Home » News » Americas

Linux cluster emerging in Portland

Portland is more and more becoming a centre for Linux, the computer software that according to several experts will be neighbour town´s Microsoft's biggest competitor in the future.

Portland, capitol of U.S. state Oregon is known for its hardware industry, driven largely by Intel. Its neighbouring capitol Seattle (Washington) on the other hand has a reputation for its strong software industry, mainly because of the presence of giant Microsoft.

But over the last 10 years a cluster of software companies involved with Linux and other "open-source" software has appeared in Portland with almost all major companies having programmers working here. Their expertise helped Linux transform from a hobby into a direct competitor of Microsoft Windows.

Even the grand old man of Linux, 34 year old Linus Torvalds (the Finnish programmer who started it back in 1991) moved to Portland to work for the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), a worldwide Linux coordination centre.

"There's more Linux leadership in Portland than in any other city in the world, and more direction is being set for Linux in Portland than anywhere else in the world," claimed Stuart Cohen, of the OSDL.

An important impulse for this local growth were the the big companies in the region. In the 1990s they saw the market demand for Linux grow and decided to get involved. In 2000, they founded the OSDL to help coordinate the work. Portland was chosen because three of the initiators, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Intel had a large presence in the area, and space was cheaper than in California or Seattle. Other founders were Hitachi, Fujitsu, NEC and Computer Associates.

IBM has a team of 600 technicians working on Linux, about 100 of them at the IBM campus at Beaverton, just outside Portland.

Linux descends from Unix, an operating system developed in the 1960s by Bell. It was the system of choice among telecommunications companies and was widely used in Portland's industry.

Stuart Cohen estimates that altogether the Portland area has perhaps 800 people employed as Linux developers. Government officials hope that the number will grow more, now that there's a cluster of Linux development in the region.

Sources:
The Seattle Times
EDPro weblog