IBM is adopting OpenDocument Format for the first generally available release of its network-based collaboration and office productivity suite. IBM said Sunday its Workplace Managed Client 2.6, due in early 2006, would adopt ODF so users could easily share files and information. The Workplace Managed Client is currently available on a limited capacity, with more than one million deployed seats.
IBM supports linux and open standards. Just go to one of their sales events: “linux is for kids… what you really want is to buy one license of AIX”.
You really have to talk to one of their sales droids to know what IBM REALLY thinks about linux and open standards.
“You really have to talk to one of their sales droids to know what IBM REALLY thinks about Linux and open standards.”
I agree completely…. IBM likes to be “friendly” with the community, but that just PR. They enjoy these little “press opportunities” by offering what amounts to nothing.
In this case, they added ODF support to what many would describe as an obscure application.
They got a lot of bang for their buck however, and they got their name in the news as a huge supporter of open source.
Nice shot by someone in public relations at IBM. Hope they got a fat raise.
Next week they will likely announce they are making the switch to Open Office at their office in Fargo.
“You really have to talk to one of their sales droids to know what IBM REALLY thinks about Linux and open standards.”
I agree completely…. IBM likes to be “friendly” with the community, but that just PR. They enjoy these little “press opportunities” by offering what amounts to nothing.
In this case, they added ODF support to what many would describe as an obscure application.
They got a lot of bang for their buck however, and they got their name in the news as a huge supporter of open source.
Nice shot by someone in public relations at IBM. Hope they got a fat raise.
Next week they will likely announce they are making the switch to Open Office at their office in Fargo.
This is pure IBM hypocrisy. They have a derived work off OpenOffice which they do not contribute anything back from. When the give back that code they deserve an article about supporting open standards on osnews.
> This is pure IBM hypocrisy.
Not really. The version of OpenOffice they derived from had a BSD-sh license, so while it would have been great if they gave back code, they were under no obligation to do so nor have they claimed that they would.
The simple fact is that IBM supports open source only when it will help their business, and to my knowledge they’ve never claimed otherwise. They never claimed they’d open source AIX or any of their other proprietary products or stop developing other proprietary products. Fortunately, since they have based a large portion of their business on open source, they have contributed a huge amount to open source (particularly the Linux kernel, Apache, and Eclipse), but that’s only because of self-interest. The same can be said about Sun’s many contributions to open source.
If you want an example of hypocrasy, look no further than Microsoft and SCO. While they were calling the GPL a cancer, they were quietly shipping GPLed apps like GCC in their Unix products (in Microsoft’s case, Unix Services of Windows).
I would say supporting the file format, is at least as important as giving back code. It helps to establish OpenDocument not only as a de jure standard it allready is, but also as a standard in peoples minds.
If ODF gets in wide use, it will be much more difficult for other parties to get their file formats accepted as standards by various standards bodies.
Browser: Links (2.1pre15; Linux 2.4.31-6tr i686; 80×44)
I don’t think IBM uses any OpenOffice.org code, and anyway, OOo is LGPL, so it would be OK anyway.
> I don’t think IBM uses any OpenOffice.org code,
> and anyway, OOo is LGPL, so it would be OK anyway.
Well, I’ve never understood why IBM is the darling child of the open source community. Lets take a look at their track record:
AIX? Nope. Not open source.
OS/2? Nope. No open source here either.
DB/2? Sorry. Nope
Lotus Notes? Nope. No open source here either.
Lotus SmartSuite? Nope. No open source.
Domino? Nope. Sorry.
So what has IBM given the open source community? A journaling filesystem that no one uses, a Java database they couldn’t make profitable, and Eclipse. Oh… and have you looked at the number of software patents IBM holds recently?
Meanwhile, Sun has open sourced their flagship operating system, open sourced their office suite, open sourced their flagship development tools, and has made its plans quite clear that it intends to ultiamtely open source all of its software.
And yet Sun is the archenemy of the open source community, while IBM is the darling child? Can someone please explain this logic to me?
Well, I’ve never understood why IBM is the darling child of the open source community.
Well, that’s your problem. And you know what? You probably never will understand.
At least IBM didn’t buy licenses from SCO or position their company against Linux, as if it were RedHat, saying the GPL is a virus, etc.
Whining about reality does not make your company look professional in the eyes of an engineer. Perhaps in the eyes of some financial analyst, who must be used to all this childish whining from big multibillion dollar corps, but not anyone who actually cares about these products and progress.
I don’t have time to listen to all these childish corps with their childish execs who can’t make up their minds about open source. I need a company that gets the job done and does it the right way the first time. IBM does play these games. They promote GPL.
By the way, did you know that MOST of the FOSS code out there is GPL? If the largest demographic of the open source community is made up of GNU advocates would you consider the choice Sun made to hamper the use and adoption of the GPL a smart or stupid decision? And while the GNU community was knocking on Sun’s door, begging them to integrate Linux tech in Solaris and Sun tech in Linux, who, pray tell us, made that decision?
Sun had the opportunity to be the IBM of Linux. They chose to partner with Microsoft and SCO. And now we get to hear all this whining.. “Why won’t you use our products? Why won’t you talk to us? Why don’t you like us?”
Take your ball and go home already, sheesh.
“Sun had the opportunity to be the IBM of Linux. They chose to partner with Microsoft and SCO. And now we get to hear all this whining.. “Why won’t you use our products? Why won’t you talk to us? Why don’t you like us?””
I guess you have forgotten then that you would not have NFS or NIS if it was not for Sun.
Or maybe you have forgotten that IBM was placed under government sanctions for being a monopoly? Or that they change directions faster than the wind blows? And how about this mass of software patents they hold?
Sun gave you NFS. Sun gave you NIS. Sun gave you OpenOffice. What has IBM given you?
Sun gave you NFS. Sun gave you NIS. Sun gave you OpenOffice. What has IBM given you?
Just like Microsoft gave me Samba?
Besides, NFS sucks and NIS is insecure.
Now we have LDAP and sftp/samba/AFS/GFS/lustre, etc..
Sun did give us OpenOffice, but it wasn’t anything like OpenOffice or StarOffice today. The community fixed what was StarOffice 5.x, if you even remember that POS. Or do you believe Sun did all this work to make OpenOffice what it is today and is actively supporting the GNU community by releasing all the source code and patches they add to StarOffice, integrating it into KDE and GNOME, improving startup times, etc.
I asked Sun to give me Solaris and Java, either would have made me happy. They “gave” me OpenSolaris, which isn’t an OS, must have an OS to compile, etc. So I’ve stopped looking a gift horse in the mouth. Solaris and Java will never be GPL and Sun just looks like a horses ass for attempting to win my loyalty by being “generous”.
They can keep their generocity because it ain’t coming from the heart.
What did IBM give us? Let’s see, let me count the ways IBM loves me: Eclipse, dprobes/kprobes, crash and lkcd, Cell and PPC dev kits, many kernel and toolchain patches, generic Linux documentation and tutorials (I actually found them useful, unlike Sun’s),
a legal team to fight SCO, legal funds and patent protection for Linux users, and promotional advertising for Linux.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/newto/index.html
Sun releases more and more code and patents (Following IBM’s lead) to try to make me think they’re on our side, but somehow I’m still not convinced. Perhaps all they needed to do was put Linux on the UltraSparc systems back in the day and improve its preexisting code. Or maybe not have any parnerships or dealings with SCO and Microsoft around the time SCO chose to threaten each and every Linux user with licensing fees and law suits. But after experiencing that fiasco I won’t let Sun off the hook. You can’t rewrite history. And I won’t let you forget their position with reguard to GNU software. Ever. Not until they publicly appologize and humbly offer the community an olive branch in the form of some public GPL promotion/advertisement and propoganda. So long as they are against the GPL I am against Sun. And I am extremely skeptical of their tactics, a simple contribution to one GPL project will not win my heart or mind. They will have to prove they’ve changed sides. I don’t think they ever will.
Its a lot easier to earn my loyalty by being generous. Sun could learn a lot from IBM.
I wonder how much Sun has to pay people to post positive comments on these forums about them. I post because I am passionate about technology and GPL software. Sun has several hundred employees blogging and spreading the word. IBM has kept their employees’ mouthes shut and slowed down their contribution to Linux because of this whole SCO scandal, so we don’t even get to hear their side of the story.
Maybe I’ll stop posting when Sun stops attacking RedHat, IBM, Novell or anyone affiliated with Linux. They should go attack themselves for being hypocritical pricks without a clue or just STFU. Same goes for all you pro-Sun advocates. Go buy a Sparc.
Anonymous (IP: 64.95.123.—) :
Please … !!!
IBM and Sun are public comapanies and should be hold responsible for the share holders, not the “opensource community” !
I can’t believe people like you (and there’re so many) have such a biarre view about this “companies for or against opensource” thing !
I am willing to believe you’re an independent individual. Though your “love” for opensource is definitely affecting your judgement.
I mean, come on, your reasoning against or for Sun/IBM are so ridiculous. It’s just SAD!
I am so sick of these for/against opensource nonsense!!!
And I work for IBM, For God’s Sake!
“Sun did give us OpenOffice, but it wasn’t anything like OpenOffice or StarOffice today. The community fixed what was StarOffice 5.x, if you even remember that POS”
And without it, you would have virtually no complete and capable office package for Linux. OpenOffice is the killer desktop application for Linux. It is the only reason it is even remotely viable on the business desktop.
“They “gave” me OpenSolaris, which isn’t an OS, must have an OS to compile, etc.”
It *IS* an OS. And it is under an OSI approved license. And you need an OS to compile? Please show me how you compile Linux without having an OS to compile it under.
“Solaris and Java will never be GPL and Sun just looks like a horses ass for attempting to win my loyalty by being “generous”.”
I don’t care about your damn GPL. And most others don’t either. And GPL is not the “one true” open source license unless you are militant zealot who wants to force everyone to use on your ideal license.
“Its a lot easier to earn my loyalty by being generous. Sun could learn a lot from IBM.”
Sun has given your virtually ALL of their software for free. Virtually ALL of it. And they have open sourced a great deal of it. Solaris is free, Java is free, Netbeans is free, OpenOffice is free, Sun’s web application server is free, JES is free, Java / .Net interoperability tools will be free and open source. And if you decide you do want to purcahse support for them, Sun’s higest level of support for Solaris is cheaper than Red Hat’s lowest level of support for Linux.
But yeah, Sun is always the villain. Despite the fact that they are far more open source friendly than IBM in reality.
Sun has given your virtually ALL of their software for free.
Well, Duh! That’s what open source is all about. RedHat did give us ALL of their software. What’s your point?
What, Sun is generous because they open sourced some software they didn’t have to open source? They didn’t give me what I asked for. I didn’t want OpenSolaris and OpenOffice sucks.
Sun is the villain so long as they continue to partner with SCO and Microsoft.
To be more Linux friendly than IBM you have to stop buying licenses from SCO.
To be more Linux friendly than IBM you have to contribute to GPL software and release your code with the GPL.
…you have to work with the GNU community.
…you have to be an active and supportive member of the community.
…you have to stop bashing your GNU competition, since they use the same tech as you, it makes you look stupid if you run around like a rampant Schwartz attacking every GPL software company that competes.
I don’t care about open source. I care about GNU and Linux and the GPL. Open source can go proprietary for all I care. Nothing protects you from that happening. That’s the difference between an open source license and a free software license. That’s why we heard so much commotion about Microsoft’s free software license announcement. At this point I probably think more highly of Microsoft than Sun because Microsoft isn’t trying to be my friend. They’re good, although anti-competitive, competition. Sun is gay.
> you have to stop bashing your GNU competition,
> since they use the same tech as you,
Sun has specifically said though that their target is not Linux. Their target is Red Hat. And how can you hate Sun for that? Red Hat is a business. With shareholders. Red Hat is *NOT* your GNU friend. They are a business who is primarily concerned about making money, and trying to take business away from their competiton. Sun is targetting Red Hat, not Linux in general. But the zealots can’t make the distinction. An attack on a rival company is the same as an attack on all of Linux to them.
Red Hat *IS* my GNU friend. When you attack Red Hat, you attack Linux. Red Hat maintains and contributes lot of code to kernel and GNU tools and so on…
“Red Hat *IS* my GNU friend. When you attack Red Hat, you attack Linux. Red Hat maintains and contributes lot of code to kernel and GNU tools and so on…”
Sorry. Red Hat is *NOT* anybody’s friend. Red Hat is a business. They are only concerned with making money. They are only concerned with keeping their stock holders happy. And if they have to hurt other commercial Linux companies in order to do that, then that is what they will do (and have done in the past).
As I said in another thread, Red Hat is the main reason I don’t write GPL code anymore. I have better things to do with my volunteer free time than make sure Matthew Szulik can buy a new Lexus this year.
There was a time when hacking on Linux code was fun. It’s not fun anymore. Because it has become way too commercialized and political, where even Linux vendors are stabbing each other in the back. It’s just not any fun anymore.
And since Sun has full time programmers working on Gnome, I guess when you attack Sun you attack Linux as well. And nevermind the fact that the vast majority of OpenOffice programming is done by Sun employees.
“Red Hat *IS* my GNU friend. When you attack Red Hat, you attack Linux.”
You stopped taking your meds again……………
“Sun has given your virtually ALL of their software for free. Virtually ALL of it. And they have open sourced a great deal of it. Solaris is free, Java is free, Netbeans is free, OpenOffice is free, Sun’s web application server is free, JES is free, Java / .Net interoperability tools will be free and open source.”
Some of what Sun has done has been good.
However – when you look at it closely – it is not that good.
When Sun opened the source code of StarOffice it wasn’t worth a whole lot. Next to useless really. It was the efforts of the FOSS community that made OpenOffice. The community is prepared to put in such an effort because the code was released under the LGPL. That means the community had ownership of it, and it could not be taken back.
Most of the other stuff from Sun is not released under such a licesnse. The source code and/or specifications are open – but they are not unencumbered. Sun retain control of it via the CCDL or similar licenses. That means Sun can “take it back” and make it commercial again at any time.
For a FOSS developer to contribute to such a project is like being slave labour. Who wants to put in just to make Sun rich? CCDL licensed projects will never see a community effort or contribution of the order such as that which made OpenOffice a worthwhile product out of the shambles that Sun originally donated.
“It was the efforts of the FOSS community that made OpenOffice.”
The vast majority of OpenOffice coders are Sun employees.
“For a FOSS developer to contribute to such a project is like being slave labour. Who wants to put in just to make Sun rich?”
I don’t see this as being any different than Red Hat these days, which is why I don’t contribute to Linux anymore. I got sick of making Matthew Szulik rich. And I got sick of watching Red Hat, a commercial company, gain more and more control over the direction of Linux. And I got sick of commercial Linux vendors stabbing each other in the back to try to get a competitive edge so their shareholders would be happy.
As I said in another reply, hacking on Linux code used to be fun. It’s not anymore.
“I don’t see this as being any different than Red Hat these days”.
Surely you jest.
Sun made up a specific “wolf in sheeps clothing” license that says that the code may be “open” but we (Sun) still own it and can close it again, whereas RedHat’s stuff is all GPL.
RedHat <> Linux in any event. Just ask SuSe, Mandriva, Debian or Slackware.
RedHat do not own (or even try to claim any ownership) any of Linux or of Linux’s direction.
Ask kernel.org if they take any directions from RedHat.
Pfft.
> Sun made up a specific “wolf in sheeps
> clothing” license that says that the code may
> be “open” but we (Sun) still own it and can close
> it again.
The Sun license is OSI approved, and is a true open source license.
> RedHat do not own (or even try to claim any
> ownership) any of Linux or of Linux’s direction.
>
> Ask kernel.org if they take any directions from
> RedHat.
You are kidding yourself if you don’t know this is true. Red Hat has a very big stick when it comes to controlling the direction of Linux. Many of the kernel maintainers have been on Red Hat’s payroll, which I consider a conflict of interest (the current one I don’t think is).
> RedHat <> Linux in any event. Just ask
> SuSe, Mandriva, Debian or Slackware.
I didn’t say it did. What I did say was that Red Hat has a lot of control over the direction of Linux, and that the commercial Linux vendors have been playing rather nasty. What was supposed to be a socialist system of software ultimately ended turning into a communist system, with one company rising to the top and reaping most of the benefits, while most of the people doing the actual work are getting nothing. Ultimately, this has been the historical problem with all socialist systems. Greedy people find a way to exploit the system for their own self-interests (financial wealth, as it always is) and end up reaping mos of the benefits of the entire community. It’s a parasitic relationship. Certainly Red Hat contributes some stuff back to the community. But not nearly as much as they are taking from it to pad their own pockets and the pockets of their shareholders.
“I didn’t say it did. What I did say was that Red Hat has a lot of control over the direction of Linux, and that the commercial Linux vendors have been playing rather nasty. What was supposed to be a socialist system of software ultimately ended turning into a communist system, with one company rising to the top and reaping most of the benefits, while most of the people doing the actual work are getting nothing. Ultimately, this has been the historical problem with all socialist systems. Greedy people find a way to exploit the system for their own self-interests (financial wealth, as it always is) and end up reaping mos of the benefits of the entire community. It’s a parasitic relationship. Certainly Red Hat contributes some stuff back to the community. But not nearly as much as they are taking from it to pad their own pockets and the pockets of their shareholders.”
Absolutely classic misdirection.
Sun are unequivocally the ones who are seeking to prosper off the efforts of the community. This is the entire point of the CCDL license – “business friendly” in Sun’s own words.
RedHat are equally unequivocally the ones who contribute development effort back to the community. This is the whole point of the GPL.
Your effort above seems to be a classic ploy to accuse another party of the evils of which your own side is plainly guilty.
> Absolutely classic misdirection.
Nothing misdirecting about it. Everything I said is true.
> Sun are unequivocally the ones who are seeking
> to prosper off the efforts of the community
I will point out again that the vast majority of OpenOffice developers are Sun employees. So Sun is contributing plenty to the community.
> RedHat are equally unequivocally the ones
> who contribute development effort back to
> the community. This is the whole point of the
> GPL.
Sure. And meanwhile Red Hat officers are getting rich off work they didn’t do. They are reaping financial benefits off work done by a much larger community, and the community at large is seening none of those financial rewards. This is classic socialism turned communism.
Either you can’t stand the truth, or you haven’t been around in Linux long enough to understand what I am saying. Red Hat didn’t even exist I started hacking on Linux. Back then we all really did work for the good of the community. None of us wanted any financial gain for our efforts… And then along came Red Hat, which totally upset that entire system. Because now there were people who weren’t in it for the good of the community. They were in it for their own monetary self interests. When Red Hat went public, it got even worse, because now they have to be in it for the monetary interests of shareholders as well–shareholders who couldn’t care less about Linux, or its ideals, or its community. All they care about is “So Red Hat. How fat is my dividend check going to be? How much money did you make for me?”
So Mr Anonymous,
Please explain without going into a rant exactly how the Developers Sun employes to work on Open Office are from the Developers RedHat employ to work on parts of the Linux Kernel?
Both are contribting to OSS software.
You do seem to have a big hang up over RedHat. Please sit down, take a vallium and try to get over your addiction unless of course you happen to work for a company with a big vested interest in slagging off RedHat.
They( RedHat) only make money from selling support & training related to code which is OSS. Please explain why that is such a bad business model. All the code they cotribute to OSS IS FREE to one and all. It costs me nothing, zilch, nowt, nada, nil. Please tell me what is wrong with that?
Finally, please explain what is wrong with RedHat buying some close source application and then making it OSS as they have done with the former Netscape Directory Server.
Before you start pointing a finger, I don’t work for RedHat so don’t ask. I work for myself. I am the CEO of a Software Consultancy who promotes OSS Software wherever possible and charges for my services. Oh Darn it, I have just realised that I sort of follow the same business model as RedHat. I suppose I’m now cursed forever in your eyes.
“Please explain without going into a rant exactly how the Developers Sun employes to work on Open Office are from the Developers RedHat employ to work on parts of the Linux Kernel?”
Simple. Sun gave you OpenOffice. Red Hat did not give you Linux. Linux existed for quite a while before Red Hat came along and decided to serve their own self interests by monetizing it.
“They( RedHat) only make money from selling support & training related to code which is OSS. Please explain why that is such a bad business model.”
This is how they justify it. I don’t buy it. What they make money off of, is selling Linux using a loophole that allows them to say “Well, we aren’t really selling Linux. We are selling support for Linux.” It’s a loophole in my mind.
And no, I don’t work for a company that has a vested interest in slagging of Red Hat. I am just someone who has been hacking on Linux virtually since the pre Slackware days. And I am someone who enjoyed the community is used to have back when everyone truely was in it for the good of the community. That largely disappeared when Red Hat came along since they were not, and are not in it for the good of the community. They are in it for their own financial self interests, and the financial self interests of their shareholders.
If I sound bitter, it is because I am. I am bitter that a wonderful community project where everyone worked for the good of the community was hijacked by corporate, commercial monetary interests. Because basically, that is what happened.
“That largely disappeared when Red Hat came along”.
Say what?
I call BS.
I for one don’t give one whit what RedHat do or don’t do. I am a Linux user and I incorporate Linux into products – and what RedHat does or does not do has absolutely no impact on that.
I use Debian. Huge community. Nothing to do with RedHat.
Now as for Sun – what is all this twaddle called “CCDL”? This License is indeed an OpenSource license (because the code is indeed open) – but it is like BSD in one way (companies may take the code and use it in a closed application) and like a proprietary license in another way – Sun retain control of the code.
It therefore is closest to the Microsoft’s “shared source” – except that Microsoft at least don’t expect a community to work on their shared source code for free.
You can call BS if you want. Because you are a *Linux user*. Not a *Linux hacker*. The situation is different for hackers–for those who have actually written Linux code and used to enjoy the sense of community, etc.
All of that is gone. Today, Linux is corporate commercialism, and politics. The sense of “frontierism” is gone. And with the loss of that, a lot of the fun was lost too. All thanks to corporate commercialsm taking over Linux and the resultant politics that came with it.
Example: Back then, no one cared whether Linux was “ready for the desktop” or how much marketshare it had, or what Microsoft was doing. We were just a community who had a project that we enjoyed hacking on. We didn’t care if anyone besides ourselves actually used it or not. That wasn’t our goal. Our goal was simply to learn, have fun, and build a community.
Again, all of that is gone. It’s been replaced by corporate commercial interests, politics, and anti-Microsoft, anti-anything that is not GPL militarism. It’s just not any fun anymore because of all the corporate, commercial, and political baggage that comes with it.
P.S. I only mention Red Hat because they are biggest example of what I hate about where Linux has gone. But other commercial Linux vendors fall in the same category.
“I wonder how much Sun has to pay people to post positive comments on these forums about them. I post because I am passionate about technology and GPL software.”
Ah yes… Point #2 in the list of “How to identify a hopless GPL zealot with no sense of reality”. “Often they will make claims of conspiracies involving Sun, Microsoft, or other companies paying people to post positive comments on forums.”
Sorry. But I am not on Sun’s payroll. I just happen to think Sun is doing a good job, and that a lot more of the free software I want to use comes from Sun than IBM. OpenOffice, Java, Netbeans. I can’t think of one thing IBM has open sourced that I actually want to use.
And absolutely NOTHING is stopping you from releasing a GPL version of Java except for the fact that zealots like you are too damn lazy to do any work for yourselves. You want everything given to you for free on a silver platter, and you whine and pout and stomp your feet when it doesn’t happen. 100% of the Java standard is available to you. And several projects are in the works to produce “true open source” versions of Java. But that’s not good enough for the zealots like you. “Oh no, we are too lazy to do any work. We demand that you give us all your work for free and let us do whatever we want with it and we are going to whine and cry and demonize you if you don’t”
Give me a break.
And absolutely NOTHING is stopping you from releasing a GPL version of Java except for the fact that zealots like you are too damn lazy to do any work for yourselves.
GNU/Classpath, GCJ eh!
“GNU/Classpath, GCJ eh!”
Exactly. And Kaffe, and the recently started Harmony project. THere are open source Java projects underway, which is why it erks me so much that Linux users demonize Sun for not GPLing Java. There is nothing stopping them from releasing their own GPL version. Sun has made the specification for the VM 100% available to anyone who wants to implement Java. The only restriction is you can’t call it Java unless you have passed Sun’s compatibility tests. And if you want to take a run at Sun’s compatibility tests so you can call it Java, Sun offers the compatibility testing for free to recognized open source organizations like Apache.
I suspect the only reason there isn’t a fully featured LGPL or GPL version of Java already is because there simply isn’t enough interest given that Sun produced a free Linux port of the JVM, which is good enough for most people since most Java users and developers simply don’t care that it isn’t GPL or LGPL.
Mono, on the other hand, happened relatively quickly because there were no versions of .NET that would work on Linux. If that were the case with Java (there were no JVMs for Linux) I suspect we would have seen a fully featured LGPL or GPL version a long time ago.
IBM hasn’t stabbed us in the back the way Sun did and still does, that’s what.
“AIX? Nope. Not open source.
OS/2? Nope. No open source here either.
DB/2? Sorry. Nope
Lotus Notes? Nope. No open source here either.
Lotus SmartSuite? Nope. No open source.
Domino? Nope. Sorry.”
Those are products, or applications if you will.
IBM has done better than mere products. IBM has donated **technologies** to Linux, and **patents** to FOSS, not just mere products.
“IBM has done better than mere products. IBM has donated **technologies** to Linux, and **patents** to FOSS, not just mere products.”
What techology has IBM donated to Linux? Other than the journaling file system I already mentioned that no one uses.
If IBM is so supportive of open source, I want to see them put their money where their mouths is. Come on IBM. Open source AIX. Your biggest rival open sourced their flagship operating system under an OSI approved license. Put your money where your mouth is IBM. Open source AIX.
“What techology has IBM donated to Linux? Other than the journaling file system I already mentioned that no one uses. ”
Other than JFS, IBM has ported its RCU, SMP and NUMA technologies to Linux. These technologies have enabled Linux to become the dominant OS for supercomputers and clusters.
IBM also provides a Java implmentation, has provided the Rexx scripting language and also I believe a text-to-speech library.
Also IBM has donated a large number of patents to FOSS in general.
Geee. That really helps the average sysadmin. Linux can be built and used in huge clusters…. How many people does that affect? 100? 1000? Well it sure isn’t 1 million…
> Those are products, or applications if you will.
> IBM has done better than mere products.
BTW, I might point out that although Open Office (a gift from Sun) might be a “mere product”, it is the killer Linux desktop application. Without it, Linux would be left with basically no capable desktop application that was compatible with MS Office.
“Without it, Linux would be left with basically no capable desktop application that was compatible with MS Office.”
Linux is not short of capable desktop applications.
Interoperability I agree is a very weak point for Microsoft products. Fotunately there is now a new standard for Office file formats that is fully interoperable. This format, called OpenDocument (or ODF), is the only format that has achieved the status of being a standard.
There is now a much larger number of interoperable desktop Office applications (ie those supporting ODF) for Linux than there is for any Microsoft products. Microsoft does not do interoperability.
At last count, this site lists 22 interoperable desktop applications (many of them cross-platform) which support interoperability via ODF:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument#Applications_supporting_O…
Please try to keep up with what is going on.
I see Microsoft listed there though. That’s the problem with Wikipedia.
“Please try to keep up with what is going on.”
I am quite up on what is going on. Please don’t spin my argument. You completely changed what I said.
What I said was that OpenOffice is the *ONLY* office software for Linux that supports decent compatibility with MS Office–something you will find to be an absolute necessity if you want to use Linux to be able to share documents with coworkers, or write term papers you intend to submit to college professors in electronic form, etc.
Oh… And I so love it when people quote Wikipedia as a reliable source of information. Or I guess you haven’t been paying attention to how much hot water they are in right now for their false and slanderous article on John Siegenthaler.
Unless you want to get laughed at as being clueless about doing research, never ever quote Wikipedia as a source for your claim.
Google shows up 2,200,000 hits for “MS Word” +Linux.
Antiword: http://www.winfield.demon.nl/ is probably the most cross-platform solution. OpenOffice.org is probably the most complete solution. KWord and Abiword both have a partial solution. These (even without OpenOffice) would allow Linux users to read MS Word files they received from other sources.
Gnumeric would probably be the best solution (outside of OpenOffice) for Excel files.
By far the best current method of document exchange, however, is PDF. This format is what one should use to “write term papers you intend to submit to college professors in electronic form”. After all, you wouldn’t want your professor to plagiarise your work now, would you?
OpenOffice is the best office software for Linux that supports decent compatibility with MS Office (in terms of collaboration with co-workers) – but it is **NOT** the only option.
I also make the point that it is really your arguement that is spin – for the following reasons:
(1) it is not in any way the fault of Linux that Microsoft wants to lock in its customers with obscured formats,
(2) it is not in any way the fault of Linux users that Microsoft users are so deluded to think that Microsoft Office formats can be used for document interchange, when in fact those very formats are **designed** by Microsoft to be **NOT** interchangeable acrosss platforms,
(3) it is not the efforts of Sun that made OpenOffice.org the best current soultion for the document interchange problem created by Microsoft Office and its users. (Rather it is the efforts of FOSS contributors to OpenOffice.org that have made it so).
Ask ‘Motormouth’ Schwartz and I bet he can answer why the OSS community doesn’t think much of SUN.
He shot his mouth off right into his foot, now SUN has the reputation of being evil. Sucks for them, but that’s how it works.
The CDDL didn’t help either. SUN was being welcomed with open arms and IIRC, they were supposed to be the OSS darlings. But right before they embrace OSS, they settle with MS, set themselves up for a horrible fall in the process, and make their own CDDL/OSS community because the OSS community that already existed didn’t specifically meet their greedy needs.
And you, SUN, and their fanboys wonder why?
There is one thing that IBM is doing right now, something SUN isn’t, is donating to the GPL community. In your opinion, the donations maybe crap, but it’s to the GPL community. I will give SUN kudos for what they’ve done in the past, but as it stands now, SUN seems really unfriendly to the GPL/OSS communtiy and how can you expect us not to take that personally?
It’s just too much, that’s all. I hope SUN succeeds in their quest, but I have a feeling MS is going to marginalize SUN no matter what. As for me, I have no plans to use Solaris or anything SUN. But they should expect they lost my business a long time ago.
The problem with Sun is mainly bad management. This makes them a little hard to take seriously. Their communication with the press regarding open sorcing their products have been close to Montyphytonesque.
Every Sun exec seam to have a meaning of his own, and the more meanings the more press releases. After a while you get the impression that the whole open source thing is the PR stunt of the day on Suns part, not something you can trust as their future strategy. Close relations with companies like Microsoft and SCO strenthens that impression.
IBM on the other hand, uses opensource when they can benefit from it financially. This gives them much more credability in the business world, and today the open source is not about hacking in the basment, it is about business.
Workplace is compatible with OpenOffice file formats because it contains OpenOffice.
Browser: Links (2.1pre15; Linux 2.4.31-6tr i686; 80×44)
Probably OS/2 is not open source because IBM doesn’t own all the IP. They developed OS/2 in conjunction with Microsoft. In fact, OS/2 and Windows are very similar.
Besides, there are more ways to support open source / open standards than by releasing code. (Of course, I would prefer the code, but you take what you can get.)
This misrepresentation is often repeated here, and once again I’ll take the time to correct it.
The 32-bit versions of OS/2 and Windows (all versions of each released from 1992 and later) are not really all that similar, and neither one was developed as a cooperative project.
IBM and Microsoft’s cooperation (if you can call it that) existed during the 16-bit OS/2 1.x days, but since that time both OSes have been almost completely rewritten.
The 32-bit Windows versions from NT 3.1 on forward were redesigned by Dave Cutler from DEC and friends using their knowledge of VMS and other platforms, while OS/2 was redesigned by IBM using its extensive knowledge of mainframe and small server operating systems.
OS/2 and Windows have completely different kernels, use completely different native filesystems, have different VDM subsystems, different graphics APIs, and different general approaches to desktop computing.
The only things they have in common are (1) each has a distant ancestor which was developed as a joint IBM/MS project, (2) each uses a somewhat DOS-like command set in its native shell, and (3) the shell in each is still called CMD.EXE.
I’d say, based on over a decade of using each, that the two have about as much in common as Linux and QNX.
At least IBM didn’t buy licenses from SCO or position their company against Linux, as if it were RedHat, saying the GPL is a virus, etc.
But you can be certain that if you called IBM global services and said you want to deploy Sco’s OS on a few million dollars worth of IBM hardware they will sort it for you.
IBM are playing games, nothing else. If they were so pro Linux they would not be selling anything else.
Why don’t you guy cool it off with the SUN/IBM argument? They are NOT the enemy. Both companies have made commitments to OSS taking into account that they are corporations that must make a profit for their shareholders. Be appreciative and supportive, ven if they are not perfect. Same argument applies to Novell.
You guys sounds like kids. I have a dollar, I offer you to share a quarter with you and you complain that i didn’t give you the other 75 cents.
I never witnessed such a flurry of IBM-is-not-pro-FreeSoftware posts during such a short time, most of them with similar arguments. Must be a hailstorm of Microsofties out there.
IBM is definitely pro-FreeSoftware. They have a huge business unit making profit from all sorts of free software, and if you want to sell something to customers you better make sure they like what they get, hence IBM donates lots of technology to free software.
That their AIX – department wants to sell AIX is completely natural, and if you look at the hardware you would buy if you considered AIX then the cost of AIX vs Linux is really a minor argument. You then simply choose which system does fit your purposes best.
I can see no hypocrisy there, quite the contrary. IBM really tries to get their relationship with the different communities right. They also have had the backbone of standing up to SCO’s buy-me-out game.
I have noticed the same thing. The msft/sunw shills are all over this.
A few points:
1) IBM can not legally open source AIX, or OS/2, because some of that code is licensed to other companies.
2) The fact that IBM has open sourced 100% of their software does not make IBM a hypocrite or traitor in my view. I am thankful for what IBM has contributed.
3) IBM is happy to sell hardware with whatever OSS. IBM has developed at least a dozen different OSes, many are still very popular (MVS and OS/400). IBM has sold wintel boxes for years. IBM also sells hardware with Solaris.
4) Sun was rockin’ in the mid 90s. NIS and NFS were great, back then. And OpenOffice is most appreciated. Sun still has some great technology. However, I can not forgive sun for supporting the underhanded msft/scox scam to fud linux.
5) I see no problem with a company being essentially proprietary, and still donating some F/OSS. I see no problem with a company using F/OSS to sell something else – hardware or services or whatever. In fact, I’m glad to see it, because it proves that F/OSS is a viable business model.
“1) IBM can not legally open source AIX, or OS/2, because some of that code is licensed to other companies.”
Haha… you believe that? That’s what they said about Sun too. “Sun can’t open source Solaris because they don’t own all the code in it, and don’t have rights to open source some of it.” Well guess what? Sun proved them wrong.
Sorry. I don’t buy it for one minute that IBM can’t open source AIX. Maybe it would take a little work. But they can do it just like Sun open sourced Solaris
“1) IBM can not legally open source AIX, or OS/2, because some of that code is licensed to other companies.”
Haha… you believe that? That’s what they said about Sun too. “Sun can’t open source Solaris because they don’t own all the code in it, and don’t have rights to open source some of it.” Well guess what? Sun proved them wrong.
Sorry. I don’t buy it for one minute that IBM can’t open source AIX. Maybe it would take a little work. But they can do it just like Sun open sourced Solaris
There is some truth in this. Sun after first saying it could not open source Solaris, because of the proprietary things in it that it they didn’t own, then did an about face and stripped them out as part of a strategy to compete with Linux promoted by RH and IBM.
IBM will not go to the effort of stripping out the proprietary stuff in OS/2 to open source it. Why because it is promoting Linux as the one operating system that runs on all IBM hardware. Since they are promoting Linux to replace old OS/2 installations, they would hardly want an open OS/2 competing. A sound business strategy and pro FOSS even if they don’t open source OS/2.
SCO The SCOundrels tried to kill Linux adoption off. But instead killed off Unix adoption by Fud and stupidity.
SUN uses Open Office to poke Their business partner Microsoft in the eye.
Sun uses the CDDL to poke GNU/Linux in the eye.
SUN would like to see CDDL/Solaris replace GNU/Linux for Business use.
UNIX is possibly PUBLIC DOMAIN just like CPM is now.
Apparently IBM is investing hard in the PR and astrosurfing departments.
For more good things about IBM search google for this: “How IBM conned my execs out of millions”
If you want to know what type of code does a 300$/hour IBM consultant produces check this out:
http://thedailywtf.com/forums/51786/ShowPost.aspx
For more goodies about IBM check out benchmarks for websphere, DB2 and other random IBM products.
And last: DO GO to one of their sales events!
Just because they make the world fastest computer doesn’t mean they are actually competent.
Who controls the ODF spec? If I create a new word processor app tomorrow that used ODF, could I add more capabilities without being lambasted by people for trying to “hijack” their precious document format?
“IBM will not go to the effort of stripping out the proprietary stuff in OS/2 to open source it. Why because it is promoting Linux as the one operating system that runs on all IBM hardware.”
Personally, I think the best thing IBM could do with OS/2 is strip out the proprietary stuff and open source it. Why? Because lots of people still run it–especially banks and other financial institutions. OS/2 is like a parasitic worm at IBM. Something that gives them no benefit anymore, but which they can’t simply stop supporting because they have too many customers that still use it. So basically, IBM is stuck paying programmers to maintain it, release fixpacks and patches for it, etc., And it’s got to be costing them money to maintain it since they get virtually no revenue from OS/2 anymore.
The best thing IBM could do would be to turn OS/2 over to the open source community so that they wouldn’t have to spend money maintaining it anymore. Open source programmers would do that for free.
not sure how that answers my question.
not sure how that answers my question
He replied to the wrong message. Actually he was replying to my comment above about about Sun and IBM open sourcing their software.
Something i forgot on my last post:
Have you ever wondered why IBM have lots of migration “white papers” so that you can escape from those “evil” proprietary UNIX’es and Windows to Linux? Guess what? They don’t provide you with a migration guide from AIX to linux.
Anyone surprised?
Some people are just in my opinion a bit too naive.
IBM has helped the open source community a lot – & how are they suppossed to make money by saying – this is all free because we are just such nice sharing people – all you people that are saying – not giving things away for free is evil – what do you think would be your chances of purely living a normal healthy daily life if you could only do voluntary work & not get any money but just love & respect in return ???
Companies are surviving because they exchange their unique product & idea against money.
That money can then be used to develop more new things – maybe even to employ some highly skilled OSS developers – & give them a chance to make money from their hobbies.
I apologize for the gross simplification – but GPL’ing things is not going to always be in the best interest of companies that want to keep their interlectural property which they have worked hard on to themselves.
🙂
& in my opinion I doubt that ODF will go very far for the moment – except if it can be proven to have clear financial advantages.
Since no one has discussed it on this forum I think I will discuss what this is really all about.
There are an aweful lot of Notes shops out there. I write from one. There are already 1 million Workplace users out there. Workplace is intented to be the eventual replacement for Notes. Around release 7.5 to 8 of Notes the IBM roadmap plans the merging of the Notes and Workplace clients (which runs on Windows and Linux soon to be followed by OSX). This means that a lot of Notes users together with Workplace users will have a mail/collaboration client with a builtin office suite that supports ODF as well as reading and writing the pre-XML MS Office formats.
This will mean the a lot off medium to large corporations and government agencies will have a builtin new office suite already installed on their systems just when they are considering upgrading to the new XML based MS Office. Maybe they won’t upgrade and save their money. Instead they could go with the IBM editors and ODF, which they already have on their systems. This will support all the new XML based SOA stuff IBM will be offering.
Maybe MS is very scared of this, this could even be why we are seeing all the Trolls, fudsters and astroturfers doing their best to stop any serious discussion of this topic.
Yeah, we use Notes here for e-mail and many other things. It seems to work, though it’s a fairly large application.
An office suite built into Notes would be useful.
One argument that seems missing from the discussion is the fact that IBM was one of the very first supporters of Linux. IBM didn’t jump on a hype to get a lot of free publicity, because OSS was not that big in the media back then.
SUN on the other hand first tried to be popular by adopting Linux and then tried to kill it off, together with Microsoft and SCO. When that didn’t suceed they now try to convince people that they are the proponents of the real open source movement.
The GPL was created, in part, to let all businesses be equal. The CDDL was created to keep bussineses away from SUNs code. SUN has been very successful in this and no established company have yet been bold enough to adopt their code.
SUN on the other hand first tried to be popular by adopting Linux and then tried to kill it off, together with Microsoft and SCO. When that didn’t suceed they now try to convince people that they are the proponents of the real open source movement.
More FUD from IBM astrosurfers.
Dude, do me a favor. Call me when IBM open source their products, stop selling XP and most importantly: Stop telling me that “linux is for kids” on their sales events.
Dude, do me a favor. Call me when IBM open source their products, stop selling XP and most importantly: Stop telling me that “linux is for kids” on their sales events.
I wonder where they got the idea “Linux is for kids”? Maybe they read the comment section for various Linuxitems on Osnews and Slashdot?
from forbes:
IBM’s sales reps are battling to keep some customers from moving to Linux and other open-source programs–especially customers currently using AIX, IBM’s pricey Unix-based operating system. According to market research firm IDC, IBM in 2003 took in $180 million in revenue from AIX.
“Given the amount of advertising that IBM does around Linux, I always smirk and roll my eyes when I’m in a competitive situation with IBM and I’m pushing Linux and they’re pushing against Linux,” says Martin Fink, vice president of Linux at Hewlett-Packard . “This happens frequently. Once or twice a month I’m seeing this. In an IBM account with lots of AIX, they do everything they can to protect their proprietary stuff.”
Open my ass…
IBM didn’t jump on a hype to get a lot of free publicity, because OSS was not that big in the media back then.
IBM’s just a bunch of phoney bastards. Remember that whole deal where they painted peace love linux on things? Do you not think that was a big publicity stunt. I’m sure the paint cost more than free, so you’re right there but still…
To be more Linux friendly than IBM you have to contribute to GPL software and release your code with the GPL.
You know IBM doesn’t do this with AIX right?
Sun is the villain so long as they continue to partner with SCO and Microsoft.
IBM sells windows xp. Sun simply did not want to be sued, so they bought a license from SCO. There won’t be much of them soon, so who cares?
you have to stop bashing your GNU competition, since they use the same tech as you,
as mentioned above, IBM salespeople bash linux to sell AIX.
I don’t care about open source. I care about GNU and Linux and the GPL
Then why are you posting on a non linux/gpl thread?
Sun is gay.
now that’s just immature name calling.
I don’t really care that its not open source. Open source is great and all, but open standards (not including patent encumbered “open” standards) are the really important thing in my eyes. The real evil of Microsoft’s is not that their products are closed source. The real evil is that they actively limit interoperability by hiding and constantly changing their file formats (and protocols). If IBM can make their productivity suite so good that people are willing to pay for it rather than use OpenOffice, more power to them. At least open source software can compete on equal footing.
FOSS people are a strange bunch, a companies first priority it is’s share holders since they put up the risk capital, other than than compaies have no obligation to hand out free goodies to fossites. I supsect most of the complainers have probably never contributed a thing to open source and are just takers.