For those of you outside the loop, Daniel Robbins in the founder and chief architect of Gentoo Linux.  …yet one more distribution [version] of the Linux operating system.

According to the message on the Gentoo Linux web site:

Gentoo founder and former Gentoo Chief Architect Daniel Robbins began a new position at Microsoft on 23 May 2005. According to drobbins: "I'm helping Microsoft to understand Open Source and community-based projects." While in the midst of hastily packing to move to Redmond, drobbins nonetheless managed to find the time to finalize the transfer of Gentoo's intellectual property (essentially copyrights on ebuilds and other software as well as soon-to-be trademarked Gentoo logos) to the not-for-profit Gentoo Foundation, Inc.

Hopefully Microsoft has their security act together well enough to shield this guy from valuable intellectual property.  Based on the description he provided, he needs very little access to anything proprietary at Microsoft.  And in case you don’t remember SCO’s argument against the GPL, remember that once software finds its way into the GPL, it is nearly impossible to reclaim it.  I’m not calling Robbins a spy… but in the technology arena today, security is the number one priority. I imagine it will be a brave new world for Robbins.

W.S.

Hat tip to Martin LaMonica for the link.