How about sponsoring from IBM?

[Bret Mogilefsky]

On Fri, Jan 11, 2002 at 02:13:22PM +0100, Andreas Mohr wrote:
> Hmm, something tells me that it's January 2002 now.
> And something else tells me that this is 12 months.
> And then something else tells me that this is quite a time frame.
> 
> So what exactly has happened that demonstrates what a huuuuuge amount of
> $1 billion dollars in the hands of IBM can do ?
> 
> There are a lot of people who believe that it's been vapornews.
> And I'm about to join them.
> 
> So unless you can convince me otherwise...

Wow, I guess you haven't seen the huge amount of advertising on TV, in
magazines, and on billboards, or the enormous number of Linux articles on
developerWorks, or seen all of the JFS kernel contributions, or the press
releases describing Linux running on all of their big-iron hardware, or a
brochure for all of their Linux training and consulting programs.  

IBM has committed to Linux in a big way, and it's obvious everywhere you
look.  If you believe nothing else, believe that IBM is spending $1 billion
to buy Linux LEGITIMACY for use in corporations both through (a) its own
reputation and (b) addressing the areas where Linux is lacking for
production use.  Many of these projects are run by IBM rather than
contributing to existing fledgling efforts, but so what?  Just because
they're not contributing to every single open source project you know of
doesn't mean they're not contributing.

That said, it seems like wine is the type of project they would WANT to be
working on, and yes, a little bit of money would go a long way.  Before
crying sour grapes (har har), I suggest someone actually approach them
about it.  Also, you might see if they are lurking already... Can we see a
count of @ibm.com e-mail addresses for the mailing lists?  Anyone from IBM
working on Wine officially?


Bret
-- 
Bret Mogilefsky * Mgr. SCEA Developer Support * mogul-wine at gelatinous.com