Jim Zemlin speaks
Jim Zemlin is executive director of the Linux Foundation.
There, he heads up the non-profit group’s efforts to push new standards and bring cohesion to the Linux ecosystem. Since its creation, the Linux Foundation has led the charge towards fixing some of Linux’s classic problems, such as a lack of drivers for Windows-specific hardware, and the ever-present printing problems. We sat down with Zemlin in September to chat about the future of Linux and the problems presented by different distributions with different ideas of what makes Linux Linux.
How can Linux fragmentation be eliminated?
The great thing about Linux is that anyone can call any kernel-derived OS Linux. The tough thing about Linux is that anyone can call any kernel-derived OS Linux. It’s both a positive and negative at the same time; it’s very easy to argue both sides of that, both from the benefit side and the negative side. While that’s an easy thing to discuss, I think the challenge is finding a solid balance in terms of meeting user requirements: requirements to have consistency to participate in the benefit of network effects of having a very broad install base versus a very fragmented install base.
When you look at how to perform that balance, it’s important to look at the different segments of the marketplace where these users exist. The attributes of those markets are different and the requirements vary greatly between those segments.
In the consumer electronics world, you look at use-case-specific consumer electronic devices. In that case, fragmentation is most problematic for people implementing at the kernel level and device level. For a TV set or a simple toy camera, there isn’t necessarily a requirement for a large third-party ISV ecosystem. The requirement for those products is to provide a rich software experience. From the vendor side the requirement is to reduce overall cost. The way they do that is by sharing in the research, development and support of the core component there, which is the Linux kernel. As more consumer electronics companies increasingly use Linux, they’re beginning to realise that working with the main kernel community and getting support into the mainstream kernel provides the benefits they need in that market.
One example of a company that sees it’s important to participate in the upstream Linux is Microsoft. They participated to make sure support for their products goes upstream. In that world, fragmentation is being addressed.
The Linux Foundation, in that world, provides a role in educating consumer electronics vendors on how to participate in the Linux kernel development process and how to get their device supported in that world. I’ll be in Korea and Japan next week to educate people there on the benefits of this very participation. We’ve been swimmingly successful in bringing people into these efforts. The community has been excellent at getting that support.
In the mobile platform space or consumer electronics space, you need a third-party ISV ecosystem – mobile phones, set-top boxes, mobile internet tablets and so forth. This market requires a higher degree of consistency at a higher level of the stack. It does require the previous level’s consistencies. All the driver support and unified kernel development is needed to enable that particular component of the market.
When you look at that market, you have efforts such as the Google Android platform, the Palm Pre platform, the LiMo Foundation, the Moblin platform and a few others that are really in that space. Across each of those efforts, everyone by and large agrees upon the Linux kernel. At that layer that issue of fragmentation is being roughly solved. I think there’s always improvement that can be done there. I think that as the industry uses more and more Linux, they’re going to participate more in the upstream. You see this in the report of ‘Who’s Writing Linux?’. You see companies like Nokia moving up in that list, and that indicates a broader trend of participation with the user base. At the API level, what degree of consistency do they want to ensure benefits equivalent to their rivals in the closed source world, like the iPhone, or Windows Mobile, or the RIM BlackBerry application APIs.
Really in those efforts, you see fault lines across the various efforts, with LiMo probably being the least consistent. I don’t think they strive to have an application layer compatibility story, like Android’s Google Marketplace. The Palm Pre is a WebKit-based application API provided through Palm’s platform. Moblin has its consistency derived from the Linux Standard Base Project, which is hosted at the Linux Foundation and includes a common set of components, like GCC and X Windows. That market, in order for it to take off, requires a higher degree of consistency. Either a federated approach or a ‘go it on your own’ approach. I don’t know which one will shape up as the winner. I feel Moblin and Android will win with the federated approach. We’ll see if Palm is able to create a compelling ecosystem on their own. All those efforts are happening at the API level.
[...] Dave Harfield interviews Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. [...]
I’ll get more excited about the overly-corporate friendly Linux Foundation when they quit sucking up to Microsoft, quit being complicit in the “keep Linux inside and secret” campaign and locking up GPL code in locked-down hardware, turning Linux into a Windows support tool while ignoring Linux users who want native clients for mobile sync, remote administration of servers and networking devices, BIOS and other types of flash upgrades…oh, and when the Linux foundation includes non-corporate users in their definition of Linux users.
The most irritating thing is to get connected to a company that says we don’t support Linux.
They couldn’t support Linux if they wanted to , because every Linux distro has their own way of doing things, in etc for example every distro has a different way of naming and placing config files in etc.
Every distro has a different way of doing package updates and install, one has debs, the other has RPMs .
This is a freaking nightmare for a new user coming into linux, Oh I know, for some of you gurus if they are that Dumb let them stay in Windows. and it is some of you supposedly gurus that give new users a lecture on their grammar , instead of helping them with their Linux problem.
What we need in the Linux community is little more standardization.
@james – I’m not sure what you are suggesting. A dictator to mash all the linux distros together into one? Don’t think that will work.
BTW any company can support their product on linux if they want – all it takes is the decision to do so. Novell has done it for years, as have oracle, IBM and others. All they have to do is define what they will support.
In Novell’s case, their e-directory support folks told me back in 2003 or so “any linux that runs kernel of at least version x.y.z, and has a glib of at least version i.j.k” and they backed it up.
Of course, the support doesn’t have to be that broad. For instance, a small company can decide that they will support ubuntu 10.04 and that’s it, take it or leave it. But at least that tells the savvy user that it runs on linux, and the neophyte will install whatever version of linux he has to, in order for the support person to be able to follow their script.
@skeptic – I agree 100%. I don’t have any use for hidden linux, or anonymous linux, or linux as a windoze support tool. I run linux on my desktop all day every day and I don’t want to be discriminated against because I’m not running ms windoze. Platform-neutral, standards-based approaches are needed, not everyone buying into ongoing microsoft lock-in strategies.
Skeptic nails it and James perpetuates it.
I support Debian GNU/Linux. My pal supports CentOS, Fedora and Mandriva. It’s not to say I can’t install an rpm on Mandriva and he can’t install a deb on Debian.
The only challenge is the one in your head. The only speed bumps and impediments to grokking are self-imposed.
It’s no big deal.
There’s
rpm 3
rpm 4.x
deb
rpm5
All with slightly different rules.
Maybe it’s time to make stuff simpler.
And there is the: GTK/Gnome Qt/KDE split.
(Which is closing but still present.
Hopefully Xfce and others will show us the way where things should be further standardized.
The strong reliance upon an active internet connection is sometimes frustrating.
When somebody wants to put the packages on a usb-driver and install them on another computer that has no internet connection from there.
(it should be possible with Synaptic package manager, it’s called a package manager for something)
But with all these improvements, it takes time to leak too all the distributions.
Linux can still improve, but it’s moving slowly but certain.
(You aren’t there yet, go move your penguin ass!! )
Unfortunately, fragmentation is the alternative to proprietary and closed source. This applies not only in terms of distros which are seeking to somehow commercialize their offerings but also in terms of organizations that are seeking to speak for the Linux community (which is not monolithic).
Standardized technology is commodity technology which means profit margins are extremely slim. The hurdles to standardization are not technical they are economic. Companies seek differentiation from competitors in order to have a story to tell as to why they should be chosen instead of another. This differentiation is often called “value added” but in effect in many cases it is merely a way to avoid purchasers from looking at cost. After all, a bag of flour is a bag of flour, no matter what the label looks like. When was the last time you saw a commercial for flour?
Those who see the Linux Foundation as being too corporate may deduce that funding for such foundations must come from somewhere and and the need for funding often dictates positions that are taken. Look at Novell. And don’t think just because something is nonprofit and has foundation in its name that there is no specific agenda. Washington D.C. is full of think tanks with Foundation in their names and they are hardly “impartial” or seeking the best outcome for the most people.
But like everything in Linux, there are choices. The Free Software Foundation is probably about as far removed from being corporate as any group that is speaking up for Linux, yet there are those who would argue that they are too ideological and dictatorial.
Technological revolutions and political revolutions move in unanticipated directions. More often than not, the ideas espoused seep there way into consciousness over time and the revolution of the past is raised to mythic level to justify the current conditions. Often times the original ideas are watered down and co-opted by powerful groups for their own purposes.
Linux oddly enough is less of a technological revolution than a political revolution. It was the GPL that launched Linux. The combination of a unix like kernel released under the GPL was the revolution that is Linux. That revolution was against a whole legal and economic system with a bias towards powerful economic interests whose agenda in every case was to aggregate power through increased wealth.
We are already well into that stage where the ideas of the revolution will be used in ways not intended. There was a time when the availability of source code was also a practical matter and not just a legal issue. For most users of Linux this is no longer the case unless one is a developer (a very small minority of Linux users to be sure). Linux use on the corporate side has nothing to do with the ideals of openness. It’s about cost and corporate independence (not relying on a specific vendor). Whatever the outcome, the future of Linux will ultimately be dictated by corporate agendas. Standardization will be the product of corporate need to manage IT infrastructure.
Linux users on the whole are a politically rebellious group. They don’t want to follow the herd. In that sense, the community acts more like a group of political activists, an agenda is promoted towards a mass of people (average Windows users) who like regular voters barely pay attention until the last minute and seem to be easily swayed by market speak, fashion and narrow self interest.
The success of Apple suggests that just as voters are most concerned with their wallets, so computer users are most concerned with ease of use and not with whether they are “free” in their relationship to the technology they use. It’s an uphill battle and I suspect no amount of education will help. What users are somewhat concerned about is privacy and security of their data and systems. Unfortunately they are not concerned enough.
Linux may never be able to be a universal operating system that works with every piece of hardware and is as easy to use as OS X. The focus should be on Linux being like the lock on the front door of your house. You hold the key and the lock is difficult to pick. Of course with cloud computing being all the rage, it seems everybody in the neighborhood has the same lock and the master key is sitting in a drawer somewhere just waiting to be stolen.
What's your opinion?