Linux development discussed at Oracle OpenWorld panel

Intel readying Linux user community program

By Robert McMillan, LinuxWorld

November 10, 1998 -- Linux's days as upstart younger brother to the old guard commercial Unixes are over. That was the word at an Oracle OpenWorld Linux discussion panel today in San Francisco.

According to Linux creator Linus Torvalds, his development team is no longer playing catch-up with the major commercial Unixes.

In fact he added, it is time to look the Linux development effort to look more fertile development ground. "I'm no longer looking at the Unix market when I'm looking for competitors," he said, adding that when looking for new features to add to the free OS, he is looking more to Microsoft than to high-end Unixes like Solaris or Digital Unix. "I've been much more focused on the Windows NT and 98 target group as a market," he said.

Without mentioning specifics, Torvalds said he'd rather concentrate on making Linux more useful to "normal people" than adding high-end features -- like 64-128 processor NUMA scalability into Linux. "I expect that Linux will eventually have one of those NUMA versions," he said, "but I also expect it to be about five years [from now]."

Intel preparing user community program
Linux development is also on Intel's mind these days. Another speaker at the OpenWorld panel was Intel Linux Program Manager Ken Shand who said his company will begin to roll out a Linux "user community" program in 1999.

Shand said that many specific details of this development initiative have yet to be decided adding only that, at this point, Intel is identifying the key Intel Architecture features that Linux should support, and making contact with the developers who will work on them.

With the much-anticipated 2.2 release of the Linux kernel expected by year's end, Shand said that 8-way SMP Intel machines should be "out" in early 1999.

Torvalds himself said that he expects 2.2 to be released around Christmas time.

After the panel, Torvalds joked about reports that Microsoft had offered key Linux developer Alan Cox a job in Redmond, WA. When asked if the job offer might be part of some nefarious plot to derail the Linux development effort, Torvalds replied, "It might just have been that even Microsoft sees the light and knows that somebody is a good developer."

He added that he couldn't blame Microsoft for trying to recruit talent. "If DOS had been better in the first place, I might not have started this."

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