ITWire

Aside from anything else, Linux Foundation, which is backed financially by scores of major vendors, including IBM, HP, Oracle and Intel, will provide jobs for the key developers of the Linux kernel, including the original Linux creator Linus Torvalds, who previously worked for Open Source Development Labs.

Another major goal of the Linux Foundation will be to ensure consistency across all the main Linux distributions to prevent forking as was the case with Unix in the 1980s. If Linux is to flourish, most open source advocates agree that developers need a single standard specification for which develop applications.

Last but not least, however, the Linux Foundation sees one of its primary objectives as helping the Linux community compete against its closed source nemesis Microsoft. This includes the provision of legal services to defend against possible patent challenges, the spectre of which Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer raised last year.