Open Source Development Labs

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Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) was a non-profit organization supported by a global consortium tasked to "accelerate the deployment of Linux for enterprise computing".^[1] Founded in 2000, its goals included "to be the recognized center-of-gravity for the Linux industry".

On January 22, 2007, OSDL and the Free Standards Group merged to form The Linux Foundation, narrowing their respective focuses to that of promoting Linux in competition with Microsoft Windows.^[2]

[edit] Activities

OSDL sponsored key industry projects, including industry initiatives to enhance Linux for use in corporate data centers, in telecommunications networks, and on desktop computers. It also:

• provided hardware resources to the free software community which is also called the open source community
• tested and reported on open source software.
• employed a number of Linux developers.

Its employees included Linus Torvalds, the first OSDL fellow, and Bryce Harrington. In 2005, Andrew "Tridge" Tridgell was the second OSDL fellow for a year.

It had data centers in Beaverton, Oregon, United States and Yokohama, Japan.

OSDL had investment backers that included: 7 funders of Computer Associates, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Ltd., Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel Corporation, Nippon Electric Corporation, as well as a large collection of independent software vendors, end-user companies and educational institutions. A steering committee composed of representatives from the investment backers directed OSDL, which also had a significant staff of its own.

OSDL had established four Working Groups since 2002:

• Mobile Linux Initiative (MLI)
• Carrier Grade Linux (CGL)
• Data Center Linux (DCL)
• Desktop Linux (DTL)

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Patent Commons, a project launched in November 2005 by the OSDL