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OSDL and The Free Standards Group to Merge
Andy Updegrove writes "On Sunday afternoon, the Free Standards Group (FSG) signed an agreement to combine forces with Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) to form a new organization — The Linux Foundation. The result of this consolidation will be to dedicate the resources of the combined membership to 'accelerate the growth of Linux by providing a comprehensive set of services to compete effectively with closed platforms.' Jim Zemlin, currently the head of FSG, will lead the new organization as its Executive Director. The new organization will continue to support Linux in a variety of ways, including by providing economic support to Linus Torvalds and other key kernel developers, managing the Linux trademark, and providing legal protection to developers through such initiatives as the Open Source as Prior Art project, the Patent Commons, and the Linux Legal Defense Fund. All in all, a tall order, but eminently possible given its membership: The Linux Foundation's founding members will include every major company in the Linux industry, including Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel, NEC, Novell, Oracle and Red Hat, as well as many community groups, universities and industry end users."
That is a bad idea for several reasons:
a) A standards group must be independend. The FSG loses its credibility.
b) Patents risks cannot be combated with baseless tinkering and playing nice. Give a credible lobby group 1 million to build up an equivalent movement in the US as in Europe and US software patents will be gone within 3-4 years. In Europe they continue to exist because of the weakness of US advocats and their waste of money in superficial reform proposals (red herrings). Software patents are of abolutely no use. It is time to prepare a soft landing in Alexandria "to promote the sciences and the arts".
c) If you want patents to cause no harm and pose no risks let them lapse.
d) The strong US bias is a problem which will be regarded as a risk in the rest of the world, also given the insecure US legal situation (patriot act, DMCA etc.).
It is a good idea for these reasons:
e) A Linux foundation now represents "Linux" (the trademark, the founder, the LSB, perfect).
f) The package of services looks complete and gives certain gravity to the project.
g) The name is very catchy
What do you think?
It keeps amazing me over and over again how "Open Source Development" and "Free Standards" somehow miraculously always seem to transform into "Linux" ...
All the world's NOT a Linux Box.
This is a good move, for the rest of us. Both these organisations where pretty much a Linux-only club; to say the least, at least extremely Linux-biased.
This new name spells it out in clear text, which is great for all of us that don't use Linux; be it Solaris, BSD or whatever. It also means that OSDL will lose part of its meddling ability because its now in the open that it only exist to promote Linux and not other open source systems.
I love it, I wish more organisations and companies did the same; no more hidden agendas.
Microsoft is the Empire. Apple is the Rebels. We are the Ewoks.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)