Consumer Electronics Vendors Establish Linux Forum.

Eight of the world's leading consumer electronics companies have formed a new consortium known as the CE Linux Forum to develop and promote the use of Linux on consumer electronic devices.

The eight companies plan to work with the open source community to formalize the requirements for extensions to the Linux operating system needed for use on devices such as mobile phones and audio/visual products.

The founding members of CE Linux Forum (CELF) are: Sony, Hitachi, NEC, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, Toshiba, and Matsushita Electric Industrial through its Panasonic brand. The founders also state that IBM Corp is also planning to become a member.

Industry-wide consortiums have not been uncommon in the development of the Linux operating systems, but unlike more enterprise-focused consortia, such as the Open Source Development Lab, it does not appear that the CELF will get involved directly in developing extensions to Linux.

According to the CELF, members will clarify and codify certain requirements to be addressed by the open source community and then evaluate open source submissions. Accepted submissions will be incorporated into the CELF source tree, which will be released under the General Public License and publicly available at the CELF web site.

Evaluation of submissions will be handled by the CELF steering committee, which currently includes appointed representatives from the eight founding members (two from Sony and Panasonic, one each from the rest), as well as the architecture group, which is headed-up by representatives of Sony and Panasonic.

The two companies are better represented within CELF thanks to their December 2002 partnership to work on enhancing Linux for home electronic devices, a precursor to the current CELF.