Elizabeth Armstrong Moore. Consider the following:

• Companies like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Intel have developed their own open-source labs here.
• Linus Torvalds, author of Linux, the first mainstream open-source operating system, moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to work at the Open Source Development Lab in Portland.
• In mid-October the city hosted the first Government Open Source Conference, a gathering for state and municipal technology managers interested in using open-source software in the public sector.
• Most recently, Oregon Gov. Theodore Kulongoski announced a $350,000 contribution from Google to develop open-source software, hardware, and curricula at Oregon State University, which boasts an Open Source Lab, and Portland State University. Portland’s standing as a hub for open-source development is not lost on the governor, who is eager to bring even more jobs and investment to what he calls a “burgeoning open technology cluster.”