On 12/16/05, JM Ibanez <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Ah, it's an arcane science known only to the high priests and priestesses of the cult that is IBM.
Seriously, Dean was very close to the answer. It's all about the money. If there's a big demand for it, it can happen. But it also presupposes some form of legal entity that IBM can work with. Ultimately, all these decisions go through some VP somewhere out there, and who will then allocate money and resources on the IBM side to get it done.
Historically, IBM started out with four supported distros: Red Hat, SuSE, Caldera, and TurboLinux. TurboLinux might not be familiar to a lot of people; it's a distro that had some presence in Japan and that was the main reason why I think it made the list. And we all know what happened to Caldera....
Regionally, there might be some decisions made for partnership. Case in point being Red Flag. Mandrake, I think, had something going on in Europe (though my memory is hazy at this point).
But what do these partnerships really mean? It means that the distro works and is certified to work with IBM's hardware and software. Sounds simple, but it's not. Both parties have to engage resources to get this certification done. The idea is to make sure that the combination works and has been pre-tested to work, and is therefore supported. That's the idea anyway. In practice, well.....let's just say IT is an inexact science, at best.
Incidental activities will include co-marketing ("IBM eServer xSeries works best with....") and bundling ("Buy an IBM eServer zSeries z900 and get a free...."), among others.
So I'll take JM's line of questioning further to a specific example: what about a new and popular distro like Ubuntu? WIll a partnership on the level of Red Hat or Novell/SuSE happen? Pure speculation on my part, but I don't think so, at least not with the current structure and directions of Ubuntu as a commercial entity.
What is more likely to happen is we get some form of piece-meal certification on IBM hardware and software products. It's starting to happen with software, e.g. a version of DB2 was certified to run on Ubuntu, if I remember correctly. For some people, this might be sufficient.
Caveat: all this is speculation and fuzzy memories on my part. Since I don't work for IBM anymore, it's hard to paint the actual picture. But I hope it helps assuage your curiosity.
-- Next question: How can other distros apply or enter such a
relationship with IBM?
Ah, it's an arcane science known only to the high priests and priestesses of the cult that is IBM.
Seriously, Dean was very close to the answer. It's all about the money. If there's a big demand for it, it can happen. But it also presupposes some form of legal entity that IBM can work with. Ultimately, all these decisions go through some VP somewhere out there, and who will then allocate money and resources on the IBM side to get it done.
Historically, IBM started out with four supported distros: Red Hat, SuSE, Caldera, and TurboLinux. TurboLinux might not be familiar to a lot of people; it's a distro that had some presence in Japan and that was the main reason why I think it made the list. And we all know what happened to Caldera....
Regionally, there might be some decisions made for partnership. Case in point being Red Flag. Mandrake, I think, had something going on in Europe (though my memory is hazy at this point).
But what do these partnerships really mean? It means that the distro works and is certified to work with IBM's hardware and software. Sounds simple, but it's not. Both parties have to engage resources to get this certification done. The idea is to make sure that the combination works and has been pre-tested to work, and is therefore supported. That's the idea anyway. In practice, well.....let's just say IT is an inexact science, at best.
Incidental activities will include co-marketing ("IBM eServer xSeries works best with....") and bundling ("Buy an IBM eServer zSeries z900 and get a free...."), among others.
So I'll take JM's line of questioning further to a specific example: what about a new and popular distro like Ubuntu? WIll a partnership on the level of Red Hat or Novell/SuSE happen? Pure speculation on my part, but I don't think so, at least not with the current structure and directions of Ubuntu as a commercial entity.
What is more likely to happen is we get some form of piece-meal certification on IBM hardware and software products. It's starting to happen with software, e.g. a version of DB2 was certified to run on Ubuntu, if I remember correctly. For some people, this might be sufficient.
Caveat: all this is speculation and fuzzy memories on my part. Since I don't work for IBM anymore, it's hard to paint the actual picture. But I hope it helps assuage your curiosity.
Dominique Gerald M. Cimafranca
villageidiotsavant.blogspot.com
Dumaguete City
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