Microsoft Invests In Open Source Software Company

Posted by timothy on Thursday December 2, 2010 @08:39AM from the world's-biggest-open-source-vendor dept.

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.

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Re:MICROSOFT FUNDING IBM LAWSUIT by killmenow · 2010-12-02 09:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.