Slashdot Mirror
The OS Community Embraces IBM
Joel Dutt writes "IBM... 'the corporation known as Big Blue has seen its reputation in the global open-source community shift from suspect sugar daddy to knight in shining armor.' Newsweek has an interesting article in its latest issue, discussing the relationship between the open-source community and the corporate giant."
hasn't IBM stood behind Linux for quite some time? They've always pushed hardware that is somewhat Linux specific.
Not to mention, no dork I've ever met didn't like IBM. They make solid machines. Pretty good software. So what's the problem?
I was hoping that IBM was going to open source OS/2
10. I've Been Moved
9. Idiots Become Managers
8. Idiots Buy More
7. Impossible to Buy Machine
6. Incredibly Big Machine
5. Industry's Biggest Mistake
4. International Brotherhood of Mercenaries
3. It Boggles the Mind
2. It's Better Manually
1. Itty-Bitty Monopoly
should read, Newsweek always picks....
In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey --Beck
Well ofcourse they're well liked, I mean they fight off the evil SCOmonsters that try and terrorize the city everyday.
But IBM is still a company. They may stand behind open source and believe in it's potential and power. However, they are still a company with shareholders and responsibilities. If something unforseeable happened in the near future and open source software didn't have the potential for them to make billions a year on it, wouldn't they adapt too?
I especially like OpenDX, which I use to visualize data that I collect in the lab: http://www.opendx.org/index2.php
The software has really matured over the years and is now available for a multitude of OSs
IBM---the mega-corporation to end all technological mega-corporations---seeing ANY benefit in Linux?
Then Sun, when they're not against us, is with us.
Finally, Novell sees positives in what we do.
We've all shown the belief that Free software can be profitable. But seeing it in action is something entirely weird and unusual, but in a very satisfying way.
Really, I don't see anything really "interesting" about the article other than the fact it is in Newsweek. I don't think any slashdotter should be surprised by anything said in the article, other than the fact that Newsweek made many mistakes they had to correct at the end of the article. Even this isn't really interesting, as well hey, people make mistakes.
We learned:
a) Open Source People think SCO is evil
b) IBM sells hardware and support
c) SCO is going after IBM
d) Absolutly Nothing
So can we somehow moderate front page stores -1: Redundent?
My other sig is just as lame
They really have done some great things for the open-source community. Howerver, by being affilated with the open-source community, they ultimately get more buyers of their products. This helps erase the market share of its competitors. Just something to think about.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
is my friend.
Linux and IBM, strange bedfellows indeed. IBM is every bit the big, evil, monopolist corporation that RMS and the rest of the Linux zealots rail against. IIRC, IBM, too, is a "convicted monopolist" just as M$ is and Apple tried to be. The only difference is, IBM succeeded where Apple failed - they had the hardware *and* the software lock-in. What was the saying? Oh yeah, "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." Today, replace IBM with Microsoft. By the way, how many American jobs has IBM shipped to India or replaced with H1Bs under the pretext of a labor shortage? And how much of the same has IBM helped others do under the same pretext through their consultancy, IBM Global Services? But since they've chosen to embrace Linux because it's in their short-term self-interest to do so, all of their many sins are forgiven.
Make no mistake about it, IBM doesn't give a ripshit about "the community" or anyone/thing else other than the Almighty Dollar. The only reason they're fighting SCO is because they're heavily invested in Linux as a way to compete with Microsoft. If IBM felt that it was in their short-term best interest to wipe Linux off of the face of the Earth, they would.
Why do I half expect to hear one day soon:
IBM: Linus, I am your father!
(Queue Imperial March)
nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
I am a frequent reader of Jonathan Schwartz' blog, and one of his constant themes/rants is that the open source community respects IBM more than it deserves.
In my opinion, other companies (i.e. Sun) are jealous of IBM's unique position and would like nothing more than to ruin that relationship.
IBM, while not entirely faultless, has taken a huge risk in tying some of its business and marketing campaigns to the success of Linux. Even while having AIX. I wish the same could be said for Sun. Glad to see it's paying of for IBM, in the form of profits and community goodwill.
IBM, last time I checked, made something like 45% of its revenue from hardware and 35% from consulting. Software accounts for a paltry 15% (the rest they make from finance). IBM is not in the software business, really. They make AIX so they can sell RS/6000s. They make VisualAge so people can write desktop applications for DB/2 databases, and they make DB/2 so people will buy mainframes. The consulting part of IBM is fairly vendor-neutral; I've worked with them to implement BEA WebLogic on Solaris instead of WebSphere on AIX for example.
Software is an overhead for IBM. It's a distraction from hardware and services. Open Source allows IBM to sell hardware and services without having to pay to develop the software to run on it and/or implement on behalf of customers. That's the reason, and the only reason, IBM is into Linux.
Sun: we build and get you to contribute to open source products to use as the foundation for our for-profit products and then let the "Evil Empire" get said open source project firmly in its sights. Sometimes we are going super hardcore for open source, othertimes we are terrified of it and attack it with wild-eyed zeal.
HP: When we're not whoring to Microsoft, we'll be more than happy to sell Linux to our cutomsters, but then we'll go right back to our buddies in Redmond.
Dell: We are such corporatist tools that if it is remotely risky we won't touch it with less than a 10 foot pole. We'll sell a few Linux boxes, but claim the way most families claim a gay cousin.
Microsoft: I really hope no one has to explain this one to you.
IBM: Linux lets us standardize and save money. We build on Linux a little, we save tons of money, thrash our competition and make tons of money. Invest over $1B today, and we make many times more than that. Not only that, but Linux is a great stick to beat Microsoft with.
I wonder why IBM looks like such a good ally. Maybe it has to do with them seeing the growth of a robust Linux platform and community as the fastest way to them not only getting revenge, but being the preeminent IT company in the world.
No company will actually side with OSS for altruistic reasons, but it isn't hard to guage motives. IBM's motives are the most sympathetic of all of the big IT companies to Linux. IBM sees guiding Linux into the big time as the best way to become a massive force unto itself. Most other companies like to ride the fence and only occassionally flirt with Linux which is the enemy of their ally, Microsoft.
The problem with most OEMs IMO is that Microsoft is more than just a supplier to them. They don't have the business sense to see that dependence on Microsoft Windows means that they cannot act in their own interests if Microsoft makes the XBox2 essentially a real computer for John Q. Citizen. It makes them like a cheap fuck buddy, and when Microsoft is through with Dell, HP, etc they will be discarded as quickly.
The only thing I personally wish that an OEM had the foresight to do, was for Apple to give a few million dollars to the OSI with a tacit purpose of working on the OSX port of open office and general open office improvement beyond that.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Sure, they make hardware and sure, they sell software. However, they have legions of consultants that make money providing SERVICE to their clientele. Supporting software and tools that are both inexpensive/free and easily (freely?) maintained only helps their consulting business which is probably where their highest margins are. You have to sell LOTS of computers and peripherals to make the same profit you make by parking a dozen consultants at a customer location for 6 months.
Cheers,
My impression of IBM is that they would prefer not to be in the operating system business. They would rather that there exist some external, highly portable, highly popular OS that they can base their systems on, and perhaps enhance when they have to. They don't seem to want to push AIX everywhere, and they certainly do not want to be at the mercy of MicroSoft (even if they helped create that monster).
And then along comes Linux.
That they get extra benefits by supporting Linux and the Open Source community, like great press, shows that IBM managers aren't as dumb as they look.
Interesting way to mention GPL.
Even more interesting is the fact that this article's on msnbc that is owned by microsoft.
Good to see an article that doesn't take any side in particular
Partnering with folks bigger than you is like going to the motel room with Mike Tyson.
When everybody gets naked and jumps in a pile, the deal will get done and you can be sure you will not be on the top.
Of course this may be a kinder gentler IBM(ike) than the one from the past, so we probably have absolutely nothing to fear. What me worry?
I used to think that the Thinkpads were best laptops out there. Now we call them Stinkpads and their Deskstar hard drive lines (with I believe Hitachi now owns) have become the Deathstar hard drives.
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
Maybe someone else has the exact quote, but didn't Bill Gates say that he sees the future of computers as when people will pay for the OS (subscription of course) and the hardware will be free?
IBM is pushing the opposite. The OS is free and people have to pay for the hardware.
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
Since HP killed thier Open Source strategy thanks to signing "new patent cross license with Microsoft that protects HP in the sort term", they've been nothing but a mouthpiece for MSFT fud.
Remember, HP are the guys who saw the SCO opportunity as a way of trying to scare people into paying HP more for "indemnification from SCO" than SCO was even asking for! And they had the gall to claim that this extortion fee was "support" of linux and accused IBM of not doing the same.
IBM certainly won my respect, thanks to their respect of the GPL.
about the open source movement is its capacity to leverage human greed for a productive end. Yeah, IBM's going to look out for its own interests, not ours. But for the moment our interests coincide, so that's a good thing. And the positive things IBM does for us while it's in IBM's interests to do so won't go away once IBM's interests change-- the GPL means that once IBM splits with the OSS community the OSS community, unentangled, can just take its code and run.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I worked at a large publishing company where IBM was pitching a new e-commerce system. They succeeded in concvincing our gullible CTO to buys their whole package, including proprietary hardware and AIX to run on it. When I suggested that Linux on Intel systems would be a better choice for a relatively low-traffic web service like this, they immediately starting running down Linux. They had nothing good to say about open source software in general, implying that the apache server they bundle is somehow a different species from the one anyone can download. In short, they like Linux when they can make money off it, and will rip it to shreds if they think they can sell you something more expensive.
Amerigo Bonasera:Linux community::IBM:Don Corleone.
Godfather fans out there will get that one.
* I'll Be in a Meeting
And of course for you Linux phans...
* It Beats Microsoft
I have to laugh at this IBM lovefest because I remember when IBM was considered every bit the nemesis that Microsoft is considered today, by the same sorts of people.
Since I've now seen it with my own eyes, I have proof that it's possible that the next generation will astound many of you by embracing Microsoft as their hero.
It doesn't pay to get too carried away in your caricatures of heroes and villains.
You were warned....
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
"Open-source geeks are devout in their belief that software should be free to all..."
"...and what the open-source community sees as a Microsoft front company bent on destroying their free paradise."
Once again, the linux community is portrayed as a bunch of geeks pinching pennies, not worried so much about free software but rather free (as in healthy beer) software.
IBM realized that the software industry would change the most from the era of the Internet, unlike hardware and consulting services. A company expecting to make its bread and butter from software will be in a constant rush to stay one step ahead of thousands, if not millions, of unpaid software developers who write software for no other purpose than to have it the way they want. The Internet made it possible for those legions of volunteers to congregate internationally, as well as publicize and distribute for free.
If only other companies had the vision to look that far ahead and make the hard decisions necessary to evolve.
What many people have failed to notice is that IBM provides more to the OSS community than just a corporate image. For the most part, the OSS community little way of inforcing the GPL or for that matter has very little force of it's own (both of these need to change) to protect itself from larger companies (MSFT, SCO, etc). IBM (and it's legal team, money, etc) provide an incubational service to the OSS community by offering a bit of corporate [legal/monitary/etc] power while we build some of our own.
Mak'tal shree lok'tak mek'ta sa'tak Oz! - Daniel Jackson
'...Big Blue has seen its reputation in the global open-source community shift from suspect sugar daddy to knight in shining armor.'
... Shark in a blue (pinstripe) suite ... it's all the same.
... back in its bul...err, glory days]
Knight in shining armor
Natty
[who worked for Big Blue once upon a time
Maybe the rain Isn't really to blame. So I'll remove the cause, But not the symptom!
Wow. You really know that OS geekery has gone mainstream when big players like Newsweeks are writing articles that start off like this:
Open-source geeks are devout in their belief that software should be free to all, and hold as their icon the Linux alternative to the Microsoft commercial empire. As unpaid volunteers who collaborate to develop open source code, they tend to be anti-corporate types.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."
- Verbal, The Usual Suspects
scott king
The rest is open-source history.
Interestingly, IBM's embracing Linux is one of the factors eliminating Sun as a viable competitor in the market for highend servers. 6-sigma Linux, backed by an army of free programmers and advice-givers, versus closed proprietary Solaris is tantamount to a battle between a F-22 (stealth fighter) and a Mig 17. No contest.
I am concerned that the article implicitly states that the intellectual property really does belong to SCO; ie. that SCO is defending its rights but is being defeated in the courtroom. Look at these few quotes:
Anyone reading this who is not familiar with the case will conclude that SCO really does have "something", but is being threatened by IBM who stands to make a great profit from Linux, and that the "free Linux community" are religious zealots (note use of word "sacrilege"; I would have preferred "anti-thetical" or something).So, yes, the article does admit that SCO is losing in court. But to a layman, SCO is the victim. Hope the media makes progress on this.
(As an aside, one thing I do hope for is that Rob Enderle get his just deserts. Any media pundit who gets up and argues on an emotional basis with no rational support for his arguments deserves to be shown for the fraud he is.)
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
says free-software guru Eric Raymond. "Folks like me have an ingrained hatred for lawyers. But at that point hackers will lift IBM's lawyers on their shoulders."
they tend to be anti-corporate types
I would suggest that only a small number of the free software advocates are anti-corporation, anti-business, anti-everything-not-free. It may appear so when you look at Linux distros like Debian, who makes such a big deal out of the idea and purpose behind the software, but I believe that the average FLOSSer is just you're average joe. Well maybe not average...
From looking at the comments posted on slashdot, it seems that most of us are reasonable people, able to understand the benefits of an open market. The only thing is that we believe that free software can be part of this market. From TFA, you'd think we're all living in communes!
Therefore I don't find it that unbelievable that the OSS community would accept IBM as our knight. The only thing we object to is a company taking advantage of the freedoms that our software and the GPL provide. We don't hate the idea of a big company (after all, many of us get our paychecks from one!), we just don't like being abused by them.
On a slightly different tact, I would also suggest that Novell has been a strong defender, perhaps taking bigger risks than IBM. Novell is in direct competition with Microsoft, and has been so for years! And more to the point, they still pull a profit! IBM has a different focus than Microsoft, but Novell is right in the line of fire. Despite that, Novell manages to completely embrace SUSE and Ximian and turn it into a corporate backed project with a real future. Now there's a hero!
Either way, seeing the media begin to accept FLOSS as a viable business method is a good step. We've known it for years, and clearly some corporations (IBM, Novell) knew it as well. The only real hurdle left is the media and the public. When these are overcome, we'll start to see real competition between the proprietary and the open source camps.
When marketing Linux on the desktop we have to put into the center the gigantic set of free and useful applications that people can get on a Linux PC, as opposed to the blank slate that a Windows XP (without Office) is. We have word processors, spreadsheets, presentation programs, sound editors, drawing/painting/image editing programs, cool web browsers, download managers, text editors, the best email clients, free games (some of them nice), RSS aggregators, heck, clients for any Internet service you can think of. Spyware is unheard of, all of this is free and installed if you want it.
I hope that with Ubuntu and Userlinux we'll see serious attempts to build user-ready Linux desktop computers with cool extra services like remote support via SSH and auto-update via apt-get, and with a lower price thanks to the lack of a Windows tax.
The thing that strike me as even stranger is the close relationship between Apple and IBM. Remember, all through most of the '80's it was IBM, not M$FT, that Apple was really seen as trying to copete with. Enter the mid-90's, and they're collaborating on the PPC. Now you've got IBM hosting sites touting Linux (or even OSX) on a Mac G5 as a good platform for developing PPC code for POWER4 Linux and AIX boxen. But IBM seems to make a lot of its money from hardware, and I guess that includes Macs with IBM PPC chips.
I attempted to get the parts needed to fix one of the PS machines. I was met with scorn by the people I called at IBM and by the authorized dealer I was sent to. I loved the machines but that was intolerable to me. I was trying to fix an older PS machine that had the integrated monitor. A chip was bad causing the 'red screen of death'.
I managed to hack the computer to use another monitor and pulled the customers data off of it and put it all in a nice clone.
It's been nearly 20 years since that time and only because of their change in attitude has mine changed. I'll support them as long as they support me. Their stance on Linux slowly won back some measure of respect I had but I'll probably never have the awe I once had.
I still want an IBM made WWII carbine though.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Don't bother to RTFA. It is the most inaccurate piece of hogwash I have seen in a long time. The corrections portion is the most interesting.
The original article claims that SCO was formerly Santa Cruz Operation, that its stock was delisted from the NASDAQ, and other amusing mistakes. It almost seems like an ill-informed attempt to bash Microsoft, which is truly odd because they are a partly owned subsidiary....
Indeed MSNBC has tended to be far more interested in Linux than the rest of the press. Maybe I need a tinfoil hat, but I am beginning to wonder if it is a Microsoft plan to hype competition as a way of saying "We are not a monopoly."
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Bottom Line is that IBM is one of many and various types of supporters of FOSS.
Lets say IBM loses against SCO (yeah, we all know better, but for the sake of arguement).... Will tying the OS community to be followers of IBM.... bring Linux down?
Sorry but FOSS is simple stronger in foundation than even the largest and longest standing of companies, for it is of people not legally created and defined enities.
Open source isn't profitable for IBM by a long shot at this time. It is costing them a fortune.
What their contributions have done, is make selling linux servers a credible option for their competitors HP, dell and even Sun.
Their Linux strategy does not seem to be harming IBM terribly either, (not as much as for example apache tomcat seems to be harming websphere) so is their current support for Linux a public relations investment? Or perhaps it was meant to prevent the not entirely unrealistic scenario of a future where all servers would be Xeons running either windows NT or Solaris x86 ?
Newsweek That's right, it's by newsweek. That means it's an article written by an idiot, for idiots. Try to find any citations from the article for any of their facts. In fact, try doing that with any article ever written published by Newsweek. Call me when you find one. Also look how they had to correct the article after the author messed up with SCO's history.
Microsoft did save us from the hardware lock-in single vendor world that IBM was trying to create. The result is that "PC" hardware sells at just above cost and is available from a widge range of vendors offering an even wider range of possible products.
Now we just have to do the same thing at the OS and office suite levels and...
And IBM is the rich strong hubby. However Sun is the geek thats in love with this girl..
So Sun and IBM can hate each other, but Linux measures IBM's sincerity against his $$$
However Linux is no simple girl and really shes planning to have a kid from both, and to take both IBM and Sun away from their children from previous marriage, AIX and Solaris. This way Linux's children will inherit the fortunes from both companies.
In the end Linux is a tramp. Shes already had SGI's XFS in her, toyed with HP, and now just badmouths him like an exboyfriend, and now hates the potentially newer and younger girl on the block... BSD. BSD is the good girl whose keeping to herself for the moment... and to her marriage with Mr Apple.
You never know what she'll do in the future.
Microsoft on the other hand is beginning to feel he needs a girl...
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
I work for a Fortune 50 with a long relationship with IBM from mainframes on down..
Lately IBM has been spending a great deal of effort trying to get people to drink the "linux-on-powerpc" kool-aid.
Personally, I think its stupid to run anything other than Linux-on-x86.
As soon as you leave x86 your in the land of where you cant use what everyone else is using, and getting things to install like say Subversion or something is about as hard as trying to get it to work on HPUX... unless everyone else (or a much larger number than today at least) runs Linux on x86, then running Linux on anything else such as PowerPC, Sparc, or Itanium you will always feel like the red-head bastard child that never gets to go out and play with the other kids, never gets a new bike when they do, and only gets to wear hand-me-down clothes... No Thanks.
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
What would Ayn Rand have against Linux? Linux isn't communism.
Open source is either a hobby or a different business model -- and that includes the GPL. Programmers contribute to open source or free software for a number of reasons. Sometimes it's to acquire status (i.e. make business connections); sometimes it is to develop a product and establish themselves as experts in that product, which will then make it easy to position themselves as consultants; and sometimes it is merely for the joy of working on something cutting edge with a group of other intelligent, motivated people.
What in the above is anti-capitalistic?
The phenomenon that is open source or free software merely illustrates that there are a lot of talented, motivated, and ambitious individuals in programming. Additionally, it arises from the fact that software is difficult to design. A small shop or lone consultant could not design meaningful, robust software (barring very few exceptions). Open source is a way for small entrepreneurs to strike out on their own.
Sure, there are "hippies" in open source -- but so what? A capitalistic society makes room for free software as it does "free love."
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Every serious business and legal analyst knows that IBM will defeat SCO's attacks and in the end the GPL is going to come out with some shiny new armor. I couldn't think of a more mismatched suit, a plaintiff so brazen or a defendant so well armed as the case of SCO suing IBM. The F/OSS movement couldn't ask for a better legal champion.
Of course, IBM doesn't promote F/OSS out of the goodness of its heart, it makes millions in sales every year because of F/OSS. But just because it's in IBM's business interests doesn't make it's protections of the GPL any less valid. IBM also sees a chance to right a wrong it made two decades ago when it agreed to Microsoft's terms of licensing the operating system to run its personal computers (instead of buying it outright).
F/OSS programmers aren't being used by IBM any more than IBM's lawyers are being used by F/OSS programmers. It's a symbiotic relationship -- or to use the PHB speak, a "strategic partnership."
To all you critics, what then constitutes support? What do you want? Beanbag chairs, lava lamps and free love? The OS movement will die if it wants to preselect who it chooses to love and support it.
they don't f this up like they did with OS/2.
Every time someone mentions Company X as a FLOSS friendly, or Company Y as the evil enemy of FLOSS, the same type of responses come. Some are for, some are against, and the various reasons are listed and debates ensue ...
Think about these points:
So let us get over this bickering and know that this is happening and is going to happen for the forseable future.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
...went and dug out ole grampa here... it's a "national postal meter"
%^)
Tell ya whut they are choppin up is a crying shame and that's all the 14s. Serious nice rifle there.
That's hilarious.
Of blankness, I know nothing.
OSS is not "anti-corporate", as the article suggests. OSS is about the ability to create software and enhance it. OSS is ultimately about creating and maintaining free markets and competition. OSS comes in conflict with corporations only when those corporations try to interfere with the operations of the free market or when those corporations try to stifle competition, for example through the establishment of proprietary de-facto standards.
So, there is nothing strange about an alliance between the OSS community and IBM: IBM is demonstrating that corporations can prosper by embracing OSS and by offering services related to OSS.
The best way of dealing with this is to get the senior salesperson into a corner and tell them that this is probably the first part of a new strategy and if they blow the budget there won't be any follow-on.
See my journal, I write things there
Generally speaking, saying "a company will never said with Linux for altruistic reasons" implies that you are saying that altruism is not a factor....
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
I have an HP Deskjet 990CXi. A simple, colour deskjet.
Neither of the two drivers for this printer currently offered by CUPS works properly. One of them prints garbage when it's told to print in colour, but is fine in grayscale. The other driver prints the black ink fine, but the colour ink image is double-size compared with the black. So that's only usable in grayscale as well.
That's with current Gentoo, CUPS, and the standard offering of printer drivers through the printer config GUI, btw.
The drivers that come with Red Hat 9 print ok except for an unnecessarily large top margin where nothing is printed (it's larger then the printer can do, and larger than one but not both of the margins of the Gentoo drivers).
My point is that HP Deskjets don't automatically just work the way your grandmother needs them to, or Linux printing doesn't just work or some combination thereof. There's plenty of room for improvement.
-- Jamie