[LUNI] Re: Sun to Begin Close Sourcing MySQL

[JEFF at GERHARDT.ORG]

Trev, 

> I think IBM gets a good rep because:
> 1. They contribute a lot to community and other projects they don't
> control (Linux Kernel, OpenOffice, etc.)
> 2. They are a vocal advocate of FLOSS (many press releases and news with
> them promoting FLOSS).
> 3. They were a relatively early adopter of FLOSS (this gave them a fair
> amount of initial FLOSS Karma).

IBM contributes to open technologies (I refuse to use the word "floss") 
because it makes sense to their business model.  That is it, the long and 
the short of it. 

When they showed up to Linux World in 1999 there were one hell of a lot of 
suspicious people. 

Back in the day, IBM used to be called the "Evil Empire" before Bilgatus 
came along, and let me tell you they deserved it.  They would routinely 
change plugs on drive sub-systems just to make it impossible for people to 
use NON-IBM drive subsystems. 

Yes they have proved in the long run to be remarkable citizens.  But oft 
times controversy makes for strange bed fellows.  The way that the community 
stood by IBMs side in the situation with SCO v IBM, did as much to endear 
the community to the suits at IBM as anything else.  I know this as fact as 
although I was not at ground zero (as ESR was), I was close enough to take 
hits from the shrapnel. 

But if the choice was to sacrifice sales and profitability vs contributing 
to the development of Linux, they would be gone in a flash. 

The bottom line is simple.  Linux made the IBM mainframe and super computers 
a very profitable business.  As early as 2003 I was told of sales pops 
measured with "B's" attributed to Linux at IBM. But, not all is OPEN at IBM. 

A lot of people do not know that IBM proprietary tool sets for Z series 
processors are closed source and yet the computer runs Linux.  This happens 
to be a totally legitimate implementation for IBM, but I am sure that GPL 
purists would have a problem with it. However, some of their other tool sets 
(x86) IBM has released as open source. 

So, although I am far from a fan of SUN, there are loads of suspicious 
business motives you could place to many vendors. 

As for now, the judgment is out for MySQL.  The deal with MySQL is that it 
is GPL and has been for a long time. If SUN does piss people off, it will be 
forked. 

Jeff Gerhardt