MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--The high priests of free software have
congregated at Google headquarters this week to debate the future of
the movement and face down recent patent threats by Microsoft.

Leading names of Linux, the world's biggest grassroots software
phenomenon, are spending three days debating whether an increasingly
commercial open-source community should fight or ignore the world's
largest software maker.

Dressed in the alternative software movement's casual uniform of
T-shirts and jeans, the group is coming to grips with internal
divisions that sap at its success--Linux is now used to power desktop
computers, major Web sites, mobile phones--since rival factions often
create very similar products.

But as many of the world's top tech companies and corporate customers
demand ever more from Linux, open-source devotees still fight among
themselves with the fervor of a tiny monastic order seeking to root out
theological error in their midst.

"Guys: Be seekers of truth, not finders of contradiction," Jim Zemlin,
executive director of the Linux Foundation, organizer of the event,
only half-jokingly told the 150 attendees of what is billed their
"Collaboration Summit."

Linux is the best-known variant of so-called open-source
software--software that is freely available to the public to be used,
revised and shared. Linux suppliers earn money selling improvements and
technical services. By contrast, Microsoft charges for software and
opposes freely sharing its code.

Recently, Microsoft has sown dissension by claiming open-source programs such as Linux violate 235 of its patents while striking deals to insulate the customers of two Linux suppliers--Novell and Xandros--from patent lawsuits.

On Thursday, Linspire, which sells Linux-based personal computers
through Wal-Mart and other retailers, became the third company to strike a patent deal with Microsoft.

Microsoft: Enemy or punching bag


Collectively, the group is militantly opposed to Microsoft, which some attending the summit openly refer to as "the enemy."

But most believe Linux users control their own destinies and
Microsoft's patent threats are just the latest attempts to create
"fear, uncertainty and doubt" among customers. After closed-door
sessions Thursday and Friday, the group aims to issue a consensus
statement next week on what they plan to do.

James Bottomley, who works as chief technology officer at Steeleye
Technologies, is in charge of maintaining the software code used by
Linux to transfer data between computers and peripheral devices like
printers, a job he does for pleasure.

Bottomley says Microsoft is unlikely to sue Linux customers because
most Linux users also buy Microsoft. "Their customers are our
customers," he said, adding that: "It's just bloody annoying. It gets
everyone riled up."

Zend Technologies,
developers of an open-source programming language called PHP that is
used in many Web sites, is seeking to remain neutral. Eighty percent of
its customers use open-source software, but it recently struck a deal
with Microsoft.

"On the one hand Microsoft has a big established business it is trying
to defend," Goldberg said. "On the other hand, there are those inside
the company, though they won't admit it publicly, who see open source
as the future."

Working to work together

This is the first conference of the Linux Foundation, an umbrella
advocacy group formed early in 2007 to unite two predecessors, Open
Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group.

There are as many as 360 rival flavors of Linux, known as
distributions, according to Distrowatch.com. This factionalism fuels
rapid innovation but splits the energies of developers.

"There really is a sense in many projects that there is an 'us' and a 'them'," said Mark Shuttlesworth, founder of Ubuntu,
a free, desktop version of Linux that competes with Windows. "There are
the folks who are inside a project and those who are outside a
project."

The Linux Foundation boasts 70 corporate and non-profit
backers, including Intel, Oracle, IBM, Cisco, Motorola, Nokia, NTT,
Dell, Red Hat and Sun, along with major customers like ADP, Bank of
America and Morgan Stanley.

Linux used to be worked on by professionals doing the work on their own
time, said Jason Wacha, an expert on licensing Linux and attorney for
MontaVista, a maker of Linux software for mobile and consumer
electronics devices.

"Ultimately, I think (Linux) is being pushed by commercial forces...Now
a lot of people are being paid to do Linux as professionals," he said
of how many top open-source developers now work for big-name companies
like Google, HP and Oracle.

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