Red Hat veterans to launch new Linux company

A new, hot Linux start-up? Is this 2004 or 1999?

Don’t adjust your PC date/time settings. Based out of San Jose, the new Linux company is called Specifix and is led by two Red Hat veterans, Kim Knuttila and Erik Troan. Specifix’ aim is to create a template-style Linux distribution that can be beefed up or scaled down to run on a variety of platforms.

Specifix is expected to release a Linux version by year-end, along with a tool called Conary, which is a code-writing management system. Conary is intended to let enterprise users modify Linux code in the core Specifix code base and track the changes. This could help enterprises manage and maintain a unified Linux code across all the platforms in use, from PDAs and desktops, to servers and mainframes.

Specifix this week plans to release a beta version of Conary to developers. The software is licensed under IBM’s open source Common Public License.

The co-founders of Specifix bring several years of high-level Linux experience and strategy with them from Red Hat. Specifix CEO Knuttila was previously vice president of engineering services, and was the manager of Red Hat’s Cygnus unit, which developed embedded software development tools. Troan, who is executive vice president of operating systems at Specifix, was previously chief development officer and vice president of product engineering at Red Hat.

Next: Another Linux start-up just launched: Open Country, Inc., (yes, it is really 2004).