“Q: Last year, IBM jumped onto the Linux
bandwagon by announcing it would invest $1 billion in the operating
system this year. Is this a fad or symbolic of a major buy-in by
one of computing’s biggest names?”
“A: I don’t think open source adoption is a
fad. IBM doesn’t do fads. Corporate America responds to costs and
economic reasons. The fundamental issue in the increased
proliferation of Linux and open source software in business
computing is the escalating cost of traditional closed software and
its rising complexity and bugginess. The costs of bad software are
rising in terms of lost business and hours spent by systems
administrators chasing problems. So far, open source is the only
real way to fix this because existing methods can be done only by a
finite number of people working on it. In open source, there are
still wide groups of people to add more heads to solve the
problems.”
“Q: Do you want to see Linux get a larger piece
of the pie in the business computing world, being used by more
companies in place of Windows on desktops? Does this matter to
you?”
“A: The open source community doesn’t directly
care about corporate adoption of open source software, but
indirectly, yes, we want to see that happen, because if you want to
change the world, you need the cooperation of the people writing
the checks.”