IBM in the past had used red hat Linux for its smaller clients and SUSE Linux to run with the big dogs. IBM upgraded SUSE Linux security to run on its mainframe computers (eg the 390 I think).
Now that Microsoft has signed an agreement with Novell, who own SUSE Linux, to partner in allowing Microsoft to offer SUSE Linux to its clients and to improve interoperability between Linux and Window, IBM is now going with a stronger relationship with Red Hat, and will use Red Hat on its mainframe computers. Both Red Hat and SUSE Linux are commercial product that are offered under a license that includes support, but other non-commercial version of Linux do a heck of a job of keeping their products patch and up to date. Most ides and languages running on Linux are OS agnostic. Going with an ide and language that is OS agnostic has its advantages. Many open source languages are both OS agnostic and free. This avoid the Microsoft or other vendor lock-in that could cost big buck to the clueless over the long haul. Anyway, its a great time to be involved with developing web based applications using tools like the Komodo ide, perl, php, python, ruby, and java languages, the eclipse ide, the netbeans ide, etc. Once an application is developed, you offer it to your client base or otherwise market it, and then place it on computers that are hosted by IP (eg Internet Provider). The hosting providers receive income from providing hosting services and doing all the IP stuff like keeping the hardware running and applications backed up, and the application developer receive income from licensing the software, installing it on the hosting provider, and maintaining/updating the application. Regards, LelandJ Bill Arnold wrote: > I think Linux is the best bet for the long run, with one assumption: > that IBM endows it with it's SMP maintenance system. Then language/tool > vendors can work within that paradigm to distribute and maintain their > products without our having to deal with versioning, dependencies and > other maintenance/management headaches. > > I think Linux is risky today because we build things for our customers, > which is fine, but then down the road when any one of the unpredictable > happen, they demand that we solve the problem, which we may not be able > to do without considerable time and effort. > > But then I'm also betting that, sometime before our 10 years is up, > we'll have something on the Linux side to port (as in native language > conversion) our VFP applications to. > > > Bill > > > > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
