Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
"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.