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How IBM (and Open Source) Won eBay

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the battle-of-good-v-evil dept.

DemonBrew wrote to us with a new article in Business2 how IBM beat MSFT, Sun, BEA Systems to win the contract for the new eBay. Cool part is that it's based on Websphere, which has major open source components.

6 of 317 comments (clear)

  1. They said "bake-off" by Pituritus+Ani · · Score: 4, Insightful
    in the second paragraph. I guess the lawsuit from Pillsbury will be rolling in any minute now.

    I also found this amusing (emphasis mine):

    eBay confirms that it was dazzled by IBM's expertise with the open-standard Java programming language . . .

    While Java could be called "open," compared with, say, the Windows API, I don't believe Sun has turned control over the language specification to a standards body.

    --

    Another proud carrier of the $rtbl flag

  2. Re:Websphere, Open Source, WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What webserver does WebSphere use?

  3. Open Standard and Java by pridkett · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There has been a fair number of posts about whether or not Java is really an "Open-Standard". The first thing to remember is where this article originates, Business 2.0.

    Taking that into account, Java is an open standard. Are there other compilers for Java? Yes. Are there multiple interpreters for Java? Yes. Is the standard published on how it works? Yes (Addison-Wesely publishes several books on it). So, for the average intended reader of business 2.0, Java is an open standard.

    I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but something doesn't have to be controlled by an international standards organization to be open.

    Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go prepare for flames as I've posted something that people are going to have problems with.

    --
    My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
  4. Ebay downtime with IIS 5.0 on Windows 2000 by engine+matrix · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think this is great news for Ebay addicts like myself. Ebay is down for scheduled maintainance 2 hours a week. This equals 4 days of downtime a year which is unacceptable for a company as large as Ebay. This doesn't even include unscheduled downtime which we know is a lot higher! Yes, I am your typical Linux loving Micro$oft hating Slashdotter, but you can't tell me this downtime has nothing to do with Ebay currently running a Microsoft shop. I unfortunately admin a Win2K network at my job and the results are pretty much the same.

  5. Re:Websphere, Open Source, WTF? by sydlexic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    and available source != Open Source. Open Source proponents have gone to great lengths to establish a set of critera for evaluating licenses against Open Source standards. those standards insure that licenses to not permit the removal of source from the community once it is made available. if "available" meant "open", then Windows is open. the source is available if you sign the right licenses... just like java.

  6. I like the last line: by Zo0ok · · Score: 4, Insightful

    [IBM technology strategist Irving] Wladawsky-Berger says: "Open-source is bigger than IBM".

    Such things make me happy for the entire day :)