January 01, 2002
URL:http://www.drdobbs.com/the-last-page-ibm-takes-free-apache-ser/184414110

 

Web Techniques Magazine  September 1998  Volume 3, Issue 9

 

 

IBM Takes "Free" Apache Seriously

By Dale Dougherty

[email protected]
 

 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. Now, it's possible for innovation to come from

every corner and be distributed just as widely.

The Apache Group was begun in 1995 to "patch" the NCSA Web server. NCSA,

the birthplace of Mosaic, had lost many of its developers to Netscape and

suddenly the only "free" Web server was being neglected. An informal group

of developers who depended upon the NCSA Web server set up a mailing list

to discuss problems, share code fixes, and eventually develop new code.

Behlendorf, who worked at Organic Online, one of the first Web design

and development shops, recognized that his business was dependent upon

a reliable and robust Web server, something that commercial Web servers

from Netscape and Microsoft were unable to provide. Yet, Behlendorf knew

that Organic Online did not want to turn itself into a software business.

Instead, he and others formed a cooperative network of developers who had

become stakeholders in this Web server. What held them together was the

principle that "where we got value, we needed to give value back."

Now the Apache Web server is the dominant server in the market, used

by more people than the offerings of Netscape and Microsoft combined. Apache

developers will have their first conference this year, ApacheCon, which

will be an opportunity for some members of the Apache Group to meet face-to-face

for the first time.

Sweeney says that by supporting the Apache Group, IBM recognizes the

success of development efforts in the Internet community and wants to become

a part of it. Behlendorf says he has met with IBM developers to show them

the ropes of the Apache Group and what it takes to join a development team

that operates in the open and by consensus.

Openness is key. The willingness to share code is also key. That's why

developers like Behlendorf and others-including Larry Wall, the father

of Perl, and Linus Torvald, the eponym of the Linux operating system-support

a new term called Open Source to identify so-called freeware or free software

projects. When Netscape endorsed Open Source in announcing Mozilla.org,

they said that making the browser source-code freely available gave them

the best chance to compete with Microsoft in the browser wars.

If source code is freely available, anyone can participate in these

development projects, whether it's to customize code for a very small niche

of users or to fix a nasty bug that can't wait until a future release.

Those who make modifications generally make the source code available back

to the group, so it can be integrated into future releases.

A lot of Web development today is custom work involving systems integration.

Developers take a set of source code developed for one project and reuse

it on another project. They swap it with other developers. If one of them

makes an improvement, they can share it across multiple projects. This

is a free world market in code.

Still, traditional big business has its troubles with free software,

even though this software has been the engine running the Internet. Some

IT managers claim not to use it, even though they simply don't know what

developers are really using in their own shops. Now, if they see it coming

from IBM, maybe they will face reality.

 

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Dale Dougherty is the editor and publisher of Web Review and editorial

director of Web Techniques. You can reach him at [email protected]

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