By Russell Shaw -
"Changing the main branch of the [Linux] kernel should be hard," says Laura Koetzle of Forrester Research. "Other developers need to review and sign off on kernel changes for both technical merit and open-source license compliance, so that everyone can feel comfortable upgrading."
In theory, the open-source concept is simple, elegant, almost utopian: thousands of developers contributing their skills to continually improve and refine a piece of software for the common good.
Yet, in recently months, the Open Source Development Lab (ODSL), a nonprofit consortium that oversees Linux development, has imposed new policies that -- at first glance, anyway -- seem at odds with the very notion of "open."
In May, OSDL issued a policy clarification that tightened up the procedure for making changes to the Linux kernel. Under the revised kernel submission process, contributions to the Linux kernel are accepted only from individuals who agree to make the contribution under an appropriate open source license. This formal agreement, termed the "Developer's Certificate of Origin" (DCO), will help track Linux kernel contributions and contributors, ODSL says.
Earlier this month, the OSDL again raised the bar on Linux kernel submissions when it upgraded the Scalable Test Platform, one of its Linux kernel-development tools. The platform includes a series of test suites that can mirror the effects of different workloads on several open-source databases, while tracking performance and stability.
Yet, far from being a threat to the spirit of open source, these are necessary to prepare Linux to compete effectively against commercial operating systems.
What is changing is "not so much the open-source spirit, but more the new realities of competing in a commercial world," George Weiss, vice president and research director at Gartner, told NewsFactor. As users deploy more complex and mission-critical systems on Linux, they need to go through the same rigorous testing and integration process that they do for any other OS stack, he says.
Covering Assets?
The DCO submission process will help secure Linux developers against intellectual-property infringement controversies, Weiss pointed out.
"Just as the credo of OSS gurus proclaims the shallow bug-discovery assets of OSS and Linux, the community needs to deal with the potential IP-infringement issues," Weiss said, "and how to protect the user from becoming a party to litigation on copyright and patent infringement suits."
The impetus for the tightened DCO submission process comes from the recent legal controversies involving the SCO Group, according to Dan Kusnetzky, program vice president, system software at IDC. "The SCO Group and its actions have made it clear that the open-source community must be extremely careful about intellectual property," he said.
The tightened standards are for the best interests of all, agrees Bill Weinberg, open source architecture specialist at OSDL.
"The open nature of Linux continues to be one of its greatest attributes. The DCO submission process in no way impugns that strength -- it only serves to ground and clarify IP attribution in a standard way," Weiss told NewsFactor. "The OSS submission process has always been extremely rigorous -- the DCO only standardized that rigor."
Smells Like Team Spirit?
Rather than serve as a brake on creativity, the DCO process simplifies the steps for users -- and those who deploy open-source software -- to connect any piece of code to its creators, Weiss added, thereby protecting developers and users from spurious claims.
There is also a belief that any degree of difficulty in making major changes to Linux will result in improved system stability, competitiveness and license compliance.
"Changing the main branch of the kernel should be hard," agrees Laura Koetzle, principal analyst, computing and security, at Forrester Research. "Other developers, who know the kernel inside and out, need to review and sign off on kernel changes for both technical merit and open-source license compliance, so that everyone can feel comfortable upgrading."
Source: CIO Today
