Linux Foundation Appoints New Fellow

Linux Foundation Appoints New Fellow

OpenEmbedded Core Developer and Yocto Project Maintainer Richard Purdie Joins Linux Foundation

SAN FRANCISCO, December 13, 2010 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that OpenEmbedded core developer and Yocto Project maintainer Richard Purdie has been appointed to the position of Linux Foundation Fellow.

The rise of Linux in mobile and embedded computing is placing new demands on Linux software development while opening new opportunities for tools and infrastructure to ease that development. The Linux Foundation’s Fellowship Fund provides financial support for resources that can accelerate development efforts and spur the adoption of Linux and open source software. As a Linux Foundation Fellow, Purdie will work full-time on the Yocto Project, OpenEmbedded, the Poky Project and other embedded Linux development initiatives.

The Yocto Project was announced in October and provides high-quality open source infrastructure and tools to help developers create custom Linux software for any hardware architecture. It is intended to provide a helpful starting point for developers and speed time to market for vendors by establishing shared build infrastructure and tools. The Yocto Project is based on OpenEmbedded, an open source project and build framework for embedded Linux that provides coding assistance, guides and FAQs. Besides Richard’s work on Yocto and OpenEmbedded, he was also the founder of the Poky Build System.

“We are happy to be able to add someone of Richard’s caliber. He has already made extremely important contributions to the advancement of embedded Linux and his depth of expertise in this area will accelerate technical progress in the year ahead,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation.

“The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum in which the highest priority work on Linux can be done,” said Richard Purdie, Linux Foundation Fellow. “I’m looking forward to dedicating my time to helping provide developers with tools and infrastructure to ease the development of embedded Linux and collaborating with the community to make Linux even better.”

Purdie was most recently a Core Developer at OpenEmbedded, where he was also lead maintainer of bitbake. He has also been an embedded Linux architect in Intel’s Open Source Technology Center. From 2005 to 2008, he was a Software Engineer at OpenedHand, where he worked with a variety of other open source projects such as Clutter, X server, Zaurus and Oprofile. He has also made numerous contributions to the Linux kernel, including as maintainer of the backlight and LED subsystems. Purdie received his MSci in Physics from University of Durham in 2003.

Current Linux Foundation Fellows include John Hawley, Till Kamppeter, Janina Sajka and Linus Torvalds. Previous Fellows include Steve Hemminger, Andrew Morton, Andrew Tridgell and Ted Ts’o. For more information on Linux Foundation Fellows, please visit click here.

About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting technical events, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.