(Pam Derringer, News Contributor, TechTarget) Clouds are such big Linux news these days that, in the physical world, it would be raining by now. Or at least heavily overcast. The latest development is a Linux Foundation's report on Linux and cloud computing, which states that Linux is the OS of choice for major cloud platforms now and in the future. The report follows just days after the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) formed a collaborative Open Cloud Standards Incubator to develop standard protocols to remove interoperability barriers. Ultimately, the DMTF's goal is to spur cloud adoption by making its workloads more portable and easier to manage. And, finally, Raleigh, N.C.-based Red Hat Inc. recently announced a virtual forum on open source cloud computing July 22 to address interoperability problems and ways to solve them.

The Linux Foundation report said cloud computing is growing because data center costs are escalating and improvements in virtualization, distributed computing and IT management make cloud computing a more feasible option. Linux, in turn, was an obvious choice for cloud computing from the get-go because of its open source, modular architecture, its low cost and its scalability, the report said.

"The fact is that Linux is already the de facto operating system of choice for cloud computing," and will be the foundation of cloud platforms going forward, concluded the report.