will lack of corporate support kill off Linux?

[Jim Herrmann]

Caution, rant follows.

This is what I see, coming from a mainframe environment.  IBM's commitment to
Linux gives it a legitimacy in the board room as well as the "glass house"
(which is no longer glass, of course).  The fact that Linux runs on OS/390
makes the mainframe system programmers take it seriously.  I think it will take
them another year or two to sort out where it fits in the organization, but it
WILL happen.  Give it time.  BTW, I know for a fact that Sprint has a Linux
region up on their mainframe in a testing environment.  Give it time.

Here's the deal.  The way things used to work in large companies, is all of the
computing was done on one central server, the mainframe.  As Windoze
proliferated on the desktop, and LANs were developed, etc. the information was
"distributed", which in essence means that now instead of one piece of hardware
running at 70-100% utilization, you now have thousands of pieces of hardware
running screen savers.  Also the balance of power in the IT culture shifted.
In the old days, the mainframe systems programmer was the guru, the top dog in
IT.  As the network distributed, this position lost some of it's power and
prestige, and the PC LAN administrator (formally ridiculed by the systems
programmers) became increasingly more powerful.  Now, the guys running the LAN
see no reason to give up what they've learned, and give up their power in the
IT hierarchy, by switching from Windoze NT/2K to Linux.  From their personal
stand point, and their employment status, it wouldn't make any sense.  However,
the systems programmers that work on OS/390 -> z/OS would personally like to
see the network servers pulled back up to the mainframe, thus returning full
circle, to one box running at full utilization.

Using IBM's VM, a single OS/390 LPAR can run thousands of Linux address spaces
which can use the I/O subsystems of the mainframe, which is what makes the
mainframe outperform all other types of hardware.  Using this architecture, all
file serving for the entire network can be taken out of the hands of the PC
weenies, who have to get a new piece of hardware every time they get a new
application, and put it back on one central hardware platform that can be
managed, backed up, recovered, tuned, and upgraded with very mature, robust,
time tested techniques.  Replace the server farms!

So, you see, it's not the LAN admins that are your allies in the server space
at large companies, it's the mainframe guys.  Once you have Linux on the
mainframe, the desktop will follow.  At first on the desk of the people
maintaining the Linux address spaces, then eventually out to the end user
desktops.  Give it time.  It will happen.

That's only my opinion.  I could be wrong.

Peace,
Jim Herrmann

"Philip, Anil" wrote:

> Hi,
> Just a discussion ;), but have you been noticing (like I have) how reluctant
> corporations are to use open source - even though they are willing to buy
> any crap software at any price as long as it is "owned" by a company so that
> someone is liable.
> For example at my workplace, linux is not used, not allowed. In my earlier
> workplace, same story (we're talking the biggest phone companies in the
> country).
> Will this sideline open source to academia and maybe kill it off eventually?
> thanks,
> Anil Philip
> --------------------------------------------------
> disclaimer: my opinions are my own and do not reflect ....
>