Laurent Lachal
IBM mixes free and open source infrastructure software
Towards the end of last week IBM announced an expansion of the partner initiative launched last year aimed at those using its open source application server (WebSphere Application Server Community Edition - WAS CE). It has expanded it in two directions: first to include its free (but closed source) DB2 Express-C database and second to boosts partner support to a new level (with free telemarketing, assistance in closing deals, discounted advertising, expanded technical support etc.)Comment: IBM's announcement will help address some of the open source adoption challenges (e.g. support, integration and trust) identified by a study that OpenLogic, an open source infrastructure stack provider, made public the same day IBM announced its expanded program. IBM is going beyond what most infrastructure vendors currently provide in terms of partners support. It will be expensive (the company has not disclosed how much it will cost) but necessary against competition from the like of Red Hat's JBoss division as well as Microsoft to attract both partners and enterprise users to its open source and free offerings in the hope of seeing them upgrade to their lucrative closed source equivalents in due time. JBoss is currently ahead but with high profile figurehead and founder March Fleury announcing this week that he would leave (after publicly venting in November 2005 his disappointment in Red Hat for not investing enough in JBoss), it is as good a time as ever for IBM to push its technology forward and build on the WAS CE partner initiative. Last November the company claimed that 600 Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and System Integrators (SIs) had joined the WAS CE partner program. It now claims that 300 of them have actually ported their wares on to the WAS CE. It will be an uphill struggle, though, for IBM to create around WAS CE and Geronimo as vibrant a community as the JBoss one. No doubt that many in the open source world will be uncomfortable with the mixing of free DB2 closed source software and open source WAS CE software (that includes IBM's open sourced embedded Cloudscape database). Many are pushing IBM to open source its DB2 technology too. We believe that, in due course, the company will do so - the sooner the smarter but IBM can nonetheless take its time. All major database vendors (Sybase in late 2004, Microsoft, Oracle and IBM in late 2005/early 2006) have released a free version of their database. These are likely to become effective alternatives to open source databases, especially if vendors ease the licensing and technical limitations attached to them, which is exactly what IBM has done: DB2 Express-C enables user organisations not only to develop applications, but also, and more importantly, to deploy these applications on the database. It limits deployments to two processors (or four x86 cores) and 4GB of memory but sets no limits on the number of users or the database size (IBM does not support the product though. To get support end user organisations need to license DB2 Express, which is similar to DB2 Express-C but for its HADR - High Availability Disaster Recovery - option). Open source software providers themselves are increasingly keen to support these free databases as part of the overall convergence between the open and closed source software markets. For example, ActiveGrid, Mandriva and Zend Technologies support DB2 Express-C.
