IBM contributes 30 projects to open source [LWN.net]

Here's a press release from IBM announcing the company's contribution of more than thirty open source projects to SourceForge.net and the launch of new online skills-building programs. "The projects include IBM's Jikes(TM) software, a fast Java(TM) compiler that helps developers speed their development time, and the Life Science Identifier, which helps developers in healthcare build life sciences applications by automatically scanning networks for biologically significant data."

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So how helpful is this really?

Posted Feb 28, 2005 21:24 UTC (Mon) by thomask (guest, #17985) [Link]

I had a look at the homepages of both Jikes and Life Science Identifier, and sadly both of them use GPL-incompatible licenses (the IBM Public License 1.0 and the Common Public License respectively, see https://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/license-list.html). I don't know if this is the case for the remainder of the projects "donated" by IBM, but since these seem to be the two most prominently advertised, I don't believe that Big Blue are doing the open source community very much good.

Please, IBM, donate stuff under the GPL! We have too many licenses, and too many incompatible ones at that. The fact that this software is being given out in GPL-incompatible form makes your gesture towards our community empty and hollow.

Oh come on. There's really not much reason to complain here.

Posted Mar 1, 2005 0:25 UTC (Tue) by jensend (guest, #1385) [Link]

The CPL (which is pretty much a non-IBM-specific version of the IBM Public License, which was in turn based on the MPL) has become a standard license- probably the most popular (as far as use by new/ newly released projects) of the many NPL/MPL derivatives. I don't know all the details, but if (as is rumored) GPLv3 will be compatible with some kinds of "patent peace" provisions, the CPL may even qualify at that point.

Several projects (the kernel-related ones of course fit into this category) are GPL'd.

Most (heck, AFAIK all) of these projects were released with their current licenses some time ago; they've just moved from (occasionally obscure) places on IBM's servers to Sourceforge. The intention is probably to help make these more of public/community projects rather than IBM internal projects which just happen to be available to everybody.

Contribution?

Posted Feb 28, 2005 21:54 UTC (Mon) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

From a message in the Jikes mailing list:

As quite a few of you know by now, IBM has decided to pull out of the project hosting space. As a result the developerWorks/Open Source Server (aka dw/oss) where we and a number of other projects have been hosted for the last several years is being shutdown. IBM negotiated with SourceForge.net to migrate a number of projects from dw/oss to sf.net's hosting environment, as the hands down #1 most popular project on dw/oss, Jikes was on that list of projects.

This sounds quite differently from the press release.

Contribution?

Posted Mar 1, 2005 19:06 UTC (Tue) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link]

I don't know, reading between the lines of the press release the first thing I got was "IBM dumps 30 projects, mostly dead, on crappy hosting service."

Eh, I'm much more excited about this

Posted Mar 2, 2005 3:22 UTC (Wed) by dhess (subscriber, #7827) [Link]

http://opensource.adobe.com/main.html

IBM contributes 30 projects to open source

Posted Mar 5, 2005 20:35 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

"IBM today contributed more than 30 open source projects to SourceForge.net"

Is creating a project on Sourceforge "contributing" to Sourceforge?

That's like contributing a child to an orphanage.