OT IBM switching to Linux

unless they've got it working well under wine?

maybe some major wine patches submitted by IBM soon? :-)

regards, nick e.

Joe,

I'm surprised you got so few replies to this. I read the article, and if it's true, It could mean a major shift in the software world as a whole.

Changing operating systems, even at a small company, is a huge task. IBM is a HUGE company. They probably represent a worse case scenario with regards to complexity. Once they successefully implement the transition, they will be in a position to help other companies do the same. That is, they will have developed proceedures, and tools, to facillitate the process.

More importantly, It's just the fact that IBM's doing this that might make Linux really take off. Once this happens software companies won't have a choice. They'll have to port to Linux or face loss of market share.

I think we may be seeing the snowball starting down the hill here.

Regards

Mark

Mark (and Joe), the article has ME positively stoked . . . but of course I remain skeptical that such an extreme would actually happen. I'd like to see it, of course. Such a thing is precisely what the computing world needs -- meaningful competition for Micro$oft -- and that translates into something that the entire business world needs badly. Regardless of whether one stays with Windows or goes to Linus it's bound to result in better products for everyone. A win-win situation is an understatement. Everyone keep their fingers crossed.

'Sporky'

MM wrote:

Did any of you see the IBM/Linux adds that were run during the football games this weekend?

Dave H

Sporkman wrote:

I was going to mention the same, "Open Linux"? The reason the PC had an advantage over the Apple world was an open architecture and OS that anyone could write and add to without permissions from "Big Brother". Perhaps this will be a spark from the past, though I don't think IBM has the muscle to do this alone as it once had. Mico$oft is here and here to stay for quite some time.

I will admit, I sure do respect the fact how everything works together and is interchangeable most of the time. I also appreciate the fact I no longer need to use a floppy disk to share data with a co-worker in the next office (not to mention someone half way around the world). MS may not be a huge innovator, but Bill has learned how to put it all together, It's just to bad the reigns have been pulled back on us horses where we looking down rather than up.

Where as the M$ Borg will only assimilate your money.

Joe

Keith,

Open architecture is not the same as "Open Source".

With M$ you get what you get. If there's a problem, you have to wait for them to issue a patch. This may, or may not, actually fix "your" problem. Also, with M$ you don't really know how the OS is doing things. You may know "what" it's doing, but not "how". This raises security issues for many organizations.

If you have the source code for the O.S., you can fix these things yourself.

Regards

Mark

Ah, the good ole days when recycling had meaning and a future. 8^)

kellnerp wrote:

Yep, I noticed it as a kid, he was obviously snacking on the stuff...

http://charlt>

OK, I understand the open source concept better now, but it's also sort of scary at the same time. I know my company could not afford or justify (even contract work) to manage a company wide OS. If the source code and updates are free VS yearly maintenance fees and new versions, it may be economical. Who or what group controls the development or direction of an open OS source code? How do they make their dollar? Still seams like money talks loudest here, maybe why M$ has fought it and no one else can fund something with no returns. How does IBM plan for "Open Linux's" future?

What's to manage? An OS doesn't need much management at all.

Open source software is free as in speech. Not free as in beer. In other words, you are free to do with the code what you wish, but any modifications you make must be made publicly available so that you do not restrict someone else's freedom to do what they want with it. As a result, every piece of open source software is typically downloadable for free. That does not prevent others from making money from it, simply because some people still prefer to buy it.

Consider a distribution of Mandrake Linux. It comes on 3 CDs or 1 DVD. Many people will go out and buy it rather than download it, even though they could.

That depends. Some are maintained by a handful of dedicated developers. GNUCash is one such application. I replaced MS Money with it several years ago and have been very pleased with it.

Others have large corporate backing. Red Hat. Suse. Sendmail. MySQL. About a year and a half ago IBM made a 40 million dollar 'donation' to the open source community in the form of Eclipse, a platform for developing Java applications.

Support fees mostly. Most large corporations feel more secure if they pay for something. They will pay for support from a big Linux vendor such as RedHat or IBM, even though every thing they offer is available for free.

Jim S.

"Sporkman" a écrit dans le message de news: snipped-for-privacy@bigfootYETI.com...

Now I understand better "Bowling for Columbine"...