Open Source Development Labs


Open Source Development Labs was a non-profit organization supported by a global consortium tasked to "accelerate the deployment of Linux for enterprise computing." Founded in 2000, its goals included "to be the recognized center-of-gravity for the Linux industry." OSDL positioned itself as the "industry's first independent, non-profit lab for developers who are adding enterprise capabilities to Linux." The headquarters was first incorporated in San Francisco but later relocated to Beaverton in Oregon with second facility in Yokohama, Japan.
On January 22, 2007, OSDL and the Free Standards Group merged to form the Linux Foundation, narrowing their respective focuses to that of promoting Linux.

Activities

OSDL sponsored key industry projects, including industry initiatives to enhance Linux for use in corporate data centres, in telecommunications networks, and on desktop computers. It also:
Its employees included Linus Torvalds, the first OSDL fellow, and Bryce Harrington. In 2005, Andrew "Tridge" Tridgell was the for a year.
It had data centers in Beaverton and Yokohama.
OSDL had investment backers that included: 7 funders of Computer Associates, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Ltd., Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel Corporation, Nippon Electric Corporation, as well as a large collection of independent software vendors, end-user companies and educational institutions. A steering committee composed of representatives from the investment backers directed OSDL, which also had a significant staff of its own.

Working groups

OSDL had established four Working Groups since 2002: