IBM Wants Linux

jsse writes "In a news conference IBM's senior vice president Steve Mills said 'the company will gladly drop its version of Unix from servers and replace it with Linux if the software matures so that it can handle the most demanding tasks.' Now the Giant, along with many other companies, jump to Linux bandwagon. The question is wether this bandwagon is capable of carrying a Giant that huge. Or the question is: can Linux beats AIX?"

Comments

Good move for IBM

[eric2hill]

I think IBM's doing this for one very good reason. The more linux hackers there are at home running linux on their personal boxes, the more workers there will be in the industry that say "IBM makes this big box that will do all we need for our web and/or accounting needs, and it runs an OS I already know."

Managers like to hear that so they don't buy something their IT people don't know how to run.

But they'd probably want more control

[Gambit Thirty-Two]

The problem I see with this is that if a company as big as IBM wants to use something like Linux, they're going to want some kind of control of the direction it goes. Companies have been trying to get Linus to loosen his 'control' of the kernel for a while now. No company with smart leadership will drop support for a product that they have complete power over, in favor of an OS where they have little-to-no control over the direction that it takes.

However, we've seen that IBM has put a fairly good amount of time, money, and effort into making Linux compatable with their products, and their products compatable with linux itself. But so far, I just don't seem them dropping AIX for Linux anytime soon. Not until the control over the linux kernel becomes more decentralized.

Re:Easy

[Garc]

I think when IBM says they'll use linux if it "matures so that it can handle the most demanding tasks," they don't mean "you guys need to build pretty little admin GUIs, and make sure linux is consistent looking." I'm thinking that they're more looking for the ability to scale to a large number of processors, and high amounts of RAM.

On that subject, does anyone know if IBM's Big Iron patches ever made it on to the main kernel tree?

Garc

OK -- so how about a Test suite ?

[redelm]

IBM is prepared to drop AIX iff Linux can handle the job. Great. My question is: How will they know?

I'm sure IBM does a great deal of validation testing. Why not tell the kernel developers where things come up short? One of the most valuable development prerequisites are good bug reports. IBM could unleash their testing team. Or does politics get in the way -- the testing team manager doesn't approve of the Linux takeover?

Good Business

[nevis]

Now the Giant, along with many other companies, jump to Linux bandwagon.

1. As has already been stated IBM has been on the Linux bandwagon for several years now.

2. This makes perfect sense for IBM. They are mainly a service company and secondly a hardware company. Anyone who has done business with IBM knows that they, like most other large computer companies, make their money on installation and support. If they can cut the expense of developing their own OS they can focus on their core business.

This is dumb

[teknopurge]

Sorry to all the Linux kids out there, but real Unix Operating Systems, such as Solaris and BSD-based systems, are stronger, more stable, and faster, when set up correctly, then linux will ever be. Why? simple: SLC's are there for a reason. The linux kernel may be controlled and coordinated by one person, but imagine a person with the supposed talent of Linus, times 50, working on making the Solaris Kernel better.

Note: I am not a Solaris advocate.

teknopurge

IBM never drops support

[firewort]

Remember OS/2? OS/2 is currently making the most money it ever has for IBM, simply because it's in maintenance cycle now... IBM simply does no new development, and continues to make money on support, while encouraging folks to consider other OS options.

IBM never completely drops support, and would never leave profitable AIX shops out in the cold.

Copied != Stolen, even by IP-Shyster Definitions

[FreeUser]

(It's crucial that you understand this. While those developers can be thanked for the GNU/Linux implementation, the design and archiecture is stolen-- albeit modifed -- IP.)

While you make some good points, I take exception to this characterization of GNU/Linux's similarity to UNIX and its POSIX compliance as "stolen IP." Numerous court decisions, including Apple v. Microsoft, have consistently ruled that compatiblity, compliance to standards, and even the wholesale mimicking of a competitor's look and feel do not constitute a violation of intellectual property in any manner. The design and architecture were copied legally (actually, to be historically accurate, they were copied from a copy ... namely from MINIX, which was a minimal, educational recreation of UNIX 7), not stolen in any sense of the word, not even in the "newspeak" sense that the Copyright Cartels and DMCA Apologists have redefined the word to mean.

Re:The future...

[nathanm]

AIX was developed from the group up, by IBM, to kick ass on IBM hardware. GNU/Linux was developed by a diverse group of developers -- each with different goals; some wanted a server OS, some wanted a desktop OS -- for cheapo x86 hardware.

I'm assuming you meant from the ground up, right? If so, then that's not true. AIX is a real, licensed Unix, which means it shares source code with all other SVR4 Unices. In the interview with Ransom Love in this /. article, he claims SCO UnixWare has 70% common code with AIX5L. That's hardly from the ground up. Besides, Unix has been developed to run on a variety of platforms, from the ancient PDP-11 to desktop workstations to big iron servers.