Linux kernel developer Ted Ts'o will join the Linux Foundation for two years as fellow and chief platform strategist. There, Ts'o plans on extending the LSB (Linux Standard Base) with the aim of making it easier for ISVs (independent software vendors) to target multiple Linux distributions.

“I will primarily be focused on taking the Linux Standard Base to the next level,” Ts'o said. “My intent is that, at the end of the two years, to provide enough value to ISVs that we have a large number of ISVs shipping LSB-compliant and LSB-certified applications as their method of supporting multiple Linux distributions with a single product release.”

“We couldn't be more thrilled to see Ted join the LF,” said Jim Zemlin, the Linux Foundation's executive director, in a statement.

The Linux Foundation was founded in January 2007 to promote and standardize the Linux open-source operating system. It was created after two other Linux consortiums, Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group, merged. “There are very few people in the world with the unique background and breath of experience that Ted holds in both Linux and enterprise computing,” Zemlin added.

Ts'o's accomplishments are renowned in the open-source community: He was the first North American kernel developer and in August 1991 set up the first FTP service between Finland and the United States. “Back then, you only had a very slow [64K-bps], restricted bandwidth link between the U.S. and Europe,” Ts'o said. “So I set up a mirror site at MIT, just so that folks in the U.S. could get access to the kernel sources quickly.”

More recent work includes being the chair of the IP (Internet Protocol) Security working group for the Internet Engineering Task Force, the standards body for the Internet; creator and organizer of the Annual Linux Kernel Summit; and technical lead for the MIT Kerberos v5 development team. He also won the 2006 Award for the Advancement of Free Software, which is bestowed by the Free Software Foundation.

Although the Linux Foundation is based in San Francisco and Tokyo, Ts'o said he will be working from home in Medford, Mass. “The Linux Foundation is a very decentralized organization, with Jim Zemlin living in San Francisco, Linus Torvalds living in Portland, and others living in Indiana, Germany and other places all over the world,” he said. “We're very good at using e-mail, IRC and teleconferences to work together.”

Ts'o had been serving as IBM's Real-Time Linux architect, where he led a team to add deterministic response time to an enterprise Linux system. He will have another assignment with IBM when he returns after his two years with the Linux Foundation.

–Carol Pinchefsky

 
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