HP becomes platinum member of Linux Foundation

PC World - HP has long been a contributor to Linux and open-source software, but on Monday it ratcheted up its support another notch.

Specifically, the company announced at the LinuxCon Europe event going on this week in Barcelona that it has made the $500,000 investment necessary to become a platinum member of the Linux Foundation, upgrading from the gold membership it held previously.

The nonprofit Linux Foundation's other platinum members are Fujitsu, IBM, Intel, NEC, Qualcomm, Oracle and -- most recently -- Samsung. Twitter, Broadcom and Nvidia are other big-name additions to the consortium's roster of members in recent months.

HP will now have a seat on the Linux Foundation's board of directors and will be directly involved in advancing Linux-based initiatives, workgroups, events, and other efforts.

'A strategic asset'

HP offers Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and SUSE Enterprise Linux on servers and desktops as well as certifying Ubuntu Linux for use on desktops and in cloud computing.

Now, however, it's clear HP's Linux-related plans don't stop there.

Linux is a strategic asset for all major technology companies, said Eileen Evans, HP's vice president and associate general counsel for cloud computing and open source. With our Linux Foundation Platinum membership, we will have a variety of ways to maximize our investment in Linux and collaborative development that advances our own business as well as greater industry innovation.

Support in the cloud

It's been an exciting year watching all the new additions to the Linux Foundation's ranks of some 150 members.

Also this week at LinuxCon Europe, the consortium gained Cloudscaling, CloudSigma, Cloudsoft and DreamHost as new members; cloud vendor Citrix, meanwhile, upgraded to a gold membership in the foundation.