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IBM Turns to Open Source Development

Posted by Zonk on from the turning-up-in-lots-of-places dept.

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."

1 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Re:They could show their true dedication ... by Amiga+Trombone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.