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IBM Turns to Open Source Development
mmmbop writes "'Is open source changing the way that software is made? It is at IBM. BetaNews sat down with Doug Heintzman, IBM Software Group's VP of Strategy and Technology, to discuss the adoption of a hybrid development model called Community Source that combines the best elements of the open source model with decades of IBM programming practice - avoiding a top down approach that IBM says could make Microsoft's Longhorn obsolete upon arrival.' A long read, but well worth it."
Never trust someone who says that Lotus Notes is "highly functional."
I couldn't bear to read the whole thing. Example: ...Certainly a lot of our componentization efforts, and subsequently the tooling to support those componentization efforts, are focused on the core enabling.
I stopped reading after that. Too much consultant speak even if the content is good. And I've been a consultant for years...
oh, you mean like how they're releasing AFS next year?
Yeah, commercial companies have to go full-on to prove they're OSS friendly...none of this half-ass crap! I can't stand companies that only give a few hundred thousand in donations to charities, instead of giving 100% of their net profits. Those bastards!
'IBM Turns to Open Source Development.' '...we need to move to a development system that allows us much greater transparency, and a much greater awareness and cross pollination of expertise, ideas and requirements between all of the various different laboratories.' Their speaking of using an 'open source model' for internal development is what prompted the article in the first place. If they had said, 'We will be using a distributive development model, that gives wide access to the source code among our developers, but by the by, we won't be releasing the code to the public,' would there be the attention this article has got to get it on slashdot? Perhaps to complain that they aren't releasing the code; my complaint is they aren't releasing the code while still using 'open source' as a buzz word. It's either free (as in free speech), or it isn't.
Lets see IBM release bits of WebSphere, DB2, MQSeries or Notes to Open Source. IBM likes open source as much as it is detrimental to their competitors, but you'll be unlikely to see them open source their big moneymakers.
The only people who will always have cutting edge software are those who are willing to view their software as a utility (pay monthly for it). If software isn't updated on a continual basis it is always obsolete.
IBM's clients are big businesses (as far as their cash cow consulting services go). All of these businesses pay IBM tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars every month. The average Longhorn user isn't prepared to do that.
So, IBM claiming that Longhorn will be obsolete as soon as it is released is only pointing out the fact that Longhorn caters to a different market than IBM's products do. Mac's next OS will be obsolete as soon as it is put out as well as about 99.999% of all other software.
Just putting it in perspective. It's not an open source thing, it's just the way the software market works.
IBM's been working on new OS features, but they've been contributing them to Linux, not doing much with them in AIX.
I'd have to disagree with that. The improvements may not be obvious from a user perspective, but they're certainly there. For example, AIX 5.3 now supports being able to partition a single processor (Power 5 only), has various improvements in the LVM and NIM now supports installs using secure sockets. You now have the ability to force unmounts of wedged NFS filesystems without having to reboot your system. And those are just the few improvement that come to mind off the top of my head.
I love Linux, don't get me wrong, but for high-end hardware it isn't a contest. I'd take AIX over Linux every time. Once you find your way around it (and I concede that compared to Solaris or Linux or HP-UX, etc., it is a little on the weird side), it's probably the most versatile, stable and easily managed *nix implementation out there.
Core Enabling!
Core Enabling!
That's absolutely beautiful! The only problem is I can't decide whether it ought to be the name of a marketing buzzword from a 10-year-old video game console, or the name of a band.
AND NOW LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THE MOMENT YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR...
CORE ENABLING.
[epic guitar solo]
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts