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Microsoft Invests In Open Source Software Company
joabj writes "In what may be its first investment in an open source software company, Microsoft has quietly invested in TurboHercules, which maintains the Hercules open source IBM mainframe emulator. Perhaps the potential for purloining customers from the juicy mainframe market outstrips any misgivings Microsoft may have about open source. You might remember TurboHercules: In March, it filed an antitrust complaint with the EU over IBM's tying of its mainframe OSes with its hardware."
A story from earlier this year gives more information on the related conflict between Hercules and IBM over patents.
Besides the people behind this case, the case itself is quite interesting too.
The European Commission (or Court of Justice) will have to decide if IBM has harmed TurboHercules through anti-competitive behaviour. IBM has also asserted patents. This means that if the European institutions find that IBM is doing wrong, then they will also have to decide if IBM can use its patents to continue the wrong. I.e. what trumps? Competition law or patents?
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/IBM_and_TurboHercules,_2010
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Competition_law_defence
If competition law trumps, then this opens a new path for breaking down the problems that software patents are doing to standards and interop.
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Harm_to_standards_and_compatibility
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
While I'm happy Microsoft is investing in open source, I find that their target is fairly suspicious.. what easier way to take on IBM indirectly than to give money to an open source company who is already in conflict with them.
In addition, it's not like Microsoft isn't already trying to embrace open source. You'd be surprised at just how much stuff is released under MS-PL licence. And while that may anger you, as it's their own licence, it's rather free.
The fact is Microsoft is funding TurboHercules and thereby funding the lawsuit. Now why Microsoft is funding TurboHercules may have little or nothing to do with said lawsuit.There's room for conspiracy theories there and those who are into such things can (and likely will) take that ball and run with it but I don't know or care to speculate. Still, "Microsoft is funding TurboHercules lawsuit against IBM" [sic] is a statement of fact. They weren't funding it at the start, but they are now.
Hercules is a hardware emulator. Running stuff on Hercules does not get you any closer to migrating to Windows than running on a real zSeries machine does. The only thing Hercules does is allow you to move from expensive but highly reliable hardware to cheap hardware. Of course that move comes with an enormous performance penalty, and your 5 9s mainframe reliability has just gone in the toilet. There are probably only a handful of IBM customers world-wide who would even seriously consider doing that. The only thing Microsoft 'gains' from this is potential damage to IBM.