Re: Proprietary era is over, IBM exec to say

Tom,

You are correct.  Open systems and open source are two different things.  And
you are also right in that some speakers or reporters don't know the difference.

Unfortunately, these same speakers and reporters present their misinformation to
some management types that know even less.

Even Microsoft, by displaying a list of APIs, could claim that Windows is an
open system.  IBM went through the same thing with the AS/400.

When the word "propriatary" gets tossed around, I've always put that into
context of hardware or a protocal.  Now it is used to describe anything that is
not open source.  IMHO, that is just plain stupid.  Propriatory means to own
something.  The authors of open source projects retain copyright and legally own
that software.  They choose a different end user license that creates a mutual
benefit society.

Within context of Linux and AIX, IBM could very well make their RS/6000 with the
core OS being Linux, and for a modest fee offer AIX extensions to handle
"legacy" installations.  Sort of like the S36EE on the AS/400.

IMO, nothing radical is going to happen any time soon.

thomas@inorbit.com wrote:
>
>
> What has my interest in this is the difference between "open systems" and 
>"open source". The distinction seems to have blurred significantly recently. 
>I'm not clear if any difference remains.
>