IBM Releases AFS

Raleel writes: "IBM has released the source code to AFS for AIX 4.2, Digital/Compaq UNIX 4.0, Red Hat Linux 6.2, Solaris 2.6 and 2.7, and Windows NT 4.0. You can download it from here. It is under IBM's Open Source license." This was supposed to be released a while ago, but it's good to see IBM following-thru. For more information, see our article regarding the open sourcing of AFS and the article from 1998 regarding the porting effort.

Comments

Arla

[aat]

It's nice that IBM has released OpenAFS two or so months after they said that it would be released, but a Free (libre) clone
called ARLA has existed for sometime, and in my experience hasn't caused me any problems on several platforms, and is GPL'd .
Also, arla supports many platforms, including (Free|Net|Open)BSD, and non x86 Linuxen, which Transarc (the IBM owned
company which actually develops AFS) hasn't bothered porting AFS to.

Arun

IBM open source contributions

[IO ERROR]

We should stand up and demand that they fully support Open Source by releasing code to viable products.

IBM isn't doing this? What about:

• SashXB (LGPL)
• JFS (GPL)
• Jikes (IBM Public License)

Or how about all the money IBM is pouring into Linux?

• IBM invests $200M in Asia-Pacific Linux
• IBM Linux Wristwatch
• IBM's Overview of Linux (for investors)
• IBM banks on Linux

This has been but a selection of articles I could find in five minutes.
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Re:Nothing to celebrate

[henley]

We should stand up and demand that they [companies] fully support Open Source by releasing code to viable products.

I've never understood this attitude. Especially in the context of the article, this strikes me as extremely ungrateful, rude and even childish. Something about Gift Horses and Mouths springs to mind.

You seem to be saying "Large companies whose business models include the concepts of selling and servicing software should immediately release their entire source code to the world at large". Without getting into the ethics, or the value of one business model over another, this attitude appears to be saying that the whole world should just stop what it's doing and obey the commands of a particular group of people.

Open Source / Free Software is a wonderfull, valuable, empowering movement. It's not the totality of the field, and it probably never will be. When corporations whose entire mindset involves the concept of exchange of cash for goods or services rendered embrace even a fraction of the values of these movements, it is indeed a cause for celebration. Not a time for beating them over the head that they haven't come all the way over from the Dark Side.