IBM vs. TurboHercules: Our Story Thus Far...
IBM sees the Hercules mainframe emulator as a source of competition. TurboHercules thinks they're simply leveling the playing field.
Earlier this week it was made public that IBM had levied patent infringement allegations against French company TurboHercules and its mainframe emulator. A letter signed by IBM VP and technology officer Mark S. Anzani and addressed to TurboHercules co-founder Roger Bowler detailed the more than 170 patents the company allegedly infringed upon. The problem: two of the patents in question were part of a 500-patent access pledge made by IBM in 2005.
Roger Bowler and other members of the open source community fear that IBM wants to break the pledge in order to maintain its choke-hold on mainframes and licensing. "Mainframes are now so deeply embedded in the infrastructure of modern society that they are too important to be left in the hands of a single company (IBM)," Bowler wrote in a blog on the TurboHercules site.
Unsurprisingly, IBM sees it differently. "TurboHercules is a member of organizations that are founded and financed by IBM competitors such as Microsoft. We severely question TurboHercules' motives," IBM submitted in their official response to Linux Magazine.
Bowler has responded by submitting an antitrust complaint to the European Commission in Brussels against IBM in March 2010. He maintains that the goal of TurboHercules is to "reestablish a free and fair competitive market for IBM mainframes. Mainframe users ought to have the right to choose what hardware they want to run their programs on."
The Linux Foundation's Jim Zemlin posted a note on the site's blog from Daniel Frye, VP, Open Systems Development at IBM that reasserted the terms of the pledge and stated that the pledge itself is not in danger of being dissolved.
Hercules is currently under the Q Public License, which recognized by the Open Source Initiative (OSI).
Issue 230/2020
Buy this issue as a PDF
News
-
Elementary OS 5.1 Has Arrived
One of the most highly regarded Linux desktop distributions has released its next iteration.
-
Linux Mint 19.3 Will be Released by Christmas
The developers behind Linux Mint have announced 19.3 will be released by Christmas 2019.
-
Linux Kernel 5.4 Released
A number of new changes and improvements have reached the Linux kernel.
-
System76 To Design And Build Laptops In-House
In-house designed and built laptops coming from System76.
-
News and views on the GPU revolution in HPC and Big Data:
-
The PinePhone Pre-Order has Arrived
Anyone looking to finally get their hands on an early release of the PinePhone can do so as of November 15.
-
Microsoft Edge Coming to Linux
Microsoft is bringing it’s new Chromium-based Edge browser to Linux.
-
Open Invention Network Backs Gnome Project Against Patent Troll
OIN has deployed its legal team to find prior art.
-
Fedora 31 Released
The latest version of Fedora comes with new packages and libraries.
-
openSUSE OBS Can Now Build Windows WSL Images
openSUSE enables developers to build their own WSL distributions.