Linux Foundation chief talks about Torvalds’ leadership, HTML5 and mobile’s future

As the executive director of the Linux Foundation, Jim Zemlin is frequently asked to forecast the future of the IT industry. While he’s happy to do so, he’s the first to admit that he could be wrong. He joked in his opening remarks at LinuxCon 2011 held recently in Vancouver, British Columbia, that he has been wrongly predicting the Year of the Linux Desktop for many years now. He doesn’t need to know the future, he says, because open source projects don’t need a master plan.

MORE: Linux Foundation chief: ‘You are an idiot if you don’t’ contribute back to open source

During LinuxCon in Vancouver, Zemlin sat down with Network World editors Julie Bort and Jon Brodkin to discuss this concept. He explained why Linux’s success is different from other operating systems; why its ability to capture the desktop might never matter; that MeeGo may not be as dead as it looks and that the next big thing is HTML5. Here is an edited transcript of the interview.

Linux is celebrating its 20th anniversary. What’s changed for the Linux Foundation since the early days?

I’ve been with the foundation almost eight years. One thing hasn’t changed: I still work by and large out of my home because we do everything virtually in the organization. Jenifer [Cloer] lives in Portland, Linus lives there. We have developers in Moscow, Germany, Austin, Texas. We have an office in Japan, people all over the world. So that part hasn’t changed.

Let me tell you how we decide what we do every day. You basically ask three questions. One: Is this going to help move the needle on Linux? Is this going to help grow Linux from a commercial sense, from a community sense and so forth? Two: Is there anybody else doing this? Because if there is, we don’t want to do it. Three: Can we get the resources together to actually make this happen? Bringing together members or raising money or bringing together technical members to do it. If the answer to each of those questions is yes, then we do it.

We’ve asked those questions every day over eight years, we have been a part of something that wasn’t exactly a master plan. Linux has jumped from one form of computing to another somewhat seamlessly because self forming communities pop up. You’re in high performance computing and servers and all of a sudden the embedded industry says, “We want to use this stuff.” And then the mobile guys say, “We want to use this stuff.” And what we get to do is kind of be at the front end of that and say, how can we make it happen faster? These events are an example of that. We bring together mini-summits, the KVM Summit, the Wireless Summit, the USB Summit.

It’s gotten bigger. It’s grown into different industries … but the fundamental truth of what we do is that we’re part of the world’s largest collaborative development process. The fundamentals of that — the principles of transparent governance, access to source code and equal participation of by all the members in the process — has not changed. But that has enabled all kinds of cool things to happen.

Has the type of person involved changed since the early days?

There are new people coming in from different perspectives that make it a lot more fun. The guys have mellowed a little bit. It’s not as sharp-edged.

Are there more women involved?

I wish I could say that was the case. There are more, but we need a lot more. That’s something that we do promote.

What other changes have you noticed between the early days and now?

It’s gotten a lot more serious. Linus and the others as they were releasing the kernel 20 years ago, they would affect a small group of people who were maybe hacking online. Today, when they make decisions it is something that can impact thousands of systems worldwide. That doesn’t necessarily change how people develop, but I think it drives everyone to think harder and have a greater sense of responsibility of how the world has changed. The good news is that these guys are the best at what they do. Linux started from just Linus and a few people to attracting the Rembrandts and Picassos of the software world — the finest artists of their craft. That they get together and work together and release a new kernel every three months is incredible.

Do you remember a big aha! moment when you were realized how big Linux would be?

I have a lot of them. When IBM decided to jump in that was a huge moment; when Oracle released their database that was a huge moment; when the NYSE and the Toyko stock exchange chose Linux that was a huge moment. When I fired up a Linux desktop and didn’t need to drop into the command line for the first time — that was a pretty big aha! moment. When I used the first cellphone from Motorola that was an aha! back in the early 2000s [the Motorola A760], and when I used Android for the first time.

Here was an interesting aha! moment for me based on my career. I worked at a startup called Corio, an ASP. We went public in the summer of 2000. After Corio went public, I thought I was retired but it turned out I had to work again. I went to work at an open source company called Covalent Technologies. What I realized is at Corio the No. 1 risk statement in our S-1 was that we don’t own the software we host. We were hosting Peoplesoft, SAP, things like that. If we had built our own software on open source and hosted our own stuff on Linux, our margins would have been better, we would have had no IP issues. It was just like, aha! If the industry is moving toward a service-based economy — things like Salesforce.com and services like Google’s Adsense — it’s a slam dunk for open source. Technically it’s good, but more importantly, the licensing enables that business model, where Windows and Unix do not. Google could not be the company it is today if they had written Google Search on .Net. I had come from that hosted software background and it is clear that open source is going to be a central component of that.

So the soft spot in all of Linux’s good news is Linux on the desktop —

I acknowledge that …

But why is this important? Does Linux need to be a market leader on the desktop?

There is an argument you can make the desktop doesn’t matter anymore. The fact is that the desktop is diminishing in its relevance as things like smartphones and connected televisions and in-vehicle infotainment grow. People are accessing the Internet in different forms than the traditional desktop and Web browser. If I look at the history of computing though, operating system software goes in these big waves. Unix goes up with mainframes and mini-mainframes — they totally miss the PC revolution. Microsoft totally hits it and they have their run. The reason that previous operating systems have missed those waves of change is that they were generally command/control. For as smart as those Microsoft guys are, they can’t predict the future so they miss it, same as the Unix guys.

Linux, because it has these self-forming communities, hits it. Nobody is predicting and trying to shift course, it just naturally happens. It’s this organic movement.

So Linux has gone from server to HPC, to embedded devices to mobile devices and there’s a clear and compelling desktop use case for Linux and very competitive Linux desktops out there from a functional perspective. What needs to happen is that waves need to grow slowly and change slowly and have a world where the devices are different and that causes change. Maybe it’s a world where the device is different and that causes people to go to Linux and maybe [when it comes to] Windows, no one cares about it anymore. Or maybe everyone is accessing just through a Web browser and Chrome is the desktop du jour. The Google Chromebook is a great idea — it’s too expensive, what is it, $500? At $100 I think it makes a ton of sense. I think you’ll see that [price point], by the way.

Who knows, maybe that will be the future desktop and I would be completely remiss if I didn’t predict the Year of the Desktop every single year.

So the desktop is important because Windows on the desktop is what’s allowing Microsoft to keep its chokehold (and cause trouble with Android patent licenses and threats of lawsuits)?

Note in their last earnings call Microsoft said Windows on the desktop sales declined 2% year-over-year. Where they make all of their money is Microsoft Office and Xbox. The bitter reality for Microsoft is that the reason Windows has been so strong is that everybody has been developing applications for the Windows APIs. These days developers are probably writing HTML apps or they are writing apps for Android or iOS. I can tell you this because my brother is a developer for a gaming company and I can tell you they ain’t working on Windows games — no money. They work on Apple games and they work on HTML5 apps.

I think HTML5 will be a big part of the future because — and this is one of the things I didn’t predict correctly — I never thought that client/server apps would have the resurgence that they have had. I never would have predicted the Apple phenomena of C applications running on all sorts of devices. Programmers are rushing back to learn Objective C. Even Android apps — most of the games are written in NDK. The client/server [popularity] I didn’t see because at Corio, client/server sucked. Our big problem was maintaining the client/server apps. You had to maintain every client on everybody’s desktop. You had to patch the security — it was really expensive and hard to maintain. So when you see these things like Salesforce.com and all these second-generation hosted software companies, they are all Web apps because they are all multi-tenant, easy to maintain, they scale. It’s so much better.

As HTML becomes more functional, as more tools become available for HTML5, I think you’ll see more apps, particularly enterprise apps that people will be using on an Android or iPhone. I think you’ll see a lot more HTML5 and a decline, aside from gaming, in C apps.

Do you think enterprise IT folks are a help or a hindrance in open source software adoption?

They are a help. There is the classic stalwart on Sun Solaris who thinks, “My career is made on Solaris,” and they are not willing to move to Linux. I think we saw that, particularly about five years ago. I remember I said something about Jonathan Schwartz that was inappropriate, about new features in Solaris … [The quote was: ‘That’s literally like noticing the view from a third-story building as it burns to the ground‘]. I got flamed by Solaris guys. We were worried, all this hate mail was coming in, it was crazy. But IT ops in general are pretty friendly to Linux.

With HTML5, IT guys are going to be our best friends because with client/server, the method of deploying applications — that sucks. So HTML5 for IT operations is obviously desirable.

There’s been some controversy that some companies, particularly software makers, use more open source than they contribute back to. From your point of view, do you see the big Linux distro makers giving back equally either in code contributions or financially?

It doesn’t matter. I don’t care if anyone contributes back. I used to think that [it was important]. I used to say, “You’ve got to contribute back because it’s the right thing to do.” It’s not the right thing to do because of some moral issue or because we say you should do it. It’s because you are an idiot if you don’t. You’re not an idiot because you are making some moral judgment or that you are taking but not giving back. You’re an idiot because the whole reason you’re using open source is to collectively share in development and collectively maintain the software. Let me tell you, maintaining your own version of Linux ain’t cheap, and it ain’t easy and so look at all the distributions. Red Hat gives a ton back — a ton — and they are really the most successful Linux distro out there. So if some aren’t giving back as much as others today, I just think it will naturally happen over time. It always is in their business interest to do so. And you know, some companies aren’t as big as others and maybe they just don’t have the resources. They’ll get them, they’ll get there.

Canonical argues that their contribution is the popularizing of Linux.

Absolutely. And I assure you, Canonical, as they grow, they’ll get there because it is in their business interests to do so. Just to be clear, Canonical staff, engineers, management are not idiots. They get open source well and as they grow, I think it will be in their business interests to give back. I don’t keep track of it. I don’t think it’s that important.

There’s also this concern that there’s too much depending on Linus. Who’s the vice president of Linux? What happens if Torvalds gets tired, sick or wants to retire?

The reality is that the ingredients that make these projects successful are a good collaborative model and the Internet, the ability to work on this stuff over a medium that makes collaboration easy. But that doesn’t diminish the need for dynamic and charismatic leadership. It’s clear that Linus is a unique individual that provides for a very effective role of shepherding.

So technologically Linux would be OK, but …

You’ve got these 100 guys that are at the Linux kernel summit every year — the best programmers in the world. They, over 20 years, have formed a trust relationship among themselves and continue to expand those trust relationships as people come in. I suspect the relationship they have set up is somewhat resilient, even without Linus.

Because Linus trusts Andrew Morton, to answer your question about the vice president, it would be Andrew Morton. Andrew has one of the toughest jobs in Linux. He’s the guy responsible for the development tree.

So he’s above Greg Kroah-Hartman?

I don’t think he’s above anybody else but people look to Andrew for that dev tree that Linus maintains. If we had to pick a VP it would be Andrew.

Would Linux without Linus be better off than Apple without Steve Jobs?

Unquestionably. Regardless of the hierarchy in Linux, there’s a clear, collaborative spirit and structure. There’s much more of a democratic nature than might exist at Apple, even though there has to be someone at the end of the day that makes a call. But I’m going to read this new book, coming out in November — the first authorized biography [“Steve Jobs: A Biography”]. We’ll see. Does the command and control versus the decentralized development work better or worse? History will be the judge and I don’t know.

By the way, the first rule of providing interviews as the executive director of Linux Foundation is that it’s tough to criticize Apple. They are kicking ass and they are kind of our friends because Apple did something for Linux that was really good in that they have clearly shown that the desktop doesn’t matter. Microsoft’s stalwart position didn’t matter as much anymore and that has really enabled a lot. They showed that there are alternative ways of accessing information and they have definitely been breaking ground on this move toward streaming videos and music. Android is a result of that and it’s all Linux.

What’s up with MeeGo? Intel is still talking it up and there’s been mention of it by speakers at LinuxCon …

Here’s how we look at MeeGo. A lot of hardcore engineering goes on in the MeeGo community, there is no doubt about that. A lot of random stuff goes on there, too, I’m not going to sugarcoat it. But those guys contribute those patches to the mainstream project from which it originated and it is hard, meaningful code that is going to benefit Android and everybody else. So why wouldn’t I support that? I’d be nuts not to support MeeGo because whatever becomes of MeeGo, whether it’s a commercial success or not, there is no doubt in my mind that Linux is better because of it.

In terms of where it’s at, I’ll tell you, we get a lot of calls about MeeGo from the automotive industry, from set-top boxes, from different folks who want to use that platform. I think, things come and go. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but we’ve got to keep trying. However it manifests itself, Intel’s investment results in a lot of upstream projects working very well on their architecture. I don’t think that’s a loss.

So are you saying that you are still getting an increasing amount of interest in MeeGo? Interest has to have stalled after Nokia backed away.

I’m not going to lie to you. The Nokia thing sucked. Let’s track the Nokia stock price since the announcement.

Well, Nokia wasn’t doing great before that —

So, the question is, did it matter? Did either path, when you look at Nokia and the MeeGo decision versus Windows Phone 7, did it matter? So the N9 came out and it’s gotten great reviews. So if MeeGo was good, why did Nokia go to Microsoft? But if it was bad, what has it been doing? It’s been four years since the iPhone came out.

Android is still in the hands of Google, which is a mixed bag, at best, and webOS is more dead than MeeGo. Which still leaves this question of whether a collaborative Linux mobile platform will ever make it.

People, in particularly folks that are competitive to Android — they don’t hate the fact that Android is Linux based. They don’t like hypocrisy of saying that it’s open if it’s not. Whether or not people get the source code at the same time isn’t a big deal for me. But they do walk the talk. They do give it away. When they give it away, yeah, you can call them hypocrites or whatever. But they do eventually, it comes out and you can’t say that’s not meaningful.

There is criticism about Google’s learning curve, and being slow to send patches upstream …

So what? Everybody has that. Barnes and Noble didn’t ask Google permission to build their Nook. They were provided with source code that Google provided to anyone and they went and built a very compelling product with it for free. I think they come through and release the source code. Timing to me is somewhat academic.

As for MeeGo’s [success as an alternative to Android], it’s so hard to predict the future of these projects. The ingredients are there. I’ll be honest in the interest I see in the project. RIM hasn’t come over and said we’re going to change to MeeGo, but new companies do come and participate in the project.

Is Android really Linux? Or is it just something that has Linux running underneath?

That’s Linux to me. Come on guys, I get that people are interested in controversy within the Linux world —

Actually my concern is the patents. Most of the patent issues are with Android — and the Java stuff inside of it. If it’s Linux, can Android’s IP problems be transferred to it?

So there is a core definition of Linux from a patent perspective. It is the Open Invention Network’s definition and it’s a patent no-fly zone. I promise that will get bigger because this patent stuff is out of control.

Should users still be worried about using Linux?

I don’t think so. I’ve heard this before. I know how the movie ends and we do just fine.