Dana Blankenhorn has as an interesting but misguided post on IBM's commitment to Open Source. He suggests that support for OSS represents good citizenship, and a change of corporate culture. He actually opens by attacking another Open Source advocate, Matt Asay, for his questioning of IBM's motives.
IBM is a hardware company, a services company and a contracting company. Notice what is missing? Any need to control code used by anyone but a customer IBM has contracted to serve.
For IBM, software is a shared store from which it benefits, and to which it contributes. The company has built an arms-length relationship with the whole process of improving code. It can still make proprietary improvements, because the BSD-type licenses it supports allow that.
First off, I don’t have any problem with IBM having copyright over the code it creates. Nor do I have a problem with some of the patents they apply for (others, like this one, are a bit shady). But to the legions of businesses and governments that are still using leased mainframes from IBM, Dana’s big hug is just a big joke.
IBM controls all aspects of the mainframe, including the software, AND the communications protocols that allow mainframes to interoperate. They control them so tightly that when the last remaining mainframe competitor (PSI) made an Intel based hardware product that emulated IBM’s products, IBM sued them.
Here’s a quote from a news article covering the 2006 lawsuit:
PSI develops clone mainframe computers based on Hewlett-Packard's Integrity Itanium servers, to which it adds firmware and software; the resultant systems can run IBM mainframe software. IBM asked the court to confirm the propriety of its decision to terminate PSI's software licenses, to block PSI from using IBM's patented technology, and to confirm that IBM's actions are neither anticompetitive nor in violation of antitrust laws. If IBM succeeds, PSI is dead.
Looks like IBM is still controlling the code, Dana!
Oh, and Dana’s claim that IBM leaves Open Source alone? Here’s a quote from the creator of the Open Source Mainframe project called Hercules:
The goal with the Hercules project has always been to provide the thousands of mainframe devotees around the world with the ability to run mainframe software on their PC but currently there is no legal way run z/OS and other current IBM system software on Hercules. This is a real shame. The situation today is that IBM is the only choice for mainframe platforms, despite the fact that technologies exist today that would allow customers to run mainframe workloads on alternative platforms. By only allowing IBM mainframe software to run on IBM mainframe hardware, IBM has been able to eliminate all mainframe alternatives and totally own the mainframe market.
Why does IBM do all this heavy handed protection? Because analysts estimate that nearly a quarter of IBM’s $ 100 Billion dollars in annual revenue comes from Mainframes. Not only that, IBM’s position has allowed them to reverse a longstanding rule in computers – that year over year, you get more power for the same dollar. In the IBM mainframe world, the same power costs you more money every year, and not just in lease agreements. For example, one gigabyte of memory for the IBM mainframe costs approximately USD $6,000. The same amount of memory for servers running Linux, UNIX or Windows costs less than USD $200.
I think what Dana fails to get here is that IBM is only pro-open source in areas where they DON’T have market share, and when the open source community comes sniffing around IBM’s cash cows, they react as badly as any proprietary company. You can’t judge the company’s open source commitment when you’re looking at markets that are adjacent to its core business or markets where it has no share. When open source efforts to encroach on core business, IBM fails.
Dana needs to go back to the drawing board on this one. IBM is a fine company doing its level best to maximize shareholder value though software patents, service contracts, open source support, hardware sales and other money making activities. Like any mixed source company, its commitment to open source is only as strong as its ability to maximize profits. And in the mainframe space, open source may be the enemy for IBM.
So instead of telling the world how perfect IBM is, how ‘bout this year we just hope that IBM doesn’t get busted for bribery and banned from US government contracts? That would be a nice change from 2008.