linus Moves To OSDL, Will Work On Kernel Full-Time

Posted by timothy on from the send-linus-more-penguins-for-his-desk dept.

worldwideweber writes "With the announcement of the release of the 2.5.72 version of the Linux kernel came the news that Linus Torvalds will be leaving Transmeta for OSDL to work on the linux kernel full-time. The email calls this a leave of absence for about one year." Update: 06/17 17:19 GMT by T : As many readers have pointed out, the length of Linus' leave is not actually specified in this email.

6 of 400 comments (clear)

  1. Kernel Mailing List Email by haydenth · · Score: 5, Informative

    From: Linus Torvalds
    To: Kernel Mailing List
    Subject: Linux v2.5.72 and a move to OSDL
    Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 21:35:09 -0700 (PDT)

    Ok, I waited too long for 2.5.71, so here's a more timely 2.5.72
    release.

    It's extra timely largely because the hash list poisoning found some
    problems in the RPC code, making NFS break. Trond found and fixed the
    breakage, so 2.5.72 should work fine in an NFS environment too. Let's
    see if the list poisoning shows any other dodgy list users. Knock wood.

    Also, Arnaldo has cleaned up a lot of the networking code to use the
    generic hash lists, instead of the old ad-hoc net-specific list walking
    code. That code has been tested pretty well, but please holler if you
    see something.

    Changelog for other details appended.

    The other big news - well, for me personally, anyway - is that I've
    decided to take a leave-of-absense after 6+ years at Transmeta to
    actually work full-time on the kernel.

    Transmeta has always been very good at letting me spend even an
    inordinate amount of time on Linux, but as a result I've been feeling a
    little guilty at just how little "real work" I got done lately. To fix
    that, I'll instead be working at OSDL, finally actually doing Linux as
    my main job.

    [ I do not expect a huge amount of change as a result, testament to just /how/ freely Transmeta has let me do Linux work. My email address will
    change to "torvalds@osdl.org" effective July 1st, but everybody is
    trying to make the transfer as smooth as possible, so we'll make sure
    that there will be sufficient address overlap etc to not cause any
    problems ]

    OSDL and Transmeta will have a joint official (read: "boring". You
    should have seen the bio - that didn't make it - that I suggested for
    myself for it ;) press-release about this tomorrow morning, but I just
    wanted to say thanks to Transmeta. It has been a special place to work
    for, and hello to OSDL that I hope will be the same.

    Snif. I'm actually all teary-eyed.

    Linus

    --
    - tom -
  2. It made the NYTimes and Kudos to Transmeta by NZheretic · · Score: 5, Informative
    Its made the NYTimes: Prominent Programmer Will Leave Transmeta.

    Kudos to Transmeta for hiring Linus in the first place ( even if they did transport him to the USA in reach of overlitigious bastards such as The SCO Group ) and supporting his work on Linux for so many years.

  3. About OSDL... by sould · · Score: 5, Informative
    from here:


    OSDL is dedicated to enabling Linux and Linux-based applications for data center and carrier-class deployment. We provide the crucial hardware for testing and development at this level, giving open source developers around the world the resources needed to bring Linux further into telecommunications and the enterprise. We are an independently governed, non-profit organization supported by 21 industry leaders.


    Sounds cool

  4. Additional related stuff. by Bootsy+Collins · · Score: 5, Informative

    I submitted this a few hours ago (always a bridesmaid, *snif*), along with two links not in the story above. One was to the NY Times story about it. The other was to this story which just came out at Wired . . .a brief interview with Linus about his efforts to stand apart from political issues surrounding Open Source, which refers to the discussion here on Slashdot about his opinions on incorporating DRM into the Linux kernel (among other things).

  5. Re:Transmeta, Linus and Marketing... by molnarcs · · Score: 5, Informative
    Wrong!!! Transmeta hiring Linus was not merely for publicity. They needed his coding expertise. Unless, of course, you say that he was party to this, just to justify your speculation - after he was allowed to speak about what Transmeta is doing (it was secret for years) he spoke in superlative terms about the innovation and excitement involved in creating the code-morphing technology that Transmeta implemented in their Crusoe chips.
    As Torvalds tells it, "The first day ... when they were giving me a feel for what went on at Transmeta. I went back to the hotel that evening and I thought, "These people are CRAZY!" This was more than three years ago, when Transmeta had not a single chip. The simulations ran at GLACIAL speed. Still, The next day, I basically decided that, if I am to go to work for a company, I want to go to work for a company that does something fun - something interesting. And the first, initial reaction that, 'These people are crazy!' is a positive reaction in that sense." So why choose a chip company, when every Linux start-up in the world was after him? Torvalds explains, "I've obviously gotten a lot of job offers from Linux companies, but I didn't want to polarize the Linux market. I'm really happy being an engineer at a company that is very interested in Linux, but is not seen as a Linux company. We're a chip company where Linux is seen as part of a much larger strategy - and that's something I find very comfortable. Besides, Transmeta has been able to give me opportunities that I wouldn't otherwise have had. It's also a very cool vehicle for doing debugging, when you control the whole chip!" And Torvalds' skill as a debugger is legendary around Transmeta. "He's a god," says Dave Taylor, a co-developer of the original Quake who gave up being CEO of his own company to work for Transmeta. "He can look at a Linux display and somehow predict, just from the way it misbehaves, exactly where, in 100,000 lines of code, the problem is. And, nine times out of 10, he's right."
    Read the rest here. Also, this might also be of interest. So no, he was not just a posterboy there.
  6. Re:Transmeta, Linus and Marketing... by Horny+Smurf · · Score: 5, Informative
    except that they weren't "trying to build an x86 compatible CPU that is faster than both Intel and AMD" -- they were trying to build a low-power x86 compatible chip.


    Unfortunately, the CPU isn't the biggest power hog in a notebook, and their cost/power/speed ratio wasn't much better than slowed down pentiums.


    I'm actually very excited by their technology. But the only Crusoe laptops I've seen for sale have had tiny screens and huge price tags. It would be less expensive to buy an iBook/PowerBook and virtual PC than most Crusoe laptops.