Re: How about sponsoring from IBM?
Just to add a fact to my statements: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-201-4656230-0.html quote:" IBM CEO Lou Gerstner announced IBM's $1 billion Linux commitment last month." (this was january 2001)
On Thu, Jan 10, 2002 at 05:44:44PM -0200, Roland wrote:
Just to add a fact to my statements:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-201-4656230-0.html
quote:" IBM CEO Lou Gerstner announced IBM's $1 billion Linux commitment last month." (this was january 2001) Hmm, something tells me that it's January 2002 now. And something else tells me that this is 12 months. And then something else tells me that this is quite a time frame.
So what exactly has happened that demonstrates what a huuuuuge amount of $1 billion dollars in the hands of IBM can do ? There are a lot of people who believe that it's been vapornews. And I'm about to join them. So unless you can convince me otherwise... -- Andreas Mohr Stauferstr. 6, D-71272 Renningen, Germany Tel. +49 7159 800604 http://home.nexgo.de/andi.mohr/
My attempt to convince you otherwise: http://oss.software.ibm.com/developer/opensource/linux http://www.ibm.com/linux Paul Clarke, IBM Andreas Mohr wrote:
On Thu, Jan 10, 2002 at 05:44:44PM -0200, Roland wrote:
Just to add a fact to my statements:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-201-4656230-0.html
quote:" IBM CEO Lou Gerstner announced IBM's $1 billion Linux commitment last month." (this was january 2001)
Hmm, something tells me that it's January 2002 now. And something else tells me that this is 12 months. And then something else tells me that this is quite a time frame.
So what exactly has happened that demonstrates what a huuuuuge amount of $1 billion dollars in the hands of IBM can do ?
There are a lot of people who believe that it's been vapornews. And I'm about to join them.
So unless you can convince me otherwise...
// opinions are my own, not my employer's
At 08:35 AM 1/11/02 -0600, Paul Clarke wrote:
My attempt to convince you otherwise:
http://oss.software.ibm.com/developer/opensource/linux http://www.ibm.com/linux
Paul Clarke, IBM
Good, so it really seems that IBM is commited to Linux. Now my question is, would it be too much to ask IBM to spend 1% of that 1 billion for Linux on WINE? Of course we are assuming that a full-featured WINE would DRASTICALLY increase the success of Linux. This would be in accordance with: "...with a shared vision of making Linux succeed." quote from http://www-124.ibm.com/developer/opensource/linux/ If the assumption is true I think those 10 Million would be the best spent part of that 1 Billion. Paul, do you know the people in charge of the Linux sponsoring? How about talking to them about this idea? It would be interesting to hear what they say. Maybe they even don't know about the WINE project... Just my 0.000 000 001$ Roland
Roland wrote:
At 08:35 AM 1/11/02 -0600, Paul Clarke wrote:
My attempt to convince you otherwise:
http://oss.software.ibm.com/developer/opensource/linux http://www.ibm.com/linux
Paul Clarke, IBM
Good, so it really seems that IBM is commited to Linux. Now my question is, would it be too much to ask IBM to spend 1% of that 1 billion for Linux on WINE? Of course we are assuming that a full-featured WINE would DRASTICALLY increase the success of Linux. This would be in accordance with: "...with a shared vision of making Linux succeed." quote from http://www-124.ibm.com/developer/opensource/linux/
If the assumption is true I think those 10 Million would be the best spent part of that 1 Billion. Paul, do you know the people in charge of the Linux sponsoring? How about talking to them about this idea? It would be interesting to hear what they say. Maybe they even don't know about the WINE project...
Many people at IBM know about Wine; in fact a lot of developers there depend on it everyday (IBM is standardized on Notes for messaging...). Many non developers also know about it, if for no other reason that I've been a pest.<grin> One senior manager at IBM explained it to me as follows: Most senior management at IBM has been with the company for a long time. Most of those went through the OS/2 era. Many people may not realize it, but IBM put their heart and soul into OS/2 - and were burned very, very badly by it. As a consequence, many people at IBM are understandably very reluctant to contemplate another attack on Windows dominance of the desktop. This doesn't mean that I think helping Wine would be bad for IBM (or I wouldn't have been such a pest), but it may help folks to understand why IBM isn't very focused on Linux as a desktop OS. Jeremy
One senior manager at IBM explained it to me as follows: Most senior management at IBM has been with the company for a long time. Most of those went through the OS/2 era. Many people may not realize it, but IBM put their heart and soul into OS/2 - and were burned very, very badly by it. As a consequence, many people at IBM are understandably very reluctant to contemplate another attack on Windows dominance of the desktop.
This doesn't mean that I think helping Wine would be bad for IBM (or I wouldn't have been such a pest), but it may help folks to understand why IBM isn't very focused on Linux as a desktop OS.
Jeremy
Ok, I understand your point. But I think there is a big difference here. They "put their heart and soul into OS/2". I'm not asking for them to do the same with WINE. All I ask is to contributing a little from their huge Linux budget on WINE. Even if WINE doesn't work out the way everyone is imagining they will not have lost much, only 1% of the Linux budget. Putting heart and soul into it is something that no one is demanging... Roland
On Fri, Jan 11, 2002 at 03:47:56PM -0200, Roland wrote:
If the assumption is true I think those 10 Million would be the best spent part of that 1 Billion.
It looks like IBM spends its money on the products they themselvs use heavily, as well as training and making the name of Linux more popular (aka advertising/PR). I may have missed it but I haven't seen IBM spend money on a Linux(related) project just to further the project. If they wanted to spend $10e7 just to improve programs/tools just for the "good" of it I would be sad to see this money spent on wine. I'd like to see it spent on the development/improvement of *native* Linux apps that fulfill the need of current Windows users. Ciao Jörg -- Joerg Mayer <jmayer(a)loplof.de> I found out that "pro" means "instead of" (as in proconsul). Now I know what proactive means.
At 07:57 PM 1/11/02 +0100, Joerg Mayer wrote:
It looks like IBM spends its money on the products they themselvs use heavily, as well as training and making the name of Linux more popular (aka advertising/PR).
Hmm, I think 10 Million on WINE would do more advertising on the long run by attracting Windows Users and spreading the word, then the same amount spent on ads. If you really want to make Linux popular, running Windows software is the way, think about all the apps and games!!!
I may have missed it but I haven't seen IBM spend money on a Linux(related) project just to further the project. If they wanted to spend $10e7 just to improve programs/tools just for the "good" of it I would be sad to see this money spent on wine. I'd like to see it spent on the development/improvement of *native* Linux apps that fulfill the need of current Windows users.
Well, you have two options: 1. Spend money on thousands of native Linux apps to capture the Windows users. 2. Spend money on ONE native Linux app(WINE) to make it run thousands of Windows apps and attract the corresponding users. I think option 2 is the more intelligent and cheaper option. Roland
On 2002.01.11 14:49 Roland wrote:
At 07:57 PM 1/11/02 +0100, Joerg Mayer wrote:
It looks like IBM spends its money on the products they themselvs use heavily, as well as training and making the name of Linux more popular (aka advertising/PR).
Hmm, I think 10 Million on WINE would do more advertising on the long run by attracting Windows Users and spreading the word, then the same amount spent on ads. If you really want to make Linux popular, running Windows software is the way, think about all the apps and games!!!
hahahhahahahahaahahahahahahaha Sorry, ROTFLMAO, see below.
I may have missed it but I haven't seen IBM spend money on a Linux(related) project just to further the project. If they wanted to spend $10e7 just to improve programs/tools just for the "good" of it I would be sad to see this money spent on wine. I'd like to see it spent on the development/improvement of *native* Linux apps that fulfill the need of current Windows users.
Well, you have two options:
1. Spend money on thousands of native Linux apps to capture the Windows users. 2. Spend money on ONE native Linux app(WINE) to make it run thousands of Windows apps and attract the corresponding users.
I think option 2 is the more intelligent and cheaper option.
Read up on your computer history a bit son. OS/2 ran Windows apps, and from about version 2 upwards ran all DOS and Windows stuff perfectly (except for the Win32s stuff). I am sure IBM does /not/ want to make the same mistake again. However WinOS/2 actually was running Windows 3.x. In fact, the technology was extremely similar to SCO Merge (which now has offspring-- Win4Lin). One nice thing it could do that win4lin could not was actually put toplevel windows onto the desktop directly (though they still had the win31 look). This would look similar to running Wine in non-desktop and non-managed mode, although the windows actually were managed by OS/2. Some people would argue that had IBM comitted to supporting Win32 stuff that OS/2 would still be around. Of course the bottom line is that the way they were doing this meant MS got the money for a copy of Windows every time someone bought OS/2. Not good. Wine wouldn't have that problem assuming it would be using all wine DLLs. As for IBM investing in Wine. I suppose there are a couple things they could do. For one, they could somehow use the $10e6 you suggest but who would they pay it to. What might be more helpful is if some of the guys and gals that wrote OS/2 would help out with Wine. They would probably be extremely familiar with Win32 seeing as how OS/2 was originally a joint MS/IBM project which MS got out of when they hacked Win3.0 to support virtual memory on a 386 and decided to make NT. Now while the NT kernel was developed by former VMS guys and gals from DEC, some of Win32 resembles OS/2 because some of those developers went on to work on NT. Which by the way no-one has confirmed that MS ever said it actually stood for New Technology.. more likely it stands for Nice Tits, but that's another story. Anyway, the bottom line is that IBM is not going to start throwing money at stuff. They made that mistake with OS/2 and look where that got 'em. No, IBM spends money when and where it helps their bottom line. Taking down MS does not help their bottom line. Building their own services does help their bottom line. IBM could care less if everyone could run Windows software on Linux. They are in the business of providing the totally integrated system. Running 3rd party stuff is usually not a top priority. Note that IBM has already caught the eye of MS with IBMs ad campaign for moving onto 390 systems running Linux. Some of those internal MS memos recently released are really anti-IBM. Right now I think MS is at the point where they have competitors. They can go after companies using Linux just like they have gone after companies in the past. They are also going after various IT admins who use Linux for certain tasks suggesting that MS software is better for everything. Of course anybody that tells you that one system is better than all others is full of shit, but hey, it sounds good to some managers who don't want to listen to the people they have working for them. Let 'em waste their money on MS. When it breaks, let 'em waste more money on moving it back to what worked. MS is going to shoot itself in the foot soon enough, no need to bring out your own shotgun. -Dave
At 02:12 PM 1/12/02 -0500, David Elliott wrote:
hahahhahahahahaahahahahahahaha
Sorry, ROTFLMAO, see below.
Good to know you are having some fun right now! :)) Laughing is healthy!
Read up on your computer history a bit son.
OS/2 ran Windows apps, and from about version 2 upwards ran all DOS and Windows stuff perfectly (except for the Win32s stuff). I am sure IBM does /not/ want to make the same mistake again.
The question is, where the mistake was? The only similarity between OS/2 and WINE+LINUX is that both want to run M$ Windows software. You should ask some additional questions like: -would OS/2 have failed if it was for free like Linux+WINE? -would it fail if it had the ever growing acceptance that Linux is having. -would it fail if it where actually one of the most used OS on the server side? Even IBM is putting Linux on their big-iron. Ask yourself, why don't they use OS/2 for it? There are also other points to consider: -WINE is not an IBM project/product. So they can pull back from it anytime without losing their face. They couldn't do this with OS/2, so it costs them Billions for all the user support, etc...Thats where the real problem is! -Why should someone pay for OS/2 if they can have WINDOWS? Moving from one proprietary system to another is nonsense. But Linux+WINE are free, so it would make sense to move from WINDOWS to Linux.
Some people would argue that had IBM comitted to supporting Win32 stuff that OS/2 would still be around. Of course the bottom line is that the way they were doing this meant MS got the money for a copy of Windows every time someone bought OS/2. Not good. Wine wouldn't
And this also means that OS/2 will cost as much as WINDOWS at least, so there is no incentive to move.
As for IBM investing in Wine. I suppose there are a couple things they could do. For one, they could somehow use the $10e6 you suggest but who would they pay it to. What might be more helpful is if some of the guys and gals that wrote OS/2 would help out with Wine. They
Well, I think once they are willing to pay that money, I'm sure we would find out how to use it in a meaningfull way. There are at least two ways I can think about it. 1. Invest money in some company that already is on WINE developing like, Codeweavers and Transgaming. Actually I remember some guy of one of that companies saying it would contribute back some huge chunk of code they developed if they got the funding to pay for their costs from somewhere. 2. Pay some programmer(might be someone already developing WINE on their par-time) to become a full-time WINE developer.
Anyway, the bottom line is that IBM is not going to start throwing money at stuff. They made that mistake with OS/2 and look where that got 'em.
Once again I think this is no fair comparison. Investing on OS/2 meant a much BIGGER investment in money and, worse a company commitment to that product, which meant they couldn't simply pull back when they wanted, they had to support if for YEARS to come. With WINE things are totally different. They have to invest much less, in fact they can invest any arbitrarily value. I don't think 10 Million is much for them in comparison with what they invested(and still pay) on OS/2.
No, IBM spends money when and where it helps their bottom line. Taking down MS does not help their bottom line. Building their own services does help their bottom line. IBM could care less if everyone could run Windows software on Linux. They are in the business of
AFAIK, one of their bottom lines is promoting LINUX popularity, I don't want to quote one of their web-sites again(read my other mails). I think no one here will disagree if I say that WINE is THE cornerstone to promoting Linux popularity.
Note that IBM has already caught the eye of MS with IBMs ad campaign for moving onto 390 systems running Linux. Some of those internal MS memos recently released are really anti-IBM. Right now I think MS is at the point where they have competitors. They can go
Since IBM already caught the eye of MS it doesn't make a difference if they also invest on WINE.
waste their money on MS. When it breaks, let 'em waste more money on moving it back to what worked. MS is going to shoot itself in the foot soon enough, no need to bring out your own shotgun.
If this was true, we wouldn't need Linux at all. The reality is different. We need to give the end-user a REAL alternative, and here is where WINE comes in... Roland
Why stop at IBM? We should consider lobbying for support from any companies that serve to benefit from increased wine development. And on the IBM issue, how would we even present the case for wine to them or to any other company for that matter? Chris On Mon, 14 Jan 2002, Roland wrote:
At 02:12 PM 1/12/02 -0500, David Elliott wrote:
hahahhahahahahaahahahahahahaha
Sorry, ROTFLMAO, see below.
Good to know you are having some fun right now! :)) Laughing is healthy!
Read up on your computer history a bit son.
OS/2 ran Windows apps, and from about version 2 upwards ran all DOS and Windows stuff perfectly (except for the Win32s stuff). I am sure IBM does /not/ want to make the same mistake again.
The question is, where the mistake was? The only similarity between OS/2 and WINE+LINUX is that both want to run M$ Windows software. You should ask some additional questions like: -would OS/2 have failed if it was for free like Linux+WINE? -would it fail if it had the ever growing acceptance that Linux is having. -would it fail if it where actually one of the most used OS on the server side?
Even IBM is putting Linux on their big-iron. Ask yourself, why don't they use OS/2 for it? There are also other points to consider:
-WINE is not an IBM project/product. So they can pull back from it anytime without losing their face. They couldn't do this with OS/2, so it costs them Billions for all the user support, etc...Thats where the real problem is! -Why should someone pay for OS/2 if they can have WINDOWS? Moving from one proprietary system to another is nonsense. But Linux+WINE are free, so it would make sense to move from WINDOWS to Linux.
Some people would argue that had IBM comitted to supporting Win32 stuff that OS/2 would still be around. Of course the bottom line is that the way they were doing this meant MS got the money for a copy of Windows every time someone bought OS/2. Not good. Wine wouldn't
And this also means that OS/2 will cost as much as WINDOWS at least, so there is no incentive to move.
As for IBM investing in Wine. I suppose there are a couple things they could do. For one, they could somehow use the $10e6 you suggest but who would they pay it to. What might be more helpful is if some of the guys and gals that wrote OS/2 would help out with Wine. They
Well, I think once they are willing to pay that money, I'm sure we would find out how to use it in a meaningfull way. There are at least two ways I can think about it. 1. Invest money in some company that already is on WINE developing like, Codeweavers and Transgaming. Actually I remember some guy of one of that companies saying it would contribute back some huge chunk of code they developed if they got the funding to pay for their costs from somewhere. 2. Pay some programmer(might be someone already developing WINE on their par-time) to become a full-time WINE developer.
Anyway, the bottom line is that IBM is not going to start throwing money at stuff. They made that mistake with OS/2 and look where that got 'em.
Once again I think this is no fair comparison. Investing on OS/2 meant a much BIGGER investment in money and, worse a company commitment to that product, which meant they couldn't simply pull back when they wanted, they had to support if for YEARS to come. With WINE things are totally different. They have to invest much less, in fact they can invest any arbitrarily value. I don't think 10 Million is much for them in comparison with what they invested(and still pay) on OS/2.
No, IBM spends money when and where it helps their bottom line. Taking down MS does not help their bottom line. Building their own services does help their bottom line. IBM could care less if everyone could run Windows software on Linux. They are in the business of
AFAIK, one of their bottom lines is promoting LINUX popularity, I don't want to quote one of their web-sites again(read my other mails). I think no one here will disagree if I say that WINE is THE cornerstone to promoting Linux popularity.
Note that IBM has already caught the eye of MS with IBMs ad campaign for moving onto 390 systems running Linux. Some of those internal MS memos recently released are really anti-IBM. Right now I think MS is at the point where they have competitors. They can go
Since IBM already caught the eye of MS it doesn't make a difference if they also invest on WINE.
waste their money on MS. When it breaks, let 'em waste more money on moving it back to what worked. MS is going to shoot itself in the foot soon enough, no need to bring out your own shotgun.
If this was true, we wouldn't need Linux at all. The reality is different. We need to give the end-user a REAL alternative, and here is where WINE comes in...
Roland
On Fri, Jan 11, 2002 at 02:13:22PM +0100, Andreas Mohr wrote:
Hmm, something tells me that it's January 2002 now. And something else tells me that this is 12 months. And then something else tells me that this is quite a time frame.
So what exactly has happened that demonstrates what a huuuuuge amount of $1 billion dollars in the hands of IBM can do ?
There are a lot of people who believe that it's been vapornews. And I'm about to join them.
So unless you can convince me otherwise...
Wow, I guess you haven't seen the huge amount of advertising on TV, in magazines, and on billboards, or the enormous number of Linux articles on developerWorks, or seen all of the JFS kernel contributions, or the press releases describing Linux running on all of their big-iron hardware, or a brochure for all of their Linux training and consulting programs. IBM has committed to Linux in a big way, and it's obvious everywhere you look. If you believe nothing else, believe that IBM is spending $1 billion to buy Linux LEGITIMACY for use in corporations both through (a) its own reputation and (b) addressing the areas where Linux is lacking for production use. Many of these projects are run by IBM rather than contributing to existing fledgling efforts, but so what? Just because they're not contributing to every single open source project you know of doesn't mean they're not contributing. That said, it seems like wine is the type of project they would WANT to be working on, and yes, a little bit of money would go a long way. Before crying sour grapes (har har), I suggest someone actually approach them about it. Also, you might see if they are lurking already... Can we see a count of @ibm.com e-mail addresses for the mailing lists? Anyone from IBM working on Wine officially? Bret -- Bret Mogilefsky * Mgr. SCEA Developer Support * mogul-wine(a)gelatinous.com
Just a thought, Might IBMs previous involvement in Windows development: A: have burned a few fingers there... B: cause potential legal issues with contributing to WINE? degs ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bret Mogilefsky" <mogul-wine(a)gelatinous.com> To: "Andreas Mohr" <andi(a)rhlx01.fht-esslingen.de> Cc: <wine-devel(a)winehq.com> Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002 4:13 PM Subject: Re: How about sponsoring from IBM?
On Fri, Jan 11, 2002 at 02:13:22PM +0100, Andreas Mohr wrote:
Hmm, something tells me that it's January 2002 now. And something else tells me that this is 12 months. And then something else tells me that this is quite a time frame.
So what exactly has happened that demonstrates what a huuuuuge amount of $1 billion dollars in the hands of IBM can do ?
There are a lot of people who believe that it's been vapornews. And I'm about to join them.
So unless you can convince me otherwise...
Wow, I guess you haven't seen the huge amount of advertising on TV, in magazines, and on billboards, or the enormous number of Linux articles on developerWorks, or seen all of the JFS kernel contributions, or the press releases describing Linux running on all of their big-iron hardware, or a brochure for all of their Linux training and consulting programs.
IBM has committed to Linux in a big way, and it's obvious everywhere you look. If you believe nothing else, believe that IBM is spending $1 billion to buy Linux LEGITIMACY for use in corporations both through (a) its own reputation and (b) addressing the areas where Linux is lacking for production use. Many of these projects are run by IBM rather than contributing to existing fledgling efforts, but so what? Just because they're not contributing to every single open source project you know of doesn't mean they're not contributing.
That said, it seems like wine is the type of project they would WANT to be working on, and yes, a little bit of money would go a long way. Before crying sour grapes (har har), I suggest someone actually approach them about it. Also, you might see if they are lurking already... Can we see a count of @ibm.com e-mail addresses for the mailing lists? Anyone from IBM working on Wine officially?
Bret -- Bret Mogilefsky * Mgr. SCEA Developer Support * mogul-wine(a)gelatinous.com
participants (9)
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Andreas Mohr -
Bret Mogilefsky -
Christopher Morgan -
David Elliott -
degs -
Jeremy White -
Joerg Mayer -
Paul Clarke -
Roland