IBM is Committed to Linux and Open Source

In 1999, IBM announced its support for the open source Linux operating system. Since that time IBM has invested considerable financial, technical, and marketing resources to foster the growth, development, and use of Linux technology, and has made significant contributions to the community on which Linux relies. IBM is consistently among the top commercial contributors of Linux code, with more than 600 IBM developers involved in over 100 open source projects and thousands of dedicated development and support personnel supporting all of IBM’s products and customers on Linux. As a result:

• Linux is supported on all modern IBM Systems.
  
• Over 500 IBM software products run natively on Linux.
  
• IBM offers a full line of implementation, support, and migration services and has facilitated more than 3,000 migrations to the Linux platform.
• IBM has completed over 15,000 Linux customer engagements.
  
• IBM offers the widest range of hardware, middleware, and services products for Linux in the industry.

Why IBM Supports Linux

Making Linux Better

IBM participates in the Linux community in a wide range of ways. LTC engineers work directly with open source communities to develop open source code that helps the community achieve its goals. Participation in communities involves not only contributing code developed at IBM, but also augmenting, testing, and deploying code developed by others to ensure that it meets community and user expectations.

IBM engineers also contribute to other aspects of open source development required to deliver enterprise-level functionality. They develop documentation for open source projects and the IBM Information Center, an online repository for Linux and open source-oriented information. Engineers from the LTC actively contribute best practices to IBM developerWorks. Additionally, IBM engineers also have been involved in developing Linux test suites and methodology, including the Linux Test Project, which IBM maintains. The goal of the Linux Test Project is to deliver test suites to the open source community that validate the reliability, robustness, and stability of Linux. In addition to IBM-sponsored / hosted efforts, it also contributes to parallel community efforts such as developing autotest as part of test.kernel.org.

Furthermore, IBM collaborates with the academic community on Linux and Open Source development for higher platforms by contributing System z and System p platforms, simultaneously providing learning opportunities to ensure continuity of skills and University-hosted access to these platforms for the broader Open Source development community.

Expanding Linux’s Reach for New Workloads

IBM has long worked closely with both Novell and Red Hat, both leading distributors of enterprise Linux, to integrate new technologies into the Linux kernel that improve customer efficiency and provide a competitive edge. These relationships promote enhanced solutions on IBM Systems, with support for new IBM devices and processors, cross-platform functionality, and interoperability of IBM middleware and hardware.

By working closely with Novell and Red Hat during all stages of development, IBM helps ensure that features needed by customers and IBM Business Partners are included in the industry’s leading distributions. As part of this partnership, IBM performs extensive testing on these distributions, improving RAS, performance, platform support, and much more. These collaborations represent a sustained effort to keep Linux enterprise-ready and to expand Linux to new workloads.

Source: http://www-03.ibm.com/linux/