IBM [LWN.net]

IBM

Posted Dec 28, 2011 17:43 UTC (Wed) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625)
In reply to: Showing True Colors by steffen780
Parent article: The "White Label Office" release candidate

"IBM has a problem with copyleft" is probably an unhelpful generalization here. Usually when dealing with large companies there are friendly, hostile, and neutral individuals involved, and it's best to avoid characterizing the opposing position as the position of the company. People unfamiliar with the issue are likely to take the position you don't want them to, out of company identity/loyalty. Quite a few IBMers are great contributors to copyleft-using projects.

to post comments

IBM

Posted Jan 1, 2012 5:05 UTC (Sun) by shmget (guest, #58347) [Link] (1 responses)

"it's best to avoid characterizing the opposing position as the position of the company"

But this case is _all_ about corporate position and has nothing to do with individuals.

A corporation, 'Oracle', had a contractual obligation to another corporation 'IBM', which resulted in a copyleft-purge via a code drop to Apache.
Despite Apache's protest, this has nothing to do with the interest of the public, the users or the community. The sole point of the maneuver is to accommodate what IBM perceive being its interest.

It is quite sad to see Apache being used and abused that way.

Why is it sad? Isn't it par for the course with Apache Foundation ?

Posted Jan 1, 2012 9:38 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

From the outsider's POV this is what ASF is all about.

Apache Group was concerned with creation of software which was usable on it's own (the infamous Apache HTTPD) and accompanying libraries for said software (Apache APR). Later it added side-projects (mod_jserv, mod_perl, mod_php) which were supposed to add functionality to these "central" project.

But at some point Apache Group transformed itself and become ASF as we know it: and almost from the very beginning ASF acted as "dumping ground" for the software which is mostly useless without proprietary components.

Frankly for the outsider the transformation was quite baffling (why anyone will drop what they are doing well and where they can drive their own destiny and willingly become flunkeys for various large corporations?), but hey, that's their choice.