Corporations Getting Into The Open Source Spirit

Anonymous writes "Some bastions of capitalism are getting into the open-source spirit -- not only using the software, but contributing code fixes and other mods, according to an article in today's Computerworld."

Comments

Wow

[stanmann]

DARPA supports BSD, and now big business buying Open source. Either sanity is breaking out everywhere or the apocolypse is coming soon to a planet near you.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously folks, April Fools was a week ago.

Re:Digital Image?

[BarryJacobsen]

Actually, I thought it was a geeky Vin Diesel.

Clause...

[st0rmcold]

Surely they missed the "no sex" clause in the EULA to join the linux community, how else would it be possible?

In related news

[Rooked_One]

the value of a MCSE drops another 20 G's a year.

Re:Getting the corporate word out

[Xerithane]

Particularly one written in a positive light, and without reference to Geeks or Zealots.

Refreshing isn't it.

I wonder how long it will take the M$ team to start churning out response articles alleging that Open Source is destroying capitalism.

Good thing it didn't last long. Real journalism doesn't need to mention zealots. Slashdot does it well enough.

Re:This was already done a while ago by accident,

[RLiegh]

Scott McNeilly in a Penguin suit speaks volumes.

Only until the LSD wore off.

Re:Not exactly news ...

[Rick.C]

Some historical perspective:

1964-ish - IBM introduces the 360 line. The competition is RCA/Spectra, Sperry/UNIVAC, and a GE monster that looks like a big brown art-Deco toaster and still uses vacuum tubes. The software is free as in beer/speech. IBM's software only runs on IBM hardware, so why not?

1972-ish - IBM introduces the 370 line. The software is still free. The competition is non-existant.

1975-ish - Amdahl introduces the 470 line. It uses IBM's free software with very little modification. IBM shrugs.

1978-ish - Amdahl's market share steadily increases. They have no software development costs, so their prices are much lower than IBM's. IBM says, "Damn!"

1980-ish - Hitachi and Fujitsu announce IBM compatable mainframes. IBM cries, "Not fair!"

1981-ish - IBM's new OS is not free-as-in-beer. Many parts of it are OCO (object code only). Over the next 20 years, most of the OS disappears behind the OCO curtain. (There are no restrictions about reverse engineering, though, because most old systems people can read binaries like they are source, anyway.)

1982-ish - As mainframes and their software become more expensive, universities opt for smaller computers that run Unix. AT&T makes Unix (and the source code) free to colleges and universities. "Open Systems" becomes the buzzword around IT circles. "Open Systems" is a secret code for "Unix".

1990-ish - Microsoft announces Windows. Everyone shrugs. There is no source, but you can get a copy of the diskettes from just about anyone you know. ;-)

1996-ish - An internal IBM group asks what can be done to stem the Unix tide. The answer: open up your source code. Nothing comes of this effort. 2000-ish - First Hitachi, then Amdahl/Fujitsu drop out of the IBM compatable mainframe market. IBM snickers.

2001-ish - Microsoft gets serious about copy protection and authentication. An internal Microsoft memo asks, "Where's the source?"

2002-ish - Microsoft gets serious about security. An internal Microsoft memo questions whether there is any source.

Present - Universities still teach "Computer Science" which is heavy on theory. They need source code. They get source code with Unix/Linux. Students learn Unix/Linux. Students graduate and work for companies. The new graduates push for Unix/Linux because that's what they know. Companies continue to lean toward Unix/Linux. IBM says, "Damn!" Microsoft copyrights "Damn!" and says, "Damn!"