On Fri, May 11, 2001 at 01:34:47PM -0400, Eric Pierce wrote:
>
> I disagree on IBM's motives. It looks to me that this is a totally
> "bottom-line" type of decision. It seems to me that they don't really think
> Linux is that powerful, they just need something to replace the aging OS/390
> on the mainframes and they want to get rid of NT on the low-end (Intel)
> servers. If they really thought that Linux and open source was going to be
> the "Next Big Thing" for servers, they would be promoting Linux for all
> their platforms, not just the S/390 and the xSeries. If Open Source is so
> important to IBM, where is the source to AIX, WebSphere, or any of their
> other programs?
>
> The power of the Linux phenomenon is not in Linux itself...there is nothing
> about it fundamentally different than any other Unix. The important
> distinction is that Linux is Free (as in speech, beer doesn't matter as
> much). Free Software is what creates the flexibility that Linux is famous
> for. That flexibility is what allows IBM to run it on a S/390 in the first
> place, yet it seems that they are not interested in Freeing any of their
> other projects.
>
Understand something: the answer I gave to why IBM does Linux is the
answer given by Ralph Cooley of IBM.
Was Ralph lying or misinformed? I dunno. I can only report what we were
told. I'd like to think that IBM did this partially to get at Microsoft.
But when I asked him that directly, he grinned and reiterated the
original reason, as though this is something he encounters a lot.
Corporations as big as IBM are opaque. Neither the employee nor the
customer may ever know why a company really does something. But that's
not to say that every publicly stated motive is a lie.
I have no reason to believe that Ralph didn't tell the truth as he sees
it. If it's not the truth, we'll probably never know. And even if it is
the truth, some people will never believe it anyway.
Paul
> > Aside from _what_ IBM is doing and _how_, the why is essentially this:
> > IBM wanted to be ahead of the curve on this one. They've missed the boat
> > several times, and here was a case where they could see the writing on
> > the wall with regard to Linux. One other important point: IBM has no
> > interest in Linux on the desktop. That's not what they're pushing.
> >
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