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

The future...

[The_Messenger]

This is very simple... while GNU/Linux may someday reach the level of stability and scalabilty that is AIX's claim to fame, it isn't there yet. 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. GNU/Linux's appearance in enterprise IT and scientific computing was a fluke... but a particularly lucky one.

But assuming that GNU/Linux can evolve to an acceptable level (the level of UNIX, in other words), and assuming that the support from IBM, HP, Sun, and Compaq continues, we'll be in a great position. One of the promises of UNIX was portability; if five commercial UNIXs have a common interface, they should be easy to port between, right?

Wrong... years of corporate specialization and AT&T's rightful protection of the system have created a computing culture which is almost as closed as Microsoft's. Now, porting an application from Solaris to HP-UX can potentially take as long as porting from Solaris to NT.

Enter GNU/Linux. Stallman, Torvalds, and the rest of the usual suspects essentially ripped off AT&T. (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.) GNU/Linux is UNIX-like, but is also completely open. Thus, if Linux can meet these corporate giants' needs, they should adopt it.

IBM's adoption of Linux for the enterprise will mean many things. It will mean that RS/6000 customers like myself will get new software faster, because Linux is always ahead of AIX on software developers' port lists. And if Linux can also run reasonably on Sun and HP hardware, then we could be talking about UNIX's dream of portability, embodied in GNU/Linux: an open, common interface for hardcore RISC systems. This would be a good thing for everybody expect supporters of inferior x86 servers: x86 hardware vendors and Microsoft.

But while GNU/Linux has brought this uptopia one step closer, it isn't here yet. Talk to any knowledgable, experienced developer or sysadmin, and he will tell you that GNU/Linux simply can't touch UNIX for the majority of serious computing tasks. Linux is cheaper, and in some instances is faster, but just can't deliver the same kind of scalable performance and rock-solid availabilty that are the reasons I'm running AIX right now.

Re:But they'd probably want more control

[tjwhaynes]

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.

First a caveat: These are my own views and not those of IBM Canada.

Why do you think that IBM needs control of the Linux kernel? It's not necessary. Because the kernel is open source any features that IBM feels are necessary for running Linux on, for example, a 4-way H50 RS/6000 machine can be provided as a patch to the main kernel tree and pre-compiled binaries can be distributed by IBM from one of the web sites. Yes - someone has to keep the patches sane against the latest kernel but it is unlikely in the long run that useful and proven patches would remain out of the kernel tree forever unless they seriously clash with some design decision.

Patch maintenance is a minor headache against a stable kernel series. It only becomes a major problem if you try and keep patches sync'd against a development kernel and IBM is very very unlikely to request customers use such a kernel in a production environment.

And secondly, why do you think that IBM needs total control over everything they use? That's nonsense. Working in the RDMBS world, we all work to published standards. There is no 'total control' exercised by IBM when submitting proposals for new SQL functionality or DRDA protocols. Total control is not the only option for making money out there - being the best at something still makes better business sense. Making sure that the customer support services are actually helping customers makes good financial sense. We have all got really warped by MS's monopoly position and healthy financial situation that it is too easy to forget that it is possible to make a good income by being good in a competitive marketplace.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes