Linux Foundation Brings Together Industry Heavyweights to Advance Linux on the Mainframe

SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwired - Aug 17, 2015) - LinuxCon/CloudOpen/ContainerCon -- The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux and collaborative development, today announced the Open Mainframe Project. This initiative brings together industry experts to drive innovation and development of Linux on the mainframe.

Founding Platinum members of the Open Mainframe Project include ADP, CA Technologies, IBM and SUSE. Founding Silver members include BMC, Compuware, LC3, RSM Partners and Vicom Infinity. The first academic institutions participating in the effort include Marist College, University of Bedfordshire and The Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity at University of Washington. The announcement comes as the industry marks 15 years of Linux on the mainframe. 

In just the last few years, demand for mainframe capabilities have drastically increased due to Big Data, mobile processing, cloud computing and virtualization. Linux excels in all these areas, often being recognized as the operating system of the cloud and for advancing the most complex technologies across data, mobile and virtualized environments. Linux on the mainframe today has reached a critical mass such that vendors, users and academia need a neutral forum to work together to advance Linux tools and technologies and increase enterprise innovation. 

"Linux today is the fastest growing operating system in the world. As mobile and cloud computing become globally pervasive, new levels of speed and efficiency are required in the enterprise and Linux on the mainframe is poised to deliver," said Jim Zemlin executive director at The Linux Foundation. "The Open Mainframe Project will bring the best technology leaders together to work on Linux and advanced technologies from across the IT industry and academia to advance the most complex enterprise operations of our time."

The Open Mainframe Project will focus on finding ways to leverage new software and tools in the Linux environment that are ideal for taking advantage of the mainframe's speed, security, scalability and availability. The Project will seek to significantly broaden the set of tools and resources that are intended to drive development and collaboration of mainframe Linux. It will also aim to coordinate mainframe improvements to upstream projects to increase the quality of these code submissions and ease upstream collaboration.