IBM's T-Rex mainframe helped restore the high-end server line to relevance, as did its ability to run Linux. Next up: Solaris?
(Credit: IBM)Free-wheeling Linux was an improbable enough operating system to be used on IBM's mainframe line, but now an even more unlikely operating system is making an appearance there: Sun Microsystems' Solaris.
Sun and IBM have been archenemies for decades, but through the combination of open-source flexibility and something of a detente between the companies, the operating system has arrived. IBM expressed interest in collaborating with engineering firm Sine Nomine Associates, which has been working on a mainframe translation of OpenSolaris since Sun opened the source code in 2005. Now Sine Nomine is demonstrating the software on a System z mainframe.
David Boyes, Sine Nomine's president and chief technologist, described the project (code-named Sirius) for SearchDataCenter.com in a quintet of YouTube videos (first, second, third, fourth, and fifth) from a Gartner conference this week. The actual demonstration, including a pretty pokey boot process and not yet including network support, is in the fourth and fifth videos.
The OpenSolaris port is designed to use the same interface as Linux, Boyes said, meaning that software written for Linux on the mainframe should work on OpenSolaris, too. As with Linux, the operating system runs atop IBM's z/VM virtual-machine foundation rather than on the "bare metal," which eases issues of sharing hardware with other operating systems.
When the software is more mature, making a business case for using it will of course be another challenge entirely. But even absent that real-world relevance, the move does illustrate some success in Sun's ambition to spread Solaris more widely by making it open-source.
Sun's previous chief executive, Scott McNealy, jabbed competitors mercilessly, but his successor, Jonathan Schwartz, has taken a more diplomatic tone, signing Solaris partnerships with Dell and IBM, a chip-supply deal with Intel, and a Windows partnership with Microsoft.
(Via Mainframe Weblog.)
The SCO Group, working to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, hopes to sell its Unix assets to York Capital Management for up to $36 million, the company said this week in regulatory and bankruptcy court filings.
Through the deal, York would provide SCO with $10 million in cash; up to $10 million in credit to fund its Linux-related legal fight and to get 20 percent of revenue from that action; $10 million for a 20 percent stake in the company; and $6 million to license the Hipcheck products from SCO's Me mobile device software effort and to share revenue from that line, according to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing.
SCO, which is engaged in expensive, controversial but so far largely fruitless Linux-related lawsuits against Novell and IBM, urged the court to approve an accelerated bidding process for the assets. The auction would allow others to offer a higher price than York, but time is of the essence, the company argued in the bankruptcy court filing.
"Based on debtors' (SCO's) financial condition, but more importantly the skittishness of existing and potential customers" to engage in a business relationship with SCO, "the debtors must move quickly to realize the highest and best price for their assets," the filing said.
The SCO Group has been beleaguered by steadily dwindling revenues. It suffered a major legal setback in August when a court found that Novell retained the Unix copyrights SCO thought it bought. But it looks like the Lindon, Utah-based company plans to keep on fighting: the asset purchase agreement specifically excludes the suits against Novell and IBM from transfer.
Unix has had a long and winding history as assets have been sold from the original sponsor of the operating-system project, AT&T. The assets were sold to Novell, then to the Santa Cruz Operation, then to Linux seller Caldera International, which renamed itself The SCO Group after trying to remake its business on the SCO Unix products. It's a tortured issue trying to decipher exactly what intellectual property--patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets--traveled to new ownership or remained with earlier owners.
An SCO representative didn't comment beyond the filing. York didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
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