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Linux Chosen for IBM's New Supercomputer
Uhh_Duh writes "news.com is reporting that Linux will be the main OS in the Blue Gene - IBM's $100m supercomputer project. The Blue Gene will contain 65,000 processors and 16 trillion bytes of memory." Wow. That's a lot of nuclear weapons simulations.
While this is great in the short term, in that it no doubt means lots of money and an improved image on Wall Street for Linux, I wonder if this is really such a good thing. IBM is basically just taking the blood and sweat of hard-working hackers like Linux Torvalds and Alvin Cox and making money off of it. While this behavior is technically legal, it clearly goes against the spirit of the GPL as defined by ERS. Furthermore, associating Linux with an "establishment" corporation like IBM could serve to tarnish the "outsider" image that has made Linux so popular among its core audience, 18-25 year old males. J. Average User is going to see choosing between Linux and Windows as choosing between IBM and Microsoft: six of one, half a dozen of the other. Given how hard it is to get "up and running" with Linux, they'll see no reason to abandon one Evil Corporation for another. I don't see how this can do anything but damage Linux's already dangerously small market share. Any thoughts?
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
"Linux: helping to annihilate millions of people since 2002"
read it again fucktard - he used it corectly.
>>They're putting nearly us$1B a year into Linux >>(JFS being just one wonderful thing ported).
/. but IBM is the naked emperor.
What else is IBM putting in Linux that costs $1 billion ? They don't even sell a Linux for god sake. IBM uses Linux for propoganda and contributes very little to the open source movement in return. Come back when they open source DB/2, WebSphere or any of their major products.
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