Do you support IBM?

[retoon]

Do you support IBM's decision to support Linux? Do you think the are hypocritical? Share your thoughts and comments here.

[sasKuatch]

If they want to use linux, that's fine with me, it only shows that it is a viable OS.

[Okie]

i can see the future of Linux as continueing to be a free & opensource kernel and OS, (mostly)

but business apps & productivity tools will not be all free (linux coders & programmers have to eat & pay bills too) so i would imagine there will be some top notch applications designed specificly for business wont be free...

places like linuxiso.org and sourceforge will continue and thrive...

the not free Linux business' will not hurt FSF and Opensource, they will improove the code with more money & developers investing in Linux/vmlinuz & etc...etc...etc...

so in the long run i think the free part of Linux & opensource will help business and business will help free software- one hand washes the other:cool:

[williamwbishop]

Personally, I am what is referred to by my coworkers as a "IBM bigot". I love IBM. Everything from the old aptivas(and before) to the giant 390's are all great. I've had terrific luck with all of their hardware(minus the drives...which I'm not sure they made anyway, just specced). To me there is nothing more beautiful(computing wise) than a row of black IBM racks loaded with gear. Even AIX is nifty....fast paths are the coolest thing going in unix. I cannot complain with them supporting linux, it benefits them, it benefits us.

[El_Cu_Guy]

Do you think the are hypocritical?

Hypocrtical how? IBM doesn't produce it's own distro so why should it make isos available for download?

Note: Before some misinformed nimrod starts misquoting the GNU GPL, no one is required to make anything 100% free. Even the free distribution of source code is limited those which you distriibute the binaries to and you can charge for those. All apps that run on open source OSes don't have to be free (both definitions) either. This is a Richard Stallman/FSF philosophy/dream.

Maybe you mean hypocritical as they are a proprietary UNIX vendor with AIX. Nope I don't see it. While IBM sees the potential revenue stream it is not about to give up on AIX.

This article makes sense (http://rtnews.globetechnology.com/servlet/ArticleNews/tech/RTGAM/20030129/gtiblin/Technology/techBN/) .

[crokett]

Well since I work for IBM, I'm kinda biased. Or should I not have mentioned that. <flamesuit (just in case)> :D

Anyhow, I don't think it is hypocritical at all. IBM is in the business of selling hardware (and services to support that hardware) and if we can sell you hardware so you can run Linux, why not? Better than selling you none at all. IBM even has a linux VM that runs under AIX - if you have a mixed shop, you can run the same apps under AIX and Linux. I am currently working on a project that several large accounts that run Linux asked for. Neat stuff, and it will run under Windows too, but the original design was for Linux. Specifically, Linux clusters

[williamwbishop]

Originally posted by crokett
Well since I work for IBM, I'm kinda biased. Or should I not have mentioned that. <flamesuit (just in case)> :D

Anyhow, I don't think it is hypocritical at all. IBM is in the business of selling hardware (and services to support that hardware) and if we can sell you hardware so you can run Linux, why not? Better than selling you none at all. IBM even has a linux VM that runs under AIX - if you have a mixed shop, you can run the same apps under AIX and Linux. I am currently working on a project that several large accounts that run Linux asked for. Neat stuff, and it will run under Windows too, but the original design was for Linux. Specifically, Linux clusters

Well, if you ever need testers.;)

[Dun'kalis]

Anyone who supports Linux is good.

There are many proprietary products for Linux that are good. Qt is one (though they have Qt/X11 Free), and Metro X (they also built the XFree86 4.x module loader) is another worthwhile product.

Most commercial applications for Linux are very expensive, but most are very good. But you and I won't use them: Companies will.

[carrja99]

One must also consider some very obvious concepts of businesses using open source and creating propetary software for business use. The most important of that being that the code has been modified and improved in a way that creates business efficiency, but these improvements may or may not suit the needs of a plain user at home. For example, There may be certain aspects of the X Server or the kernel that the business has decided that is definately not needed for them and does nothing but slow down processing, so they remove it. This code may be something that we, as end users, could not live without!

Anyway, IBM's support for Linux is great because it's major corporate sponsorship of a GREAT operating system. Unless you didn't know, they contributed a huge and generous donation to the GNU Free Software Foundation. :D

[retoon]

El_Cu_Guy, I asked if you thought they were. I dind't say anything about what I thought. I love IBM. Holographic memory, and Magnetic ram are the waves of the future and are being developed by IBM. Their hard drives (not the ones they sell stock with their PCs) are the fastest, and quietest i have ever worked with. I asked that hypocrit question because they were the main reason that Microsoft gained so much of a monopoly. Who do you think Billy sold his legally attained code for DOS to? But again, I support IBM in every way possible. If I could, I would work for them, but its kind of hard to find openings!

[El_Cu_Guy]

Who do you think Billy sold his legally attained code for DOS to?

Bill Gates, Paul Allen and Steve Ballmer never sold anything to IBM. They licensed DOS to IBM. Also it wasn't LEGALLY obtained until much later.

Paul Allen met with Tim Paterson (who wrote QDOS (marketed as 86-DOS)) to discuss licensing the OS and code for research purposes (he failed to mention anything regarding IBM). MS effectively licensed to IBM a prduct they didn't own. They would later buy the rights to QDOS for about $50, 000. Tim Paterson would later find employment at Microsoft.

[retoon]

okeydokey! By sell I meant license, by Billy I meant William Gates, Steven Ballmer, and Paul Allen. By legally attained I meant they got away with it with out punishment.
People like you bother me. You come into a perfectly peaceful thread like this one, and start behaving like a dick. How about you don't use words like nimrod, ok? How about you don't interpret a question as a statement, ok? How about you don't spew facts about in a pityful attempt to prove you are intelligent, ok? I am sorry i singled you out specifically, but I see alot of this crap going around, and I don't find that type of behavior to be constructive.

[Can O' Beans]

IBM is a big company, with a bit of "influence" in the buisiness world. I think, with them supporting Linux, it will help companies see that Linux is a very viable alternative to overly expensive Microsoft licenses, etc..



I'll leave their IDE drives & current NetVista PCs out of this ;)