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Title: Jim Zemlin, 'Head Janitor of Open Source,' Marks 20 Years At Linux
Foundation

Link: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/24/11/21/202...

ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols interviews Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of
The Linux Foundation and "head janitor of open source." An anonymous Slashdot
reader shares an excerpt from the article: When I first met Zemlin, he was
the head of the Free Standards Group (FSG). The FSG's main project was the
Linux Standard Base (LSB) project. The LSB's goal was to get everyone in the
Linux desktop world to agree on standards to ensure compatibility among
distributions and their applications. Oh well, some struggles are never-
ending. Another group, the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), was
simultaneously working on standardizing enterprise Linux. The two non-profits
had the same goal of making Linux more useful and popular, so they agreed to
merge. Zemlin was the natural pick to head this new group, which would be
called The Linux Foundation. At the time, he told me: "The combination of the
two groups really enables the Linux platform and all the members of the Linux
Foundation to work really effectively. I clearly understand what the
organization's charter needs to be: We need to provide services that are
useful to the community and industry, as well as protect, promote, and
continue to standardize the platform." While initially focused on Linux, the
Foundation's scope expanded significantly around 2010. Until then, the
organization had hosted about a dozen projects related to the Linux operating
system. However, as Linux gained dominance in various sectors, including high-
performance computing, automotive, embedded systems, mobile devices, and
cloud computing, the Linux Foundation started to broaden its horizons. Zemlin
says there are three words that sum up the Linux Foundation's effort to keep
open source safe and open to a new generation of developers: helpful,
hopeful, and humble. "You must be genuinely helpful to developers. We're the
janitors of open source. The Linux Foundation takes care of all the boring
but important stuff necessary to support software development so developers
can focus on code. This work includes events, project marketing, project
infrastructure, finances for projects, training and education, legal
assistance, standards, facilitation, open source evangelism, and much, much
more." He continued: "The hopeful part is really the optimistic part. When in
2007, people were saying that this would never work. When leaders of huge
companies tell everyone that you know all that you're doing is a cancer or
terrible, you have to have a sense of optimism that there are better days
ahead. You have to always be thinking, 'No, we can do it and stick with it.'"
However, Zemlin concluded that the number one trait that's "important in
working in open source is this idea of humility. I work with hundreds of
people every day, and none of them work at the Linux Foundation. We must lead
through influence, and that really has been the secret for 20 years of
working here without going totally insane. If you can check your ego and take
criticism, open source actually turns out to be a really fun community to
work with."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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