OSDL and Linux Kernel Maintainer Join Forces

Andrew Morton and premier Linux advocacy organization enter unique sponsorship agreement

BEAVERTON, OR, July 1, 2003 -- OSDL, a global consortium of leading technology companies dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux, today announced that Linux kernel maintainer Andrew Morton has joined forces with the lab and will be focused exclusively on the 2.6 kernel during its maintenance cycle.

Under terms of the agreement between Digeo and OSDL, OSDL will support Morton's Linux kernel development work while he continues in his official role as principal engineer at Digeo, Inc. Digeo is a leading provider of media center products and interactive television services. The sponsorship frees Morton to dedicate himself to his new role as the lead maintainer of the Linux production kernel while Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, maintains the development kernel.

"It's great that both Andrew and I can work full-time on Linux through OSDL. Now the maintainers of both the development kernel and the stable kernel have the support of a vendor-neutral organization committed to advancing Linux", said Torvalds, the creator of Linux.

"With deep roots in the Linux development community and the backing of the industry's leaders, OSDL is in the best position to support the work of exceptional engineers like Andrew," said Stuart Cohen, CEO of OSDL. "This will allow OSDL to become a leading contributor to the Linux development community as well giving us a great technical resource for accelerating the use of Linux."

"I'm pleased and honored to have the support of OSDL for the work we do on Linux," Morton said. "I look forward to dedicating full time to working with all of the contributors, projects and companies that make Linux strong."

As lead maintainer of the Linux production kernel, Morton works closely with Torvalds, the various kernel subsystem maintainers, Linux distributions, hardware vendors and other key parties to ensure that the production kernel meets their needs. Morton is responsible for ensuring that the production kernel is stable and offers good performance. He is the final arbiter over technical and business issues for the inclusion of patches into the production kernel.

Morton has 20 years of development and engineering management experience. Currently principal engineer at Digeo, Morton is a senior architect in the company's Linux efforts, a key software component of its soon to be released Moxi? Media Center.

"For Digeo and OSDL this is a win-win situation," said Mark Himelstein, Senior Vice-President of Software at Digeo. "Digeo is using Linux to drive next generation media centers for the home. Andrew's participation ensures Digeo and the community a high quality release we can rely on."

Morton was previously a software engineer and product development manager at Nortel Networks. Prior to that, he was managing director of an Australia-based personal computing company. He holds an honors degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of New South Wales.

Digeo and Moxi are trademarks of Digeo, Inc