Interview: Stuart Cohen, CEO, OSDL

Stuart Cohen, CEO of the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) in Portland, Oregon, participated via e-mail in an interview with Alolita Sharma, CEO, Technetra and Robert Adkins, CTO, Technetra. Cohen shared the organization’s vision for the future of Linux.

Stuart Cohen, CEO, OSDL

OSDL is home to Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, and has a mission to accelerate the growth and adoption of Linux in the enterprise. Founded in 2000 and supported by a global consortium of IT industry leaders, OSDL is a non-profit organization that provides state-of-the-art computing and test facilities in the United States and Japan. These outstanding facilities are available to developers around the world. OSDL’s founding members are IBM, HP, CA, Intel, and NEC.

In 2004, OSDL opened an office in Beijing to collaborate on Linux and its initiatives in the Chinese environment. Exploring new territory, OSDL recently came to India to better understand the realities of adoption and usage of Linux and open source in this country.

Q: OSDL’s mission is to facilitate Linux adoption in enterprise computing. Tell us about OSDL’s current projects supporting this goal. How much of this project work is being done in the US vs the rest of the world?

SC: OSDL’s mission is to accelerate the adoption of Linux and open source software in the enterprise by serving as the center of gravity for end users, vendors and developers.

It employs a team of software developers that contribute to the Linux kernel and has Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, as a Lab Fellow. Also, Andrew Morton, Linux kernel maintainer, and Andrew Tridgell, creator of Samba and Lab Fellow, are employed by OSDL.

OSDL is home to three working groups, including Data Center Linux (DCL), Desk Top Linux (DTL) and Carrier Grade Linux (CGL). The lab also moderates Linux User Advisory Councils (LUACs) in the US, Japan and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), where information is collected from Global 2000 companies on specific Linux needs and how they vary in different regional markets.

“Businesses understand the compelling value proposition of Linux and open source.”

We continue to monitor the global marketplace to determine where OSDL’s resources can be best leveraged to accelerate Linux adoption. As a result, we opened our office in Tokyo in 2000 and in Beijing last year. Our visit to India is another step towards conducting ongoing discussions with businesses, educational institutions and governments throughout the region, to assess opportunity.

Q: OSDL’s board of directors includes representation from vendor companies, such as IBM, HP, Novell, Fujitsu, CA, NEC and Intel, which are all either US or Japanese companies. Does OSDL plan to have more balanced participation from the rest of Asia (beyond Japan) and Europe?

SC: One-third of our members are from Asia, and we welcome active board participation from companies throughout the world and from different industries. For example, Frank J. Fanzilli, Jr. recently joined the OSDL board. Fanzilli is the former managing director and Global CIO of Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB). As a former end user of Linux, he brings a dynamic perspective to OSDL that will help drive adoption around the globe.

Q: On its first exploratory mission to India, what is OSDL’s view on the country and its potential for greater participation in Linux?

SC: OSDL has been very impressed by the number of Indian companies, individuals and organizations that are involved in the Linux and open source community. That, combined with the efforts and interest shown by the Indian government and education systems, leaves little doubt that the Linux and open source communities in India are poised to contribute in a substantial way to the development of Linux globally.

Q: OSDL started with Japanese companies as founding members in 2000. It opened a branch office in China last year. Describe OSDL’s experience so far in China — as a Linux adopter and as a development partner?

SC: Three of OSDL’s seven founding members are based in Asia, including Hitachi, NEC and Fujitsu. The other founding members include HP, Intel, CA and IBM.

Our experience in China has been very positive. The Chinese government, local businesses and educational institutions are embracing Linux for good reason. The business success they are experiencing locally is having an impact on their IT cost structure and will be leveraged to become part of the global ecosystem. The Chinese IT research firm, CCID Consulting, estimates that the Linux server software market in China will explode at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 50 per cent over the next five years.

Q: How can OSDL help local economies in Asia profit from Linux?

SC: OSDL supports the emergence of Economic Development Clusters built around Linux and open source businesses in key regions throughout the world. By supporting such clusters and the development of open standards, local economies grow and the global ecosystem is enhanced.

Based in large part on research emerging from the Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, OSDL has adopted the philosophy that by supporting the development of regional clusters, it can contribute to the creation of substantial and sustainable businesses and jobs. Asia is a prime region for these clusters, and OSDL will continue to make time and resource investments in this region.

Q: What are the grand challenges for the Linux kernel in the next few years?

SC: In the immediate future, OSDL and its members are focused on completing the building of features and functionality for enterprise-wide deployment of Linux as the primary operating system. As the market grows, the need for a strong software solution stack and services will take more of our time.

Q: You have encouraged the Linux vendors to work more closely with the core kernel development team and not splinter off into incompatible versions and patch sets. Is this advice being heeded? Are the vendors cooperating?

SC: They are. They learned a lot of lessons from the UNIX days and this makes smart business sense for them today. As a result, Linux vendors are embracing open standards, and working more and more closely with the kernel development team and their customer implementations.

Q: Is adoption of Linux on the desktop and for mobile professionals speeding up because of OSDL’s efforts?

SC: Overall, Linux adoption is speeding up in a number of places — the enterprise desktop, the data center and in carrier grade applications such as mobile devices. The overall Linux marketplace is expected to reach US $35.7 billion by 2008, up from roughly US $20 million forecast for 2005. This success is the result of the global ecosystem that has emerged around Linux and open source technologies. Businesses understand the compelling value proposition of Linux and open source, and are actively taking advantage of the opportunity.

Q: Is OSDL too tied to the interests of its largest corporate sponsors to see the needs of the larger Linux community?

SC: While OSDL’s founding members are large global companies, most of its 70 current members are small to medium size businesses and organizations. Another 60 Global 2000 companies contribute to OSDL’s LUACs, and almost a dozen universities are members of OSDL. OSDL’s efforts reflect those of the Linux community and are driven by all of its members and associates, to accelerate the adoption of Linux.

Q: How would you describe the working relationships between OSDL and Open Source Initiative (OSI), Free Standards Group (FSG) and Free Software Foundation (FSF) respectively?

SC: OSDL works with other industry organizations to help meet its mission to accelerate the adoption of Linux in the enterprise. OSDL has close working relationships with the OSI to address license proliferation; with FSG to advance the Linux Standard Base; and with the FSF to collaborate on community issues and advance the GPL.

Q: What are the gaps that still challenge Linux in achieving the goals of each of the three working groups sponsored by OSDL: carrier grade, data center and desktop Linux?

SC: Currently, no truly large gaps exist. IDC’s Linux market forecasts show us that Linux adoption keeps rising and it is penetrating in every vertical.