Hard to believe (Score 1)

I've worked with IBM hardware and software probably longer than a lot here have been alive. And through weird fate shit I now work for IBM.

Through all these decades I've learned the one thing IBM wants people to think when they hear IBM is integrity.

Now how did IBM get involved with linux ?? Linas Vepstas started an IBM linux mainframe port in 1998 and had made fairly impressive progress by the end of 1999. In the same timeframe, IBM Böblingen also began a linux port, but as a skunk-works project. They released their updates to lkml in mid-December 1999 and went public. In a surprisingly short period of time, for a monstrosity as big as IBM, the project was blessed by IBM corporate as a way to generate revenue from their mainframe hardware. Also a decades operating system called vm got new life breathed into it because it lets you run thousands of linux images with far better resource utilization (bang for the buck) than individual servers. (If you think vmware is cool, you ain't seen nothin'). And Linas, sad to say, was fscked.

But the next year (2000) was spent just getting linux to run decently. And the last couple of years has been spent to actually get sites to run this thing in production.

So, as an outsider, it was apparent to me that IBM's initial effort was spent to just get linux running decently on mainframe architecture and not much else. Now flashback to the 1980's (hmmm Vice City just popped in mind ;-) IBM developed a risc architecture and chose to run a proprietary unix on it. So aix is born, along with a licence agreement with AT&T for Unix IP. Not that they actually had to use any of the IP, but it was a good base to cover.

Now, as an IBM newbie, it has been hammered and hammered again that thou wilt not divulge IP and will honour thy NDA. I don't know, but I think each and every employee has to get hammered year after year.

It may sound archaic today, but the values IBM insists on indoctrinating me with are `when in doubt, do the right thing', and `free will involves making a choice, please accept responsibility for your decisions'. The noive ;-)

I seriously doubt that any IP benefits IBM obtained for unix almost 20 years ago are relevant in today's linux and I seriously doubt that any IBMers would betray the trust of another's IP or violate a NDA.

Also, I believe that IBM would spend $1B to impugn this assault on its integrity rather than $20M to make it go away.