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IBM's Purple Book and Open Source
Bill Kendrick writes: "I noticed a ZDNet article titled "Why we should hail IBM's ode to open source--the Purple Book". It compares IBM's open release of the classic PC's hardware and BIOS specifications with today's OpenSource model and Linux." Shortly after IBM's open-spec PC, they reverted to the closed PS/2 with a patented bus in an attempt to monopolize the exploding market. Hopefully this particular bit of history won't replay itself.
Yes, I realize IBM has said that they won't do their own distro... but I still think they should.
One of the biggest reasons for the success of the PC was not just the openess, but because the IBM brand name was something that provided a bit more confidence for "the corporate suits" to adopt... an image which Apple and Radio Shack didn't quite have then... and most distros don't quite have right now.
IBM should probably buy an existing distro like Redhat in addition to the multi-distro support they're already doing. Thanks to the GPL, all of their developments for their own distro will still be available to other distros who will in turn refine IBM's developments, and so on.
Actually, MCA wasn't all that horrific as far as the concept went. Don't forget that the PC was IBM's first "open" system, and that was only for expediency to get it to market in a year. IBM was still very much a big iron company, and thought that way. You could always be sure that IBM components would play well together, and MCA continued this concept into the PC world.
However, the fact that patenting MCA didn't improve IBM's share of the PC market should be a lesson in the advantages of truly open technologies over proprietary ones.
(And yes, my first Linux install was Slackware on a MCA PS/2)
I think IBM knows MCA was a mistake and hindsight is always 20/20. While I agree that we have to temper our enthusiasm for IBM's efforts with this history, I believe this is a very different organization that's learned a lot in the last 15 years.