How IBM (and Open Source) Won eBay

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.

Comments

I read this article...

[Marx_Mrvelous]

It did seem very interesting. The article mentions that IBM is still loking for something to "light the fire" and produce large amounts of revenue... maybe hey don't need an internal change, but an external one; businesses realizeing the power and cost savings of open-source software and switching back to big blue.

great news for online shoppers

[tps12]

This is great news for everyone, especially those of us in the Free Source community. While Linux has become a houshold verb, nearly rivalling other obscure operating systems such as the Macintosh and BeOS in user fervency, there has failed to be much of a dent made in the online auction community.

True story, I was unable to leave feedback (for non-ebayers: feedback is what you leave for people, usually a letter grade) using Galeon. I had to do it from work with my IE browser. This is too much to ask of the average desktop user, but Linux is definitely on the right track.

Not to mention the countless bugs, often resulting in lost orders or user fraud and credit card and identity theft, in the core ebay software. Once the next generation ebay is submitted to peer review, we will see an eradication of these bugs, just as we have seen in the Linux kernel 2.4.

I give ebay A++++++++ great site!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re:They said "bake-off"

[geekoid]

Actually they did, but then SUN found out they couldn't control the body, so they took it back.

Don't worry.

[Anti-Microsoft Troll]

MS wanted to have eBay run on its software, but there were so many security holes in it, people were winning auctions that had closed years ago.

I beta tested Microsoft's software for eBay and managed to hack in bids that won auctions for that guy' kidney, Elian's raft, and that girder from the World Trade Center. There are no "invalid auctions" when the thing's running Microsoft's swiss cheese software.

Closing Quote

[Etcetera]

I really like the closing quote from the article:

"Open-source is bigger than IBM."

Hey, any additional fodder for my efforts to convince my boss to move over to completely open-source technologies is fine with me! It's really heartening to hear a company like IBM say that though. More reinforcement that this paradigm is here to stay, and isn't just some sort of post-modern fad.

IBM controlling future of java?

[The-Dork]

Its interesting to see the existence of Java being linked to IBM more than Sun these days.
What with IBM having the fastest java compiler Jikes,
a Java-base development environment VisualAge,
some stellar java development at DeveloperWorks,
and talks of IBM acquiring Sun

Well, now I'm conflicted . . .

[Selanit]

On the one hand, Ebay's backend is now based on some very cool, open source technology.

On the other hand, they use Microsoft Passport, which raises a whole bunch of privacy and security issues.

Are they good or evil? Seems more like a shade of grey to me.

Re:Well, now I'm conflicted . . .

[Selanit]

Blockquoth the responder:

I don't understand your logic. How can you be "good" for embracing open source??

Its quite simple, companies are embracing open standards and open source software because it makes the most business sense. They want to reduce their costs while increasing their utility... certain open source projects tend to do just that.

Ebays choice of technology does not make them good or evil, they are simply doing what they think is best for their company.. period. The concept of 'good' and 'evil' corporations is almost a laughable one.

Ah, now we're getting into philosophy. Here's a hypothetical for you: One day, you look up and see your worst enemy, whom you hate. He is backing over a cliff . . . in your brand-new Porsche. Do you shout a warning to him or not?

If you fail to warn him, most people would agree that you acted evilly. But even if you do warn him, it's still not clearly "good." Did you warn him because that is the right thing to do? Or did you warn him because you didn't want to lose your Porsche? Or maybe you warned him to preserve yourself from legal liability? Is it the action that counts, or the motivation, or a combination thereof? To my mind, action is more important than motivation.

Corporations -- not just Ebay, but all corporations -- perform actions that effect individuals, both those who are employed by the corporation, the investors, the customers, business partners, and sometimes the general public. I contend that corporations can be judged by their actions, every bit as much as any other human organization can be judged by theirs. I speak not merely of legal liability, but moral accountability as well.

Microsoft is a prime example. (Honestly, I am not trying to troll here, nor am I trying to make flamebait. Just bear with me.) Microsoft is extremely good at making good business decisions -- actions whose effect are to increase its market share, its bottom line, and its dominance in the industry. Some of those actions have had negative impact on others, both individuals and companies. The decisions that Microsoft has made regarding their course of action made the "most business sense." Does that absolve them of moral responsibility for the negative consequences of their actions?

As for open source, I would argue that it is morally superior to proprietary source. Open source code promotes the spread of knowledge; because anyone can view the source code, anyone can study real-world examples in order to learn about programming, or even for curiousity's sake. Proprietary technologies seek to restrict the spread of knowledge: figuring out how a closed program works is a thousand times more difficult, and may also be illegal. Which is better -- widespread knowledge, or widespread ignorance?

If open source software is morally superior to proprietary software, then logically embracing an open solution is an action which redounds to the credit of any company which does so. Their motivation for picking the software, be it because of "good business sense," because of approval of open source on general principles, or even because the CEO had indigestion and chose based on which representative had an antacid, is irrelevant. Consequences are derived from action, not motivation for that action.

You are right to point out that the concepts of "good" and "evil" are too narrow to be particularly useful in this context. Nothing human can be fully "good" or "evil." As a child, Saint Augustine stole a crop of pears, destroyed them, and felt guilty about it for most of his adult life. Hitler loved his dogs, trite but true.

Humans are complex, and may be good in some ways but not in others. Corporations are human institutions, and in exactly the same way they have both negative and positive aspects. Deciding what actions you approve or disapprove of in a corporation can help you establish how you, as an individual, will interact with any given corporation, but is basically a subjective decision.

Whew! That was a mouthful. But I think it needed to be said. If I get modded down for it, so be it.

eBAY has the worst IT guys...

[ajiva]

eBay has a bunch of idiots for IT guys. They setup one of their oracle machines to core dump onto the root partition. A bug in Solaris 2.6 would overwrite the whole partition if total memory was greater than total disk space. Sun told eBay about this, they didn't listen and install the patch. Guess what, their oracle db cored, and took their whole OS with it. They were down for days...