On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 06:26:21 GMT, Richard Steven Hack

<snip>

>
>I'm still amazed that IBM has morphed from the "Dark Empire" to the
>primary supporter of open source.

It's all about power. IBM are on the bottom now, so they're going to
support open source since it's a thorn in the side of their rival. If
they were on top, they'd be doing exactly the same sorts of things
that MS has become notorious for.

--
"Those of us whose brains did not die in college are
actually stunned by just how stupid academic ideas
are." -- Robert W. Whitaker, http://readbob.com/

On 2007-10-19 07:44, Igor wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 06:26:21 GMT, Richard Steven Hack
>
> <snip>
>
>> I'm still amazed that IBM has morphed from the "Dark Empire" to the
>> primary supporter of open source.
>
> It's all about power. IBM are on the bottom now, so they're going to
> support open source since it's a thorn in the side of their rival. If
> they were on top, they'd be doing exactly the same sorts of things
> that MS has become notorious for.
>
> --
> "Those of us whose brains did not die in college are
> actually stunned by just how stupid academic ideas
> are." -- Robert W. Whitaker, http://readbob.com/

I think you have right about the opensource thing, but my relations with IBM
learned me they are very tough in business, but has moral , which Microsoft
don't have. And different IBM sites even competed with each other, so
they where used to deal with competition on a fair way.

For example when I was working with mainframe support, we took over some support
contracts that IBM had. One time I was going to buy a new part at IBM, they
told me that the unit this part was included in had a design fault, and was
counted as mandatory change, so they gave me the whole unit for free.
And they did know we competed with them.

I can't image Microsoft could play that fair.

Maybe Linux just saved their mainframe business, so old customers could use
their big irons for web services and other modern things, and really discovered
that it was possible to make money from GPL and OSS software.

/bb

Here in alt.os.linux, Igor <donotreply@nospam.com> spake unto us, saying:

>On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 06:26:21 GMT, Richard Steven Hack
>
><snip>
>
>>
>>I'm still amazed that IBM has morphed from the "Dark Empire" to the
>>primary supporter of open source.
>
>It's all about power. IBM are on the bottom now, so they're going to
>support open source since it's a thorn in the side of their rival.

IBM on the bottom? That's certainly not true in the mainframe world,
and it's also not true if you do a comparison of IBM's total business
to Microsoft's.

They're primarily a hardware and services company, but their software
business is still very large (and was actually larger than Microsoft
until fairly recently).

>If they were on top, they'd be doing exactly the same sorts of things
>that MS has become notorious for.

Keep in mind that IBM was already burned by the DOJ once for anti-trust
issues. Their culture still remembers that, so I suspect they'd be a
bit less likely to engage in such activities again than Microsoft
(which has essentially gotten away without punishment in the US).

--
-Rich Steiner >>>---> http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner >>>---> Mableton, GA USA
Mainframe/Unix bit twiddler by day, OS/2+Linux+DOS hobbyist by night.
WARNING: I've seen FIELDATA FORTRAN V and I know how to use it!
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.

Horton heard a Who named Richard Steiner saying: <snip>
> Keep in mind that IBM was already burned by the DOJ once for anti-trust
> issues.
> ... so I suspect they'd be a bit less likely to engage in such
> activities again than Microsoft (which has essentially gotten away without
> punishment in the US).
>

Did my government punish MS? NOT in my opinion. At our expense, in more than one
way, it was a rebuke at best. So, when you said, "essentially gotten away
without punishment in the US", you are correct !

--
sk8r-365
The U.S. Congress enjoys damaging "big business"
but are themselves building big government!