What's good for the goose

Here's a quote from Information Week attributed to Daniel Frye,
responsible for IBM Linux Development team.

It's on the second page of this article:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/open_source/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224400309

"IBM's Dan Frye, VP of open systems development at IBM, reminded
attendees in a keynote address that his firm invested $1 billion to
get its product line to support Linux 10 years ago. The firm struggled
to contribute to Linux as well, judging it to be in its strategic
interest to build up an x86 version of Linux that would offer an
alternative to Windows and compete with Sun's Solaris."

So apparently it's OK for IBM to use open source (Linux) to build a
product designed to compete with Windows and Solaris. But when someone
else uses open source (Hercules) to build a product which IBM sees as
potentially competing with System z, IBM use the threat of patents to
try and crush the competition.

IBM justify their actions on the grounds that they have "invested
billions of dollars" in System z. I image that Microsoft and Sun have
also invested billions of dollars in Windows and Solaris respectively,
so are IBM now going to be good boys and stop trying to compete with
them? I don't think so.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander -- except when the
goose is IBM apparently.

--
Regards,
Roger Bowler
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/rbowler
Hercules "the people's mainframe"