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Linux Scores An Ace At Wimbledon

JamesD_UK writes "IBM has a short article with some details of their Linux systems at the Wimbledon tennis championships. Aparantly IBM has been using DB2 on a Linux platform to provide statistics and information on the competition since 1999. VIPs will be offered a chance to use O2's XDA to view match details over wi-fi. Time to apt-get install champagne strawberries kismet?" There's also a BBC article about the system.

41 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Based on past experience... by FreeLinux · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I would also expect IBM to use Linux during the upcoming Olympics.

    1. Re:Based on past experience... by Sunspire · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, Microsoft can at least claim credit for running the show over at the special olympics. The reboot frequency seems to be hovering around 9 days on average. But please don't call IIS unstable, it's simply uptime challenged.

      --
      It's like deja vu all over again.
    2. Re:Based on past experience... by Vagrant · · Score: 2, Informative

      I would also expect IBM to use Linux during the upcoming Olympics.

      I doubt it since IBM ended it's sponsorship of the Olympic games after Sydney in 2000. The Olympics are now sponsored by Atos Origin.

    3. Re:Based on past experience... by frodo+from+middle+ea · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I sincerely hope the people working on accessibility features of KDE and GNOME don't have the same attitude or sense of humor as yours.

      --
      for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
  2. Who's distro? by ralf1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Thats what I want to know.

    --
    "Would you, could you, with a goat?" Dr Seuss
  3. Since 1999 ? by Gopal.V · · Score: 2, Interesting

    DB2 since 1999 on Linux ... :)

    I wonder if that might qualify as a better AD for IBM . (a eminesque boy watching Wimbledon , "The future is Open" )

    But Wimbledon is not an "Open" technically is it ?.
    (though I bet IBM never though about advertising on the French Open)

    1. Re:Since 1999 ? by hearingaid · · Score: 4, Informative
      Yes, Wimbledon is an open tournament, and has been since the '70s. (For the uninitiated, non-tennis-fan, which I'm guessing is like 99% of /.: An open tournament is one in which players don't need invitations to play. It used to be that Wimbledon and the other three majors, the U.S. Open, the French Open, and the Australian Open, you had to swing an invite from the organizing committee. During the '70s, this policy was generally reversed. Now, players can compete in the qualifying tournament, or qualify for the main draw based on their tour ranking. But that's another story.)

      IBM actually uses pretty much the same software for Wimbledon, the French, the U.S. Open, and the Aussie. They're just bragging about Wimbledon because it's the most popular of the four, and consequently has the site that gets the most hits.

      --

      my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore

  4. XDA with wifi? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Last time I looked at my XDA II (just a few seconds ago), it did not have wifi built in.

  5. O2's Site by zerOnIne · · Score: 5, Informative

    I can't get into O2's website at all. I get bounced saying that my browser is out of date. I'm using Mozilla 1.4.1, and I don't really want to "upgrade" to Netscape 7, as they suggest. Warning users with an odd browser, that's fine. Forcing them out of your webpage is just plain stupid. It's sites like this that make me squicky about browser detection code in general.

    --
    09
    1. Re:O2's Site by OwlWhacker · · Score: 3, Informative

      Go get Firefox 0.9:

      http://mozilla.org/

      You won't be sorry.

    2. Re:O2's Site by martinthebrit · · Score: 3, Informative

      Strange. I'm on 1.0.1 and it lets me in fine.

    3. Re:O2's Site by mixy1plik · · Score: 2, Informative

      I use Firefox 0.9 and there is an error getting to the site.

    4. Re:O2's Site by OwlWhacker · · Score: 3, Funny

      I didn't say that there wouldn't be an error, I just suggested getting Firefox 0.9.

      ;)

  6. Double Fault! by Marxist+Commentary · · Score: 5, Funny

    Advantage Linux!

  7. Then I guess windows is ... by cablepokerface · · Score: 2, Funny

    OUT!

  8. Not much of a win. by mcgroarty · · Score: 5, Funny
    Sure, tennis may love Linux.

    But to a tennis player, love means nothing.

    1. Re:Not much of a win. by chegosaurus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      > How was that modded flamebait

      Because the moderator didn't understand it. He saw the words "linux" and "means nothing", and thought perhaps the OP criticized linux. The natural reaction in such circumstances is to mod as flamebait. Everything in any way critical of linux, whether intentionally or not, is flamebait. It happens to me a lot.

  9. Put on the brakes. by FreeLinux · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I never hear about a windowsOS with SQL2000 running on IIS making a site like this work...reliably...it would never happen.

    Hold on a second. I'm a big Linux fan and all but, to make claims like this is just not right. There are many large sites that use just the setup that you describe and they work just fine. Look at Dell or eBay for starters.

    1. Re:Put on the brakes. by Coppertone · · Score: 3, Informative

      Sorry, but ebay use Websphere as well....

      http://www-306.ibm.com/software/success/cssdb.ns f/ CS/NAVO-5DFURA?OpenDocument&Site=tivoli

  10. apt-get by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    Never mind the strawberries,..
    apt-get -purge remove cliff-bastard-richard
  11. This can only mean one thing... by jvollmer · · Score: 3, Funny

    They mean to win Wimbledon!

    If it's not Consolidated Lint, it's just fuzz!

  12. Did anyone remember how IBM screwed up the FO? by xIcemanx · · Score: 5, Funny

    On the French Open website, someone mis-did the serve speed statistics here

    They gave the correct km/hr speed, but misconverted to mph. 1.6 Kilometer = 1 Mile. However, they accidentally did 1.6 miles = 1 Kilometer, and thus, Andy Roddick managed to hit several blazing 350 mph serves.

    I was laughing all night.

    However, they've changed it now.

    1. Re:Did anyone remember how IBM screwed up the FO? by ch-chuck · · Score: 5, Funny

      I always wondered what happened to that NASA programmer.

      --
      try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  13. AIX by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IBM's website states that it is powered with some servers running linux and other running AIX.
    The combination of Linux and AIX provides managers with the flexibility, reliability and scalability required to meet the challenge of hosting and maintaining the busy site.

    But a Story titled "Linux and AIX Score an ACE at Wibledon" Just doesn't have the same ring to it.

    --
    Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
  14. And the Umpire types: by the_twisted_pair · · Score: 4, Funny

    make -e no_rain

  15. Now that Linux has hit the lawn... by spoonani · · Score: 5, Funny

    You'll be able to see Linux as the ball boy on the #23 court. By the end of the tournament, he will have mastered prepring the PIMMs and lemonade, mowing the lawns, pitching the rain tent over centre court, judging the semi-final match, win the tournament, and establish himself as owner of the facility.

  16. Good. by Rxke · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I like this. A lot.

    Getting this on BBC is bound to be more important to spread the word to the 'laymen' than on Ars Technica.

    BBC seems to be very in favor of Linux, lately. They keep mentioning it, mostly in their Technology section of course, but I'd guess it's a lot more mainstream than Ars Technica, so this namedropping of Linux in relation to professional/big events stuff must have its psychological impact on *a lot* of peeps.

    Them going from thinking "Linux is for nerds," to "Hmmm... Linux has become professional stuff, check it out!"

    1. Re:Good. by matt_wilts · · Score: 2, Interesting

      >BBC seems to be very in favor of Linux, lately.

      The superb BBC News website has used Linux for some time now. Netcraft stats here. It's just a shame that all their online multimedia content seems to be based around Real Audio :-(

      Matt

  17. Re:Another Fine Example by AliasTheRoot · · Score: 3, Funny

    To draw a parallel...

    Exactly! That's what I try to get across to my co workers - Coca Cola will never be able to match the thirst quenching ability of Sprite. (Though I tend to cringe when I think about making Sprite floats.)

  18. Re:Another Fine Example by ctr2sprt · · Score: 2, Informative
    We have several where I work. They all get the job done, and usually on older hardware (in the neighborhood of P3-500s). They aren't greased lightning, but they're also horribly overloaded: we typically host about 300 sites per server on that hardware.

    So yeah, it happens, it scales, it gets results. I can't speak for the level of fuss since I'm not involved in that part of the process.

  19. SuSE by sbowles · · Score: 2, Informative

    I would guess SuSE Linux Enterprise Server V8 (Service Pack 3, RC4, with certification-sles-eal3 package) as this is the distro that IBM sponsored for Common Criteria EAL3+ Certification. This would allow IBM to run a "trusted" (as in "We know what it's vulnerabilities are") OS.

    --
    You sly dog: you got me monologuing! - Syndrome
  20. I remember when ... by lwriemen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... this sort of news used to be exciting to us OS/2 users, until we found out that it doesn't mean diddly! :-(

    1. Re:I remember when ... by Brian+the+Bold · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I remember that too.

      Let's hope IBM sticks with Linux and doesn't follow their OS/2 path.

      --
      -- BtB
  21. so ... by maharg · · Score: 2, Funny

    ... is this the start of a new "Open Era" ?

    --

    $ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
    @(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
  22. Re:You must have an older model. by Ottoman+II · · Score: 2, Informative

    I beg to differ. Read and learn what wifi means first: http://sbc.webopedia.com/term/w/wi_fi.html NONE of the XDA's sold by O2 has wifi. Of course you can go and splash on an SD card with wifi but they are flaky at best of the times.

  23. In tennis (LOVE == 0) is true! by SoTuA · · Score: 4, Informative
    To the ignorant soul who modded the parent poster as "Flamebait":

    In tennis, (in Wimlbedon and english-language tournaments, at least), the referee never says "zero". When the score is 30-0 the ref does not say "Player leads thirty zero". He says "Player leads thirty-LOVE".

    So, to a tennis player, in the context of a match, LOVE means ZERO. Get it now?

    IIRC, it comes from the french language, because the number zero looks like an egg, so in french it's "l'oeuf".

    So, the correct mod was "Funny". But no, you had to read the post, not understand a word of it, and mod if "Flamebait" because you don't understand.

    And to parent poster, well done. I laughed quite a bit :)

  24. That script is broken by twitter · · Score: 2, Insightful
    It rejected Mozilla 1.0 and 1.6 for me but it let Konqueror in. That's strange because Konq is sending the default browser ID, Mozilla/5.0.

    There's not much useful information on the page, unless you own one and need a ROM upgrade. But it should let in the O2's own browser, right? Here is a review of the thing that tells you more than the site does.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  25. Re:Another Fine Example by m00nun1t · · Score: 3, Insightful

    " never hear about a windowsOS with SQL2000 running on IIS making a site like this work...reliably...it would never happen"

    Perhaps because your only source of news is /.?

    Manchester Commonwealth games and the Rugby World Cup both spring to mind as running on IIS. Both sites which have extreme levels of traffic in a very short period, both had no problems I heard about.

    How about the 4th busiest site in the world, microsoft.com? They were running Win2003/IIS6 on part of their cluster around 12 months before it was released!

  26. Any publicity can be good publicity. by AltGrendel · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Remember, OS2 was killed by the falling out of Microsoft and IBM.

    IBM doesn't have that kind of dependency on Microsoft now, so they can be as agressive with the marketing of this as they like.

    --
    The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination

    - Douglas Adams

  27. Re:I volunteer to ask the stupid questions by frodo+from+middle+ea · · Score: 2, Informative
    I volunteer to answer them

    Why not mysql?
    Call me when mysql supports nested queries. And a bunch of other features like replication etc.

    Why not Oracle? It's better and less pain then DB2.
    Duh!, because it is IBM. How else are they going to make money ? IBM is probably the smartest example of a company to use free software and propritory s/w together.

    Why not one flat file and NDB? That'd do for scoring a couple of matches.
    RTFA , they are now serving upto 90 different types of statistics per match. Do you really want to use a flat file for that ?

    Did IBM have Playstation 2 systems in 1999?
    I am not even going to answer that

    Where did the fun go? When Commentators are fed a screen full of statistics !!

    The commentators are not just going to read out the stats, they will derive some acute conclusions based on them , which average joes may overlook.

    * Will they serve pictures of of Anna Kournikova?

    images.google.com is your friend .(with safety off ;) )

    --
    for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
  28. The version of Linux is most likely by BillsPetMonkey · · Score: 2, Informative

    Suse. I know the someone there, and he told me it's been a Novell Netware on IBM shop for years. I would ask him to confirm but I'm he'd only ridicule me for hanging around /. Here's a bit of mail header from him:

    Received: from AELTC-MTA by aeltc_office.aeltc.com with Novell_GroupWise; Tue, 11 Mar 2003 16:38:01 +0000

    --
    "It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax