CA Dangles $1M Bounty for Ingres Conversion Tools

An anonymous reader writes "Computer Associates, on the heels of their announcement that they were moving to the service and support model, hence open sourcing Ingres, is set to announce a $1 million bounty for Ingres conversion tools [the idea being, obviously, to convert to Ingres, rather than away from it]. The bounty announcement coincides with the official announcement of the downloadability of the new, open-source Ingres. An earlier Information Week article rues the passing of Jasmine, which was a great idea, and, although perhaps a few years [maybe a decade?] ahead of its time, still the sort of thing that people like me could sure benefit from. Hint, hint..."

Comments

hmm..

[manavendra]

I suppose some time ago it would have been ironic that corporations are pushing their products into open source, rather than fighting it... however, now with open source software (and the movement) reaching the critical mass, they can no longer fight the tide, and have decided to ride with it.

This still made me smile though:
"Linux has proved you can have a successful commercial business around open source," Barrenechea says. "The innovation model in high tech is no longer constrained to corporations, no longer constrained to universities, no longer constrained to venture capitalists, but now is open to a million developers strong who want to contribute."
(quote of Mark Barrenechea, senior VP of product development for CA. )

Re:hmm..

[mumblestheclown]

however, now with open source software (and the movement) reaching the critical mass

I have no doubt whatsoever that this will be modded up to +5, insightful. I also have no doubt whatsoever that your statement is bald zealotry. If the current corporate adoption of OSS is what constitutes critical mass (ie a few marginal projects here and there), then continue to welcome our current microsoft overlords..

more realistically, what CA did is called a no-risk offer. They post some bounty which is worth far less than what true development would cost them plus get some free publicity to book. and if it doesn't work out? well, nothing lost by them.

Re:hmm..

[Clovert Agent]

"Marginal"? Google is marginal? Apache's 67.7% marketshare is marginal? You may have also heard of sendmail. Or bind.

Outside of background infrastructure there are Linux deployment stories on nearly a daily basis in IT press. Open your eyes - I don't think OSS is remotely "marginal". Still some way from "widespread", never mind "commonplace" or "ubiquitous", but hardly "marginal". Unless you have some new and interesting definition of that term?

Your no-risk analysis of CA's move is correct, I think - it probably also applies to IBM+Cloudscape to a degree. But painting FOSS as only existing in "marginal projects here and there" is clearly bollocks.

Critical mass, to my mind, will come when vendors start offering Linux versions of their software by default. I've seen a steady trend away from "oh, you have to use Windows/IE/Exchange" in product announcements (I cover security products - so there's a server slant to what I see), but it's not yet commonplace to have Linux support. Growing, though, and I don't think Microsoft is ignorant of that.

Re:Is THIS the new industry STANDARD?

[ph1ll]

We LOVE CODING too much to do that, so personally we're gonna keep doin what we love and selling it. Helping people with our products has never been fun anyway!

I'm a coder. I love coding. I've been doing it for years.

I also love free software and I don't see it as a threat to my livelihood. On the contrary, I think it will provide me with secure employment.

Why? Because free, OSS software is useless by itself.

JBoss is free. Tomcat is free. MySQL is free. But they are all worthless to my company until I write code that uses them. These little babies have been making me a good living for the last few years!

I think OSS will accelerate the movement from software engineering being considered a manufacturing process to being accepted as a service. And I welcome that move.