Star IBM May Open Source DB2
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 17th Jun 2008 09:08 UTC, submitted by Edisamy
IBM IBM is positive about the possibility of bringing out its DB2 under an open source license. While the computing giant has no immediate plans to open source DB2, market conditions may make it unavoidable, according to Chris Livesey, IBM's UK director of information management software. "We have a light version of the product offered for free, which is a step towards exposing our core (DB2) technology," said Livesey. "Looking at IBM's heritage in contributing to the open source market, we've been particularly keen to lead that market. Open source is an interesting space, as a whole. As the future unfolds, and the economics become clearer, there's going to be more commitment to open source by everybody. We've made good steps towards that."
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shadow_x99
Member since:
2006-05-12

I've worked with DB2 both on Linux and Mainframe, and there are some little details that I would very much like to fix :o)

For example, on DB2 on the Mainframe, there are some some annoyance regarding error messages (or lack of). DB2 just throws you 3 hexadecimal numbers separated with semi-commas and hope that you will open the documentation by yourself to find out what it is instead of just giving the bloody message right away.

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asgard Member since:
2008-06-07

Even if they would opensource DB2 (which they are not going to at the moment), I very much doubt they would opensource the mainframe version too. Unfortunately, there is almost no opensource for the mainframes (and hence no opensource community - Hercules folks being one notable exception), as the platform is largely unknown among young people.

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