Not to be overshadowed by releases from major players -9500-721-235314.html" target="new">Sun and Red Hat, IBM revealed some of its plans for the open source OS. On the burner is an alliance with ODSN regarding its development site SourceForge.net, which will now run exclusively on IBM's DB2 and WebSphere platforms. IBM and SourceForge will also offer an "Enterprise Edition" of SourceForge replete with tools to facilitate the development process. Also, IBM is launching a Solaris-to-Linux migration program, to assist companies with switching from Sun's proprietary OS to the open environment of Linux.

At LinuxWorld 2002 in San Francisco we sat down with Daniel Frye, Director of IBM's Linux Technology Center, to get the inside story on IBM's strategy in light of these announcements.

Daniel Frye IBM Linux Technology Center

How does SourceForge Enterprise Edition differ from the SourceForge.net Web site?

It's a set of tools, an application, a management infrastructure that enables open-source development. (In fact, my team uses it, as do a number of groups at IBM, inside the company; we have what's called the "internal IBM open-source bazaar.") It uses the SourceForge set of tools. If a team wants to do open-source development within IBM, they create an account and it gives them the source code repository, the mailing lists, control mechanisms, licenses, and so on. That's what SourceForge uses to run SourceForge.net. SourceForge will be using its own Enterprise Edition, and in fact already does. Part of the arrangement is that we will be able to sell that as well. It's a good alliance.

What will entice developers to use Enterprise Edition rather than simply use SourceForge.net?

The same thing that entices people to use Red Hat versus build-it-yourself Linux. Some skilled individuals can build it themselves, but most companies don't want to spend time doing integration, tuning, tweaking. If the technology's right, if there's enough value add in the technology, they will go buy a solution. There's always an open-source choice, but not many IT firms want to spend their dollars building their own system when, for a reasonable price, there's a commercial solution.

Aside from revenue, how does the alliance with OSDN/SourceForge benefit IBM?

We've got the world's largest development community, a very large, scalable site running on IBM infrastructure--hardware, middleware--powered by IBM, and a community that's going to be absolutely intolerant of technology glitches. It's a high-profile site. Also, we get the opportunity to market the SourceForge products. It just makes a lot of sense. The open source site powered by IBM, in parts, is a coup.

What sorts of organizations are expressing interest in IBM's Solaris to Linux migration program?

There's a huge amount of interest in moving off Solaris onto an open infrastructure. In a number of industries people want to migrate from a proprietary solution like Solaris and, at the same time, consolidate so they're running a single platform--ASPs, ISPs, various organizations who have clusters and need help. And basic server farms, whether it's the finance industry, high-performance industry, and so on.

There are some industries that haven't started moving that we think will. The telcos are a good example. The telco space has been dominated by Sun, they've been very successful in that space. Linux is becoming carrier-grade ready, the base technology's getting good enough. And I think starting in 2003 you're going to see a number of deployments moving from Sun to Linux. Those people are going to want help from this migration team--helping them port their applications, restructure their infrastructure, helping them with basic training and education. We're going to see some very large deployments. The infrastructure is really ready to go to Linux.

What are the benefits of Linux over Solaris, aside from cost?

Portability. One of the things you get with Linux is a change in the basic power structure between customers and vendors. If you're on Solaris and you're having trouble working with Sun, you've got no choice other than to take the cost of changing your entire stack. You have to port the middleware, the applications, you have to retrain, everything is locked in to the one decision of the OS. If you move to Linux and you don't like the hardware vendor, you can change the hardware vendor. It's the same Linux on IBM as it is on HP and Sun. If you need a different hardware architecture, you can go from Intel to Power to mainframes and it's still the same application. You have to recompile, but it's still the same. What that means is it forces the vendors onto a level playing field. The only way they can retain customers is by having the best price, best service, and best products every cycle--not just the first sell cycle, every time there's a renewal.

Would you say that the Solaris to Linux program is a direct assault on Sun?

Yes. This is a space where we collaborate and cooperate in building infrastructure, and we compete fiercely at Linux business. We want to attract as many customers as possible moving from Solaris to Linux. Although we don't get all Linux customers, we expect to have a bigger piece of that pie. You bet, it's a direct competitive move, and we think it's something that's going to be successful, it's going to drive a lot of business for us. As to how successful it'll be, we'll just have to see. The intent is not only to move customers from Solaris to Linux, but to make them happier when we do that, give them a lower cost, a just-as-reliable solution that's open, standard, and portable.

How does IBM's interest in Linux affect AIX?

Very complementary. AIX is the best enterprise Unix. So today if you need that big 24-way SMP with high-availability, Linux doesn't run there yet, that's what you use AIX for. On the other hand, AIX has never been very successful in enterprise compute farms, an area where Linux has been running very well. The technology's actually getting closer together--we've taken a lot of knowledge from AIX and ported it to Linux. But most people are now programming above the OS layer, increasingly the layer above the OS is standard. You write a J2EE application, it runs on Linux, AIX ... The underlying OS is becoming irrelevant. Linux, as it matures, will become the commodity Unix across the industry. When that happens, we'll help our customers transition. The key thing for customers is that the programming layers really come off the operating system and up into the middleware. So if you write to WebSphere or J2EE, the OS is becoming just part of the infrastructure that most people don't see.

What are your thoughts on IBM's recent Linux announcements? TalkBack or send e-mail to us.