More Open Source and Linux Support from IBM

Neville writes "IBM moved its developerworks out of beta and launched it with a new Open Source Zone. Current open source projects include jikes, a java compiler that works blazingly fast in Debian, BSD, and RH. Jikes is tres cool - as usual, IBM actually implements java better than Sun. Maybe this is what it takes to finally get java and linux to mesh, and maybe I can finally convert my last Solaris x86 box to linux. They also offer a Linux Zone with info on Python and GNOME. "

Comments

Jikes Open Source

[whig]

As the Debian maintainer for Jikes, I have been incredibly impressed with IBM's serious adoption of Open Source. With the original Jikes release, there were problems with the license which prevented it from being included in Debian's main distribution. When these problems were brought to IBM's attention, they immediately agreed to get their lawyers to work on a revision. The end result is that Debian now has a completely free Java implementation available for those who can accept the limitations of Kaffe's runtime library, and a truly fast and robust alternative to Sun's javac even for those who use the JDK runtime.

thanks for the kind words

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I'm in Austin, TX. Today was the end of IBM's first "Linux Summit". There will be more... If you have a problem with Jikes, visit us at http://ibm.com/developerworks/opensource and use the Jitterbug system to report it. We'll try to fix it ASAP. By the way, the machine that serves up the Jikes Project Pages from dW is running RH Linux 6.0, from outside the IBM firewall. We plan to open up the CVS tree for write-access from outside IBM soon. We want to wait until we get v1.07 out, as Philippe is currently making (lots of) changes needed to get the LocalVariableTable right, which will fix a known problem with debug support. Note that Jikes is now in the "free" part of Debian, is included in Red Hat's main distribution, and the license has been approved by OSI. The mail lists should be up soon. We are waiting for Ken Coar (IBM, Apache) to check out the Majordomo setup. By the way, I'm leaving soon to have dinner with the chap who manages the developerworks/opensource site. Exciting times indeed, and who would have thunk it...from IBM. I know I wouldn't -- a year ago. Now -- I LOVE IT! Dave Shields shields@watson.ibm.com Jikes Project Core Team Member

They're serious about Open Source

[Bruce Perens]

I worked with IBM folks on the latest version of their Open Source license. They are serious about Open Source, they made the effort to comply with the OSD, and they were really nice and easy people to work with.

Thanks

Bruce