By Therese Poletti
SAN JOSE, Calif., March 3 (Reuters) - Devotees of the Linux operating system gathered for its first big trade show this week in Silicon Valley, where a celebratory atmosphere reigned as the renegade software continues to gain momentum.
Linus Torvalds, the 29-year-old creator of Linux, was greeted after his keynote address at LinuxWorld late Tuesday night like a rock star, as fans wearing Linux T-shirts swarmed around him, trying to shake his hand or get his autograph.
"Many people think of Linux as a new phenomenom," Torvalds said in his speech. "But it's not to me, I've been working on it for eight years." While a student at the University of Helsinki, Torvalds wrote the first part of the Linux code and gave it away over the Internet. He showed a chart of how Linux has grown from 10 users in 1991 to about 10 million users now.
"It's no longer a small Unix, it's up there with the big boys and the big boys are nervous," he said to a crowd of about 6,000 to 8,000 groupie-like attendees, some wearing "Linus Torvalds for President" buttons or carrying stuffed Penguins - the motto for Linux because Torvalds loves Penguins.
Torvalds was referring to comments in the past few months by behemoth Microsoft Corp., which has said it sees open source software such as Linux as a competitive threat to Windows. Linux is more stable in a networked environment, typically running Web servers, than Windows NT, Linux devotees say.
Linux is a version of the Unix multiuser operating system managed by Torvalds and updated by a group of far-flung programmers, most of whom work on Linux in their spare time.
Linux runs on a wide range of systems, ranging from Intel Corp.-based PCs and servers to Compaq Computer Corp.'s Digital Alpha-based workstations and servers and others.
On Tuesday, International Business Machines Corp. said it will develop versions of its RS/6000 workstations and entry-level servers based on its PowerPC chip to run Linux.
"The number of platforms has gone to where I can't remember," Torvalds told the crowd, as one of his daughters scampered on the floor in front of the stage where he spoke.
Indeed, at this show, a slew of announcements of support and investments in startup companies by major industry players has shown that Linux is becoming more than just one of the most talked about topics in Silicon Valley.
"It's definitely real," said Bill Peterson, an analyst at International Data Corp., based in Framingham, Mass.
Amid the Woodstock-like feeling of the party after Torvalds's speech Tuesday night, pony-tailed programmers and developers milled with the emerging young executives of startup Linux companies and a few executives from major stalwart companies. Some sat on the floor eating pizza and others danced to 1980s music that later was replaced by a live garage band.
"It's like Apple in the early days," said Larry Augustin, chief executive of VA Research Inc., a developer of Intel-based computers, servers and workstations that run Linux.
VA Research, based in Mountain View, made a series of announcements at the show, including an undisclosed investment by Intel in VA Research. VA Research plans to develop a portion of the Linux kernel that will enable Linux to run on Intel's next generation processor architecture, which will appear first in Intel's new chip, now code-named Merced, in mid 2000.
Hewlett-Packard Co. and Silicon Graphics Inc. both said they will also contribute operating system expertise in developing Linux source code to run on the future Intel chips.
Another big announcement at LinuxWorld, said IDC's Peterson, was a further boost of support by IBM for Linux. Two weeks ago, IBM said it would work with Red Hat Software Inc. - a small company in Research Triangle Park, N.C. which is also the largest Linux distributor - to put Linux on IBM NetFinity servers, personal systems and ThinkPad laptops. Additionally, IBM said its global service unit will work with all the other Linux distributors - Caldera Systems Inc. of Orem, Utah (funded by Ray Noorda, former CEO of Novell Inc.), Pacific HiTech of Oakland, Calif., (Asia's largest Linux distributor) and SuSE Holding AG. These companies are all hoping to make money by providing software development, service and support for Linux users, because no company owns Linux.
"We have been watching this phenomenon for the past 18 months," said Steve Mills, general manager, IBM Software Solutions. "It didn't capture the mainstream imagination until the latter half of last year and that spurred us to talk to customers. We concluded there was a clear momentum here."
Analysts said Linux is now making inroads mostly running computer servers, and does best on servers dedicated to one application such as Web site hosting. Like Unix, it is held back on the desktop because the most widely-used desktop application, Microsoft's Office suite, does not run on Linux.
But several companies are working on that problem. VMware Inc., a privately-held company in Palo Alto, Calif. is developing software that lets multiple operating systems, such as Windows and Linux, run concurrently and inter-operate.
MandrakeSoft S.A. in Paris has developed emulation software called Wine which lets Windows applications run on Linux. And Tuesday, Ottawa-based Corel Corp. introduced a user-friendly interface for Linux, to make it easier to use on the desktop.
"We want to take over the world, but we don't want to do it tomorrow, it's ok if it's next week," Torvalds joked.
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