Linux Foundation to merge with Consumer Electronics Linux Forum

The Linux Foundation has announced that it and the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF) will be merged. Established in 2003 by eight major electronics companies, including Panasonic, Sony, Hitachi, Samsung, Sharp and Toshiba, the CE Linux Forum is an international open source software development community of software engineers dedicated to the development and enhancement of Linux-based embedded devices through shared knowledge.

According to the Linux Foundation, the CE Linux Forum will become a new foundation work group, focusing on expanding the non-profit organisation's technical work on embedded Linux. The two organisations, which have previously co-located technical events, say that, by combining resources, they can "more efficiently enable the adoption of Linux in the Consumer Electronics (CE) industry". The Linux Foundation will take over the CELF's technical events and web infrastructure. CELF Members who are not already members of the Linux Foundation can be grandfathered in at the Silver membership level.

Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin says that the "CELF has done a good job of stewarding the consumer electronics industry through this period of rapid adoption of Linux," noting that, "By combining their technical work with our broader reach and existing staff and programs, we should be able to foster tighter collaboration between industry and the Linux developer community as well as take Linux to even more devices and more use".

Additionally, as part of the new embedded work group, the Linux Foundation announced the launch of a new project. The Yocto Project will "provide open source, high quality tools to help companies make custom Linux-based systems for embedded products, regardless of hardware architecture". The open source collaboration project has already launched version 0.9 with an initial version of common build tools and, as it is completely open, anyone can join in its development.

The Linux Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the task of promoting the growth of Linux. Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, is himself sponsored by the foundation.

See also:

• Linux Foundation and Consumer Electronics Linux Forum to Merge, press release from The Linux Foundation.
• New Linux Foundation survey shows significant gains for enterprise Linux, a report from The H.

(crve)