Case: “IBM and Linux (A)”

BMDE
1. a) How does the open source community manage itself?
Open source community is form of lose control structure. It comprised network of
volunteered hackers, programmers, and industry related practitioners that tied in
loosely control structure. There can be two different ways that can be observed from
the case one is that although the company operations are done by the independent
contributors but it can be still be manage by the company executives as happened in
the normal corporate like structure. Second method in which there is no formal
authority to manage only renowned personalities among the group manage the group
without formal authority.
(b) How does the open source development model differ from proprietary models?
Open source development model differs on the ground from the very purpose as it
done to promote the culture of collaboration without giving much consideration to the
economic aspects related to the development of the programs. On the other hand,
proprietary software are primarily focus on the economic motives. Under open source
model user can see and change the code as to suit their requirements without having
any proprietary issue. On the other hand proprietary software are not available to
general public and cannot be changed without the respective company permission.

2. (a) Why is an alliance with the Linux development community potentially attractive
to IBM?

1. IBM software could run on top of Lunix, nneutral platform hence no strategic
vulnerability without creating any problem to other corporations.

2. They care about speed, innovation and are not risk averse additionally they don’t have
licensing fee or royalties

3. Open standards considered easy to customize essential for innovation on Internet & to
network-centric computing

4. Technical support provided by Informix, Computer Associates, Oracle & HP along with
great community support

5. High performance satisfaction along with penetration into pc market.

6. Consistent with the strategy of IBM to support open standards

7. To gain access to IBM’s new target market of ISPs, ASPs, dot-com start-ups &
universities along with competing with same set of competitors like Microsoft