From: Johnny Hughes mailing-lists@hughesjr.com

IBM has since totally changed their thoughts with regards to GNU/Linux.

Actually, their cut-off of Monterey had everything to do with their current change in strategy on Linux back in 2000+. Monterey was established before IBM's interest in GNU/Linux. After IBM realized that it could use an economical complement in Linux, it saw a Monterey/IA-64 version as a thread (this was before x86-64 established itself). Hence the result.

They (like RedHat) are still a business that needs to make money ... but both they (and RedHat) are doing many things to make GNU/Linux much better.

But in actual "meat" -- HP, Red Hat and even Sun have done far more for GPL GNU/Linux. IBM's support has been sporadic, and heavily non-GPL. Now I _have_ noted a few of their kernel contributions, and their 500 patent donation actually made me rethink my stance. But still, in comparison to even Sun, they are anemic.

Especially when they yanked support for Linux on their desktops and notebooks, even at the height of their involvement. HP and even Sun have expanded in comparison. Right now IBM's involvement has been limited to certain, enterprise-specific considerations. And even their Java has not been anywhere near GPL -- not even SWT.

Would they rather you buy their hardware and software, yes (ie, AIX). Would they rather you ran Linux on their Hardware, if you were going to run it (vice on HP), yes.

But they are actually preventing clients from going with another vendor by contract. In reality, IBM is no better than what Caldera-SCO is now doing, and IBM has actually been the "master" in that approach.

But the fact remains that IBM is put more money into Linux than anyone else.

That's the "Linux Quiz Show" I'm talking about. You're tuning in for the money, not the substance.

Maturing your own product line and not sharing your developments is what IBM is doing, not HP, Red Hat or even Sun. And in most cases, IBM's licenses are no better than Sun's -- let alone IBM has not even matched 1/10th of the GPL donations of HP, Red Hat or Sun.

That's what I'm talking about.

IBM is a founding member and large donor to OSDL ( http://www.osdl.org ) ... which employs Linus Torvalds and Andrew Morton (among others) to do Linux kernel work exclusively.

And that's one of the very few highlights of IBM. They have also helped out LPI tremendously. But when it comes to actual donations and endeavors, they are very, very, _very_ proprietary. IBM's entire solutions are built upon proprietary tiers with little-to-no standards, whereas HP and Sun are at least "open standard," and HP's frameworks are increasingly open source based (with heafty donations).

What I'm trying to say here is that IBM is offering "vendor lock-in" no different than Microsoft from a solutions standpoint, which matches the fact that they are porting their proprietary software to Linux and leaving it proprietary. Other than some community endeavors like OSDL, support of LPI, their entire Linux effort is 98% proprietary, and most of the remaining 2% is not "GPL compatible."

While I appreciate IBM's efforts, I really find it ironic that people don't hold IBM to the same standards as Sun or Red Hat. And when it comes to a leading R&D company that is also a tier-1 OEM, HP is far more of a community donator than IBM. IBM has only stood behind the GPL when it has favored them, like in the Caldera-SCO lawsuit (although I admit their legal team _does_ seem to "get" the GPL, and are using it well in the lawsuit).

They also employ Andrew Tridgell (samba creator). Where is Linux without OSDL and IBM?

Many companies are involved with OSDL. It's not just IBM. In fact, last time I checked, HP and Red Hat were also heavily involved. I know Sun is now participating (although I'm sure no where near the other 3).

In fact, Red Hat has continually been the company that has solved many GPL issues when the have arisen, instead of just complaining about them. E.g., Qt/KDE -- instead of fighting it, they created GNOME. The new Java reliance on OpenOffice.org 2.0? Red Hat has been the catalyst for renewed GCJ development.

Whatever people want to talk about is fine with me :)

Same here. But I don't want people complaining about my posting factual information in response to snide comments. They can ignore it if they don't like it. If you embrace it, I think you'll find why I get a lot of the work I do as a Linux architect all over the US.

Because I don't demonize companies and products with 1-liners. I explain their strategies and their technologies in a very technical and legal way. Trust me, I don't know how many times I've gone into a client and the one business developer or mid-executive who has veto'ed every other consultant finally gives his approval to the technical leads.

Because he knows I'm not going to take the company down a religious-based solution. I'm going to architect a solution that is about mitigating risk, and factoring in the vendor interests into minimizing that risk.

-- Bryan J. Smith mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org