OSDL to develop a legal framework for Linux

NEW DELHI: Nonprofit organization Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) has recently announced a staff cut by signing off nine employees in the technical and administrative roles.

In another major development OSDL’s CEO Stuart Cohen has also moved out for better opportunities with open-source software. Stuart’s role has been taken over by Mike Temple.

OSDL was founded in 2000 by the creator of Linux kernel, Linus Torvalds and has since then been dedicated to the cause of accelerating the growth and adoption of Linux-based operating systems in the enterprise.

With Linux getting into the mainstream and more and more enterprises willing to experiment with the open source operating system, OSDL wants to move ahead with a new mission of addressing legal issues attached with Linux.

OSDL is funded by IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Novell, Intel and other computing companies and has offices in China, Europe, Japan and the United States. It provides state-of-the-art computing and test facilities to developers around the world.

OSDL plans to get legal experts on contract or hire a staff attorney to address the legalities attached with Linux, informed Mike.

According to Mike, OSDL will continue to be the ‘catalyst’ between customers, software vendors and developers and take necessary steps to bring them all together to ‘solve problems and create the code’.

Engineering and research work at OSDL will focus more on fresh areas for which software needs to written. 

Industry experts have welcomed OSDL’s move and feel that there is an imperative need for a reliable legal framework for Linux, which can be used without getting into copyright and patent issues.

CIOL Bureau