[ Thanks to jcondon
for this link. ]
“Porting a large commercial product to Linux takes skill,
perseverance, and a sense of humor. In this article, members of the
IBM dB2 team tell their story and offer insights.“
“As is the case with many Linux projects, the original DB2 port
was done when no one was looking. Way back at the end of 1997, two
Linux fans on the IBM DB2 project team, Leo Comitale and Peeter
Joot, copied the DB2 source code tree to their desktop Linux boxes
and worked on compiling it in their spare time. Both are members of
the operating systems services component team, which handles
operating system-specific code for the whole product. “As members
of that team, Leo and Peeter were the ideal people to do the
original port,” says Susan Williams, leader of the Linux port team.
“Theirs is the one component in DB2 that has platform-specific code
in it.” Their interest in Linux, combined with their expertise in
operating system nuances, made for a successful effort. By May of
1998, they’d gotten it to the point where it compiled, linked, and
ran on Linux; it would pass an acceptance test.”
“Meanwhile, Linux was making headway in the marketplace. The DB2
marketing team started looking seriously at offering their product
on Linux, and the development team was asked to size the effort.
Voila! The team produced the code from behind the skunkworks
curtain, and Susan was tapped as the technical lead.”