Is open source changing the way that software is made? It is at IBM. BetaNews sat down with Doug Heintzman, IBM Software Group’s VP of Strategy and Technology, to discuss the adoption of a hybrid development model called Community Source that combines the best elements of the open source model with decades of IBM programming practice – avoiding a top down approach that IBM says could make Microsoft’s Longhorn obsolete upon arrival.
Interview: IBM Turns to Open Source Development
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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IBM has been in it for quite some time now and they are known to deliver far to expensive stuff at a wide range. Surely I don’t trust Microsoft, but IBM, that is a lot worse.
heh, the title is somewhat deceiving, IBM is not going open source as I am sure a bunch of morons who do not read the article will post, it is simply adopting an open source software develpment model for within it’s company….. good idea, I think so….. could it backfire… yep (many developers with access to code for different projects… can you say Leak?) lol
BN:Is it conceivable that IBM developers could be inspired to contribute projects they are not assigned to in their own spare time?
Heintzman: We would be very happy for programmers to program in their spare time
Who would not? Pay them for 8 hours, get in return 12 hours of work. Pure capitalism.
I just don’t see how anything from Open Source type of environment can be transplanted to it. It’s my first hand experience by the way. Any innovation, any small project ends up in creating working group to evaluate the project, its impact on the whole company, then they start estimating the cost of implementing the project within the whole company, more meetings, more meetings, yet more meetings … well you got the point. PHBs who prefer spending their time on meetings rather than letting anything to go ahead. Blah.
open source:
1. db2
2. purify/quantify (IBM bought Rational)
3. aix
4. mvs/zos/s390
5. visual age (now xlc)
6. apl2
Stress kills productivity. Why would anyone want to work more hours if all their work is frustrating and stressful?
I think a combination of this open access approach to development and a proactive approach to reducing stress in the work environment would go a long way to improving productivity.
free employees!
IBM’s half measures concerning open source will NEVER accomplish anything.
They are setting themselves to be SPANKED by Microsoft — AGAIN.
It’s a tough thing for IBM. They have no real business motivation to pursue open source. It’s not as if it will help IBM’s consulting business (closed source is more fucked up and will generate more revenue), nor will it help the mini/mainframe business. In fact, it’s hard to say what business IBM is in that will be helped by open source.
The above list is wrong. I don’t think any of that stuff is open source. And when IBM does open source, it is always “open source for insane amounts of money” if you want to use it in a commercial app. It’s not going to grow any sort of ecosystem.
Seriously, I wonder if Microsoft pays IBM on the side to be a crummy champion of open source. Just to make sure nothing changes too much, but developers have the perpetual illusion of hope that things will change.
avoiding a top down approach that IBM says could make Microsoft’s Longhorn obsolete upon arrival.
When it arrives.
goldstein:They are setting themselves to be SPANKED by Microsoft — AGAIN.
They still produce the cell which MS uses for the X-box and Sony will use for the PS3.If SONY would really take their all in one solution serious in conjunction with Linux than it’s not hard to see who get’s spanked.MS can’t follow with that for obvious reasons.
Great opportunity to give the youth a first time introduction with a great OS, Linux.
x box 360 doesnt use cell
What about OS/2 ? Help us, Big Blue ! (and we’ll helps you…)
http://www.petitiononline/OS24FREE/
http://www.osfree.org/
They still produce the cell which MS uses for the X-box and Sony will use for the PS3.
Only Sony uses the cell architechture for game consoles. Xbox 360 uses a custom PowerPC CPU from IBM.
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/factsheet.htm
Yep
Nintendo revolution also use a custom PowerPC cpu from Ibm with a ati video card… like xbox 360
If I hear one more person try to tell me that xb360 will be a cell CPU I will explode…or …you know…frown for a while and then not care.
I personaly don’t trust IBM either. I only hope that Novell does what I think it can do help tie up some loose ends that the Desktop-linux needs.
(to prevent flame – I think you can of course use linux as a Desktop now but their are some things that need to be looked after)
For the record, Nintendo did the IBM PowerPC + ATI GPU thing first with the Gamecube. Look at a GC and spot the little IBM and ATI logos.
Back on the topic, I wonder how this will work out for them? They say it improves managing their (admittedly immense) worldwide developer resources. What happens if a dev on one project falls in love with another one? Can they transfer?
Interesting.
–JM
Hooray! More oppurtunities for IBM developers to rely on undocumented behaviour! This is basically saying “We’re going to encourage our developers to rely on the specific internal behaviour of our implementations, thus silently locking everyone into our product and support services while getting good marketing press for it because we used the words ‘open source’.”
Letting developers from other projects look at your code is nice. Letting them depend on its internal behaviour is NOT.
“we are witnessing this kind of fascinating bottoms up grassroots innovation where great people have an idea and collaborate with other people and get together to make those ideas into something real.”
Welcome to 1995, IBM! Microsoft, Sun, Novell, and many others are waiting for you in 2005. Maybe in 10 years time, you too, will realize that the ideas will also need a definite direction!
Another pile of market drivel BS by IBM that’ll be gobbled up simple because it has ‘open source’ in it. The kind of practice described in the article is seriously nothing new, it’s just that no one has bothered wasting time or is desprate enough to tack ‘open source’ to it.
So, when are we going to see the Notes client opensourced, along with Lotus Smart Suite? both aren’t exactly money makers (the big money spinners are on the server side), so why keep them closed source? have they got something to hide? are they all talk no action?