IBM Takes "Free" Apache Seriously
By Dale Dougherty
Brian Behlendorf of the Apache Group had a big smile on his face, which is not unusual for him. He was getting some of the credit for teaching IBM to share. At a press conference, he was sitting next to Paraic Sweeney of IBM who was there to tell the world that IBM would join the Apache Group. IBM would also begin shipping the Apache Web server with its WebSphere Application Server, a Java-servlet applications platform.
A friend of mine who works at IBM says he and others had been championing "free" software like Apache and Linux inside the company. He describes it as a succession of waves, the first of which was repulsed immediately, its leaders left bloodied. Each new wave found less and less opposition until finally this new idea to embrace Apache won over.
Like any large company, IBM has a hoarding mentality. It invests a lot in R&D and keeps much of it under wraps. IBM might be expected to have a problem with "free software" in which developers share their work with each other. It also might be expected that a segment of IBM's customers would have a problem with a "free" product. Furthermore, how could this open network of volunteer hackers produce better software than a dedicated team of in-house programmers or a lab full of researchers?
The openness of the Internet is making it difficult for companies like IBM to hoard talent, that is, to have all the expertise it needs on its own team. Teams are increasingly distributed and internetworked across all kinds of organizations.
