My fiscal responcibility to my company ver. Open Source - advice please

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Sat, May 22, 2004 at 12:23:55AM -0400, Madison Kelly wrote:
> I do think that patents need reform in a bad way but so far as I can 
> tell IBM isn't one of those companies that bait 'n switches like so many 
> others. As far as I can tell they have so many patents so that they can 
> cover their ass not litigate to profit (again, like so many others).

It wasn't IBM that was bothering people for using GIFs.  That was unisys
(although how they both got the patent, who knows).

Besides if you patent it first, then it is probably easier to defend
against others than if they patent something that you have already done
(then you have to deal with showing all the prior art and that.)

> I also don't think that IBM contributes so much raw code as I would like 
> but their contribution is still very tangible. They are contributing by 
> making OSS a legitamite option for big business and thus giving OSS 
> credit everywhere. Remember the old (and still true) expression "No one 
> gets fired for choosing IBM."? There you go.

Hmm, EVMS, Postfix, OpenAFS, etc...  I think they contribute quite a
bit.  JFS filesystem, a lot of NUMA support (although they sell a lot of
the hardware that needs it), and probably other things.  They did
contribute the s390 port (although I imagine that is largely for their
own sales benefits too).

> No, they didn't have so much of a choice in the law suit but they 
> certainly did have a choice on how they handled it. They could very 
> easily have bought SCO with a hostile take over for less hassle and cost 
> then the court case is probably costing them but they chose instead to 
> make a stand and end the question of whether OSS is legally sound.
> 
> So again, I think IBM is an open source company.

Me too.  I think their current Linux adds are very odd, but who knows
what that's about.  IBM is a services company, and open source is not a
problem for their profitability, and seems to possibly be a benefit for
them, especially if it helps keep Microsoft under control a bit.
Besides by having access to open tools that others help develop and
maintain it allows IBM to sell more scalable solutions now that they
have an open OS running on all of their hardware with an identical API
from low end handheld to huge mainframe hardware.  Imagine if they had
had to start from scratch and develop all that for the entire lineup.
It seems better for business to sell solutions and customization and
support, than to develop and sell software directly.

Lennart Sorensen
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