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Posted: 12:35 PM- In the mythical land of "Open Source," an egalitarian, global network of software developers sacrificially contribute programming code to the greater good.
But in today's real world, open source minds and corporate technology giants are finding they need each other to survive and thrive, says Bob Sutor, IBM vice president of Open Standards and Open Source.
"We've moved past the ideology," said Sutor, in Salt Lake City Thursday to attend graduation ceremonies at Neumont University. "Many people have figured out that there are a number of ways to make money from the 'open source' model."
But Sutor insists involvement of the world's largest computer company in contributing to and distributing the freely distributed Linux operating system and other open source applications has not imperiled the future of an independent, free software movement.
"We've shown that we can have proprietary software with Linux running on top," Sutor said. "We can have both. There's no religion here; it's just what makes good business sense for us and the open source community."
Since the mid-1990s, when it abandoned efforts to produce its own operating system rival to Microsoft's Windows, IBM has sought open- source allies. Sutor admits it has taken a decade to win their trust.
"If you are going to participate in the open source community you have to be good citizens," he said. "We learned quickly that you can't just walk in and say, 'We're IBM; do what we want.'
"When the laughter stops, you realize it is a meritocracy," Sutor added. "[They don't care] about the weight of your latest quarterly profits."
To earn what Sutor calls IBM's "open source street creds," Big Blue has contributed scores of applications for free use over the years. It is questions about exactly what it contributed to Linux that sparked an ongoing, $5 billion federal lawsuit by the SCO Group, a Lindon software company.
SCO contends IBM illegally contributed bits of its proprietary Unix code to Linux. IBM denies the allegation, saying it only released applications it already owned, or had been made open source previously.
The litigation has been characterized as part of a proxy war being waged by Microsoft against Linux, seen as a prime challenger to Windows. Microsoft has been a prime funding source for SCO, but earlier this month stunned open-sourcers by announcing a development pact for Novell's Suse-brand of Linux.
IBM is watching the apparent about-face with interest - and skepticism.
"I don't see [Microsoft] doing very much yet for open source that isn't at arm's length," Sutor said. "Possibly this is a way of perpetrating previous [anti-Linux] strategy while superficially looking better."
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