Q&A with Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation

“Today marks the start of the fourth annual Linux Foundation
Collaboration Summit, which is “an exclusive, invitation-only
summit gathering core kernel developers, distribution maintainers,
ISVs, end users, system vendors and other community organizations
for plenary sessions and workgroup meetings to meet face-to-face to
tackle and solve the most pressing issues facing Linux
today.” All the names you’d normally expect at a Linux
event are going to be there — IBM, Google, Hewlett Packard
— along with companies jumping on the MeeGo bandwagon —
Nokia, Intel, and more. The agenda lists some interesting topics,
but the Summit itself raised a number of questions for me. I
exchanged emails with Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux
Foundation, about the Summit, and the state of Linux in
general.

“CG: As Linux gets more “productized” in the
mainstream, where is the sense of community that was such a
fundamental part of early Linux success? Everywhere we look we see
more and more people using Linux for their embedded solutions, but
fewer and fewer people seem to be actively engaging with the open
source development communities. There are exceptions (the folks at
PogoPlug, for example, seem to be doing a good job cultivating a
community with their user enthusiasts), but I think the bulk of
Linux deployment is following the Google model: use it for hosted
solutions, and only share a tiny fraction of your
customizations.”

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