The Linux Foundation, which is dedicated to the development and propagation of the popular open-source operating system, recently announced the addition of new members. This move comes a few days after the development of the latest Linux kernel series is announced, as Linux consolidates its stronghold across the world – including Africa.
The Linux Foundation Adds 26 New Members
On May 23, 2018, the Linux Foundation announced that 22 Silver members and another 4 Associate members would join its ranks. The Foundation members share in the technology and pool resources in order to contribute to the development of Linux projects, while they benefit from using the network to support their own innovation. Members range from major tech players like Microsoft and Samsung to a diverse spectrum of niche providers like Facebook, eBay and Comcast. The Foundation supports numerous projects, focusing on cloud environments, cybersecurity, networks as well as deep learning, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Meet the newest Silver and Associate members of @linuxfoundation, who have committed to supporting the open source community: https://t.co/cOLgwCDWx5 pic.twitter.com/2MaktJvM4W
— The Linux Foundation (@linuxfoundation) May 24, 2018
The new Silver members include companies like ACTIA Group, active in the field of electronics for the automobile and telecom industries, Equinox International, an infrastructure tech enterprise based across the Middle East and Africa, and BMW Car IT GmbH, which focuses on software design for the BMW automotive group, including open-source software and projects. New associate members include non-profit and government agencies like [email protected], a blockchain focused organization run by UC Berkeley students and staff, and the Polish Ministry of Digital Affairs. The new members join numerous others with the aim of building a far-reaching open source community around projects, shared resources, events and exchange of training.
Linux Popularity Grows Across the World
The news that the Linux Foundation continues expanding comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the history of the popular family of open-source OS developed around the Linux kernel that was created by Linus Torvald in 1991. Linux has come a long way since then; today, many major hardware and software companies like Lenovo configure their computers and servers to use Linux distributions, while many widely used specialized tools run on Linux as well as Solaris and FreeBSD. One example is HAProxy, an open-source load balancing server software that is used to allocate workload across servers in order to achieve optimal results on servers and websites. Torvald recently announced the release of the latest Linux 4.17 kernel for GNU/Linux distributions, which will change over 13,500 files, marking almost 630,000 insertions and more than 800,000 deletions in the Linux code.
Linux has strong ties with the African continent as well, as Ubuntu, one of the most popular Linux distributions, takes its name from the Southern African ubuntu philosophy, which alludes to our shared humanity. The South African developer community shows a keen interest in Linux and a relevant conference is set to take place on October 8, 2018 in Johannesburg. LinuxConf will be a one-day event that aims to bring together the open-source and Linux community in SA and beyond, focusing on the Linux kernel and distributions as well as system administration, networks and open-source applications.
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As Linux continues to grow in popularity, events like LinuxConf may prove pivotal in positioning African countries and developers at the forefront of open-source collaboration networks.
