The State of Linux International [LWN.net]

[This article was contributed by Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

Linux International (LI) has been an extremely important organization in the growth of Linux. But LI has been kind of quiet as of late. Its website hasn't been updated in a while, and the last press release put out by the organization on their home page is dated March 1, 2002. We caught up with LI president Jon "maddog" Hall recently and asked him where things stood. He assured us that LI is still working to promote Linux:

Press releases are not the only indication of life. In the past year I have addressed over 57 groups with thousands of people (including hundreds of press) on issues of Linux and Open Source. LI had major input (for example) into the recent article in Business Week. While the popular press always puts their own spin on what you say, and while I did not agree with each point of the article, we got some good visibility there.

The BusinessWeek articles Hall referred to have generated a lot of discussion for Linux. But they don't reflect LI's influence. Hall says that's the way that he wants it:

It's [LI's influence] there more than you know. It's just that...we don't put out a lot of press releases and we don't say what we've done. Part of that is my philosophy...I've been trying to promote Linux and trying to promote member companies.

He does admit, however, that the modesty can backfire when trying to justify LI dues to member companies and potential members. Dues for corporate sponsors are $10,000, and dues for member companies are $2,500 annually. Hall says that it can be difficult to convince companies to fund LI, even though some can spend much more than that on their individual marketing efforts.

Another function of LI that doesn't get discussed much is the stewardship of the Linux trademark. For the most part, that's been spun off to the Linux Mark Institute (LMI), a non-profit that controls the Linux trademark and grants use of the trademark to commercial entities for a fee. Hall says the fee is necessary to build a "warchest" to deal with legal issues instead of taking the money from LI's budget. Unless there's a "sticky situation" with a trademark, says Hall, the process is more or less automatic. Hall also mentioned that LI/LMI have stepped in when people have tried to trademark Linux in other countries and attempt to "hold it for ransom."

Hall did note that LI is undergoing some changes, particularly in terms of membership. "The industry has changed...used to be lots and lots of small companies, but the small companies have gone away and Linux has become not a "Linux-only" product, but a "Linux-also" product." Because of this, he says, companies like IBM and HP wonder what LI can do for them when they can afford to put money into Linux advertising that is branded with their company name instead of promoting Linux alone.

So is LI still relevant, if these companies are putting big bucks into marketing Linux? Hall says yes, because it can do things that IBM and HP cannot. For example, Hall mentioned that he wants to focus on providing materials for Linux User Groups to use to promote Linux. Because LI is vendor-neutral, Hall says that it will have much more success working with community groups to promote Linux on behalf of its member companies than those companies would directly:

We've been very good in doing things that are very difficult for one company to do. Helping the trademark, helping LPI (Linux Professional Institute), helping standards...there's an important place for us in the usergroups. I don't think that IBM would want HP by itself addressing all the user groups.

Jeremy White, CEO of CodeWeavers and an LI supporter, says that he believes that LI was and continues to be important. White says that the case studies on LI's site have been useful for him, and also says that Hall's role as a Linux promoter is very important. "The most important thing they do is having Jon fly around and evangelize Linux. That's important to me. Linux, at least on the desktop, is very much in the adoption phase...I need the whole market to grow."

Hall says that there is still a lot of work to do in promoting Linux:

As long as people have the questions that I have experienced over the past several weeks, I have to disagree. While people may know what the word "Linux" means, they do not understand the market or even what free software stands for. If you believe that Linux has been sucessfully "promoted", I submit to you that you are sadly mistaken.

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