Interview With IBM's Chief Linux Strategist

Linux Magazine interviewed IBM's chief Linux strategist, Irving Wladawksy-Berger, about IBM and Linux. IBM sees Linux as a disrupting technology of the same class as the Internet: an OS that can run on many platforms and that nobody owns: something that can fundamentally change the landscape of computing. By adding Linux compatability to AIX/Monterey, IBM is guaranteeing itself a big-iron version of Linux without angering the community by forking the kernel ... but they'd obviously also would like to see big-iron features added to Linux. Interestingly, Irving suggests IBM would be willing to open-source just about anything the Linux community wants ... one just needs to make one's mind known at IBM's developerworks site. Following the usual path, Linux adoption by IBM was a bottom-up process, finally convincing senior management. It's a shame that Linux Magazine did not ask about IBM's patent strategy, which was already a hot topic two years ago when slashdot facilitated the release of the Jikes compiler.

Comments

Re:Wait a minute!

[sirwired]

1) Um, IBM is making oodles of money off the internet. A massive portion of the services business comes from "e-business" stuff sold to Fortune 500 companies. (IBM's traditional customers.) Also, DB2 and WebSphere are getting to be pretty popular among enterprise customers.

2) IBM doesn't make any money off of AIX. Yes, they do charge licensing fees, but mainly it is sold as something you need to buy to run your RS/6000.

IBM makes it's big money from the holy trinity of high-end hardware, industrial-strength software applications, and services/solutions. Low-end hardware (like 1U servers and PC's) and commodity software (like OS's) are only provided because they need to be if IBM wants to sell a "solution" instead of merely products.

IBM's other major profit streams are Technology (patent portfolio, Chip fab services, etc.), ThinkPads (simply because they kick ass and can take advantage of IBM's research in displays, hard drives, etc.), and leases/loans so customers can afford all this stuff.

If Linux could do what IBM needs, (more reliability, better I/O, etc.) they would likely drop AIX like a hot potato, because developing it ain't cheap.

IBM plans

[Swede2048]

While at an engineering expo at my university, I spoke with a guy who works with Linux at IBM. He said that IBM has been doing lots of testing and r-and-d with Linux. He said that their experts are predicting that Linux will be the dominant OS in 4 to 5 years. He also said that IBM doesn't believe a lot of the current benchmarks with Linux, especialy those with high performance disk access and with SMP, and that IBM is in a position to help Linux immediately, but doesn't want do alienate the community by making it look bad. The guy sounded sincere and seemed to know what he was talking about. I'm looking forward to see what IBM has to offer Linux in the coming years

Re:IBM plans

[Uruk]

Linux is a very interesting part of IBM's strategy with their S/390 systems going forward (big iron)

They have these enormous fucking beast of a machine chunks of hardware that they're not selling as quickly as they would like, because nobody coming out of school these days knows how to use MVS the operating system. When nobody knows how to use it, it becomes more and more expensive to run them, (you think there's a shortage of IT workers? Try in the MVS sector) people start moving to UNIX and NT.

But if you can make these beast machines run something everybody knows, you can sell hardware! So port linux to this architecture, and you're selling machines again.

Kinda funny...IBM is just like Sun and other companies. Although they make operating systems, where they really make the money is on hardware, not software.

I have been wondering however why they didn't choose to port AIX and pains to S/390 instead of linux, since they can make money off of AIX.

Walking out my ass!

[Greyfox]

Microsoft made IBM slit OS/2's throat. They went to PCCO and said, "Don't install OS/2 or we won't give you Windows at discount rates." PCCO shit itself and didn't install OS/2, and the industry said "JESUS CHRIST! YOU CAN'T EVEN GET IT ON AN IBM BOX!" That was pretty much the end of OS/2.

Of course, the poor support and IBM's unwillingness to break previous programs to fix major issues like the single system input queue didn't help matters much.

If you happen to be on the inside, you have access to the IBM internal forums. The OS/2 Advocasy one was about half bitter bitching and moaning about how badly IBM fucked up with OS/2 and about half Linux advocasy. Many of the OS/2 people I knew inside and outside went to Linux after it became apparent that IBM was never going to do what needed to be done with OS/2.

In a way it's better. IBM doesn't own Linux so they can't screw it up like they did with OS/2. It's not nearly as succeptable to the FUD as OS/2 was, and it's not being maintained by a bunch of people who think PCs are toys that you use as dumb terminals to the Big Iron.

It's an OS, not a revolution.

[dashNine]

When Linux Mag notes that Linux is more a "development methodology" than an operating system, Wladawksy-Berger neatly sidesteps the issue, merely responding that it's important that developers can easily port their apps between Linuces. (He does add a bit of abstract and highly-qualified praise for community-based development.) Truth is, IBM won't change their internal design lifecycles that easily, and, for the most part, I don't think they need to.

Nonetheless. This is exactly what Linux needs: a high-end, organizationally-driven addition that will help make Linux a viable choice in the enterprise arena. For the first time, I'm starting to consider Linux a real competitor for my business. I'm not ready to turn in my E10K yet, but ....

Too bad Microsoft, IBM remembers

[Hairy_Potter]

Did anyone pick up an undercurrent of glee when the dude compared who uses Windows (half the class raised their hands) and who uses Linux (the whole class raised their hand).

MS should never have fck'ed over IBM wrt to OS/2, Big Blue has a long memory, and the board probablt has wet dreams of stomping on MS's grave.

OS/2 Tux?

[MikeFM]

Why not have them opensource all the parts of OS/2 that they legally can do so and the entire API so that Linux can be made to run OS/2 programs the way it is trying to do for Windows with Wine. Of course code from the GUI engine could move towards merging w/ X and/or forming an alternative GUI for Linux.. mmmm OS/2 Tux.. finally a new version of OS/2. :)

Then open source.....

[tone1]

"To be honest, we'd open source just about anything the community wanted."

Then open source the GUI engine for OS/2. This would give Linux an alternative to X, and one that is less resource hungry.