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Linux kernel maintainer allays fears about forking

Daniel Fleshbourne   on 07 August 2007 - 17:25 · 3 comments & 2347 views

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Making separate but critical points about the path of the Linux kernel, the maintainer of the kernel on Monday stressed there is no need to worry about forking and not to expect a move to the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 3. Speaking at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, Andrew Morton, who maintains the Linux 2.6 kernel for the Linux Foundation, also was critical of Sun Microsystems. Sun, he said, has fragmented the non-Windows operating system world with OpenSolaris, which is an open source version of Solaris that rivals Linux.

Acknowledging that fears of forking arise from time to time, Morton he said he did not think it was possible for it to happen, because no one organization contributes enough to the kernel to enable a forking. The level of contributions determines how much a contributor controls. With a forking, separate lines of the kernel would emerge, which could cause fragmentation and cripple standardization in the platform. "This is my little attempt to dispel those rumors. I don't see any way in which [forking] could happen," said Morton.

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News source: InfoWorld

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(1 reply) #1 Budious on 07 Aug 2007 - 18:30
Don't know why he would be worried about OpenSolaris, the driver support severely cripples any mass migration to Solaris. OpenSolaris is more popular among the BSD fanatics than the average Linux user and as far as I'm concerned, the more non-Microsoft options the better.
#1.1 boho on 08 Aug 2007 - 15:34
Quote - (Budious said @ #1)
as I'm concerned, the more non-Microsoft options the better.


Unfortunately that's part of the problem, so long as there are plenty of
alternatives, squabbling amongst themselves, Microsoft will stay
dominant.

Though Microsoft's new program, going around insisting small companies
(250 employees) do complete audit of their systems should up their
unpopularity somewhat. If you don't respond, they threaten the bully boys... Be warned!
#2 Tom Servo on 08 Aug 2007 - 18:43
"Wah wah wah, open source is all about alternatives, freedom of choice, etc blah blah... JUST STAY THE !#$@ OFF OUR TURF!"

Screw you, Morton.

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