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IBM Promotes Linux Partners to Highest Tier

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the getting-a-leg-up dept.

Anonymous Anonmenon writes "Big Blue was at it again today after it promoted the two leading commercial Linux distributions to the highest level tier of its Strategic Alliance Program. From the article: '[The Strategic Alliance Program] is designed to allow independent software vendors (ISV) work through one point of contact within IBM as opposed to navigating through several relationships with representatives from different divisions. The move was billed by executives from all companies as a means to make it simpler for clients to acquire open standards-based Linux hardware, software, and services through integrated sales, distribution and services channels.' The announcement was also heavy on the Java side, with both Red Hat and Novell pledging a 'reinforced commitment' to the Java developer community and J2EE."

5 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. Fantastic by The+Bungi · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Maybe one of these days I'll see the source to DB2, Websphere, MQ and such. Heck, never mind the source... I'll settle for less draconian licensing. Open source and all that, IBM is now.

    Then again probably not.

    IBM can talk the talk all day but at the end of the day regardless of all the Linux lip service they really don't walk the walk, and probably never will.

    1. Re:Fantastic by blair1q · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This isn't quite hypocritical.

      IBM has a lot of legacy stuff (documents, enterprise apps, specialized business and engineering tools) that wouldn't operate cleanly in a Linux environment. Even if it's a small percentage of their information and tool base, it's an argument for backward compatibility.

      They can convince you to buy Linux if they can convince you to loose yourself from your legacy constraints. But they can't convince themselves because it would cost them more than they're willing to spend. You might have a different tolerance for the change.

  2. Business by Council · · Score: 1, Insightful

    This has far less to do with Linux business usefulness, per se, as it does with IBM's continued attempts to publicize Linux to the larger world (see their Super Bowl ads).

    Which is a noble goal, certainly.

    --
    xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
  3. Re:Novell and Java by m50d · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Novell devotedly supports whatever their customers want. Which right now means both Java and .Net.

    --
    I am trolling
  4. Re:Novell and Java by int19h · · Score: 2, Insightful


    This isn't very interesting at all.


    You can compile a java-program and run it under Mono.
    Eclipse runs under Mono.
    See: http://www.go-mono.com/images/ikvm-screenshot.png


    As the distinction between Java, .NET and Mono seems to be unclear to a few people, I'll throw in my "humble view":


    • Mono supports several langauges, that easily interoperate. Java supports one langugage.
      You can write in support for other languages in Java, like Jython, but this is not the point.
      A compiled function written in Boo can easily be called from C#.
      See: http://www.mono-project.com/Languages

    • Mono has a compiler, VM, and a bunch of classes that are all As Free As They Can Be (tm).
      In addition, Mono has re-implemented a few microsoft-specific classes, that can easily be removed, where there supposedely is an incredibly tiny chance that anyone will care. If you're making Linux-only programs, this will never be an issue for you, and you'll have a very nice and powerful tool for making programs with.
      See: http://www.mono-project.com/FAQ:_General

    • It's easy to call .dll's and .so's from Mono. For what I know, It's not that easy from Java. I tried calling some dlls a few years ago, and it was a mess. For me, at least, the threshold for calling a function from libsomething.so from Java is a lot higher than from Mono. Especially if you're planning on doing this in a crossplattform way, which Mono has support for. You can call the native .so on Linux and the native .dll on windows, with the same program.
      See: http://www.linuxgazette.com/node/8794

    • Python supposedly runs faster under IronPython (which runs on Mono) than normal python (CPython).
      See: http://www.python.org/pycon/dc2004/papers/9/


    Regardless of my list of points above, I hope you'll see that Novell could very well be "reinforcing their commitment to the Java community, while at the same time funding Mono".