Open Source Complaint Against IBM Gets Support

Posted by kdawson on Friday June 25, 2010 @02:53AM from the flashback-to-the-eighties dept.

FlorianMueller writes "ZDNet blogger Dana Blankenhorn reports that '[t]he efforts by open source TurboHercules to break IBM's mainframe monopoly through the European Commission got some proprietary support this week when NEON Enterprise Software LLC of Austin, Texas, filed an EU complaint alongside a US antitrust lawsuit.' NEON's founder co-founded BMC, so the company is well-funded for this fight. In comments given to the IDG News Service, IBM claims that NEON's product, which saves mainframe customers money by optimizing the use of coprocessors, 'offers no innovation,' and accuses the 'copycat' of violating IBM's intellectual property. That's basically what IBM also said about the Hercules emulator. The European Commission is expected to take a decision on an investigation in a matter of months. Since IBM lobbies the EC over the Open Document Format, it's now accused of double standards."

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Re:A big corporation with double standards?! by Richard_at_work · 2010-06-25 03:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

I don't even think its double standards - taking action against one project, whether its open source or proprietary, does not mean taking action against an entire ethos and it does not conflict with supporting an open standard elsewhere. To try and spin this as a double standard seems very much like someone is trying to market it as a negative toward IBM as a whole.