4 ms·

Yes, but honest question, do you really think that if IBM had purchased SCO (and maybe throw Novell in there too) that Linux would have still had any chance? I

Yes, but honest question, do you really think that if IBM had purchased SCO (and maybe throw Novell in there too) that Linux would have still had any chance? I don't know what the outcome, but I just think there's too many possibilities at that point for Linux to just stay hobbyist without corporate adoption (fearing now IBM licensing/lawyering at that point).

ghaff 4y ago
At the time of the SCO lawsuit, IBM had already made a huge bet on Linux. [1] Basically, that's why SCO sued them. And they had their own Unix (AIX) which they could have ported to x86 if they had wanted to--but they didn't. Here's what the person who headed IBM's Linux initiative told me a couple of years back: And I still remember very well in December of ‘99, I called Sam Palmisano, the head of IBM Systems Group. And I said, Sam, the task force recommends that we should embrace Linux. And Sam said, okay, Irving, we will do that. But you have to now come over and run an IBM Linux initiative. And I said to Sam, okay, we were pretty much done with our internet strategy. So I was no longer needed to run the Internet division And I said to Sam, when do you want to announce it? And Sam said, how about now? And I said Sam. It's the Christmas holidays. Maybe we should wait until the new year. And in the second week of January of 2000, we made a major announcement saying that IBM would embrace Linux across all of these offerings. And in fact, later that month in January of 2000, I gave a keynote at LinuxWorld, which was taking place in the Javits Center in New York City, about IBM’s Linux initiative. [1] https://blog.irvingwb.com/blog/2006/01/ibms_linux_init.html https://blog.irvingwb.com/blog/2006/01/ibms_linux_init.html
- taftster 4y ago
  Thank you for taking time to reply. It's awesome to see the insider's view a bit here.

ghaff 4y ago

At the time of the SCO lawsuit, IBM had already made a huge bet on Linux. [1] Basically, that's why SCO sued them. And they had their own Unix (AIX) which they could have ported to x86 if they had wanted to--but they didn't. Here's what the person who headed IBM's Linux initiative told me a couple of years back: And I still remember very well in December of ‘99, I called Sam Palmisano, the head of IBM Systems Group. And I said, Sam, the task force recommends that we should embrace Linux. And Sam said, okay, Irving, we will do that. But you have to now come over and run an IBM Linux initiative. And I said to Sam, okay, we were pretty much done with our internet strategy. So I was no longer needed to run the Internet division And I said to Sam, when do you want to announce it? And Sam said, how about now? And I said Sam. It's the Christmas holidays. Maybe we should wait until the new year. And in the second week of January of 2000, we made a major announcement saying that IBM would embrace Linux across all of these offerings. And in fact, later that month in January of 2000, I gave a keynote at LinuxWorld, which was taking place in the Javits Center in New York City, about IBM’s Linux initiative. [1] https://blog.irvingwb.com/blog/2006/01/ibms_linux_init.html https://blog.irvingwb.com/blog/2006/01/ibms_linux_init.html

taftster 4y ago
Thank you for taking time to reply. It's awesome to see the insider's view a bit here.