In this extensive article, Jon “MadDog” delves into the behind-the-scenes narrative of how Linux and Open Source gained acceptance within the corporate sphere, eventually establishing itself as the dominant platform in today’s enterprise information technology. It has become the operating system powering contemporary cloud infrastructure and, most notably, has transformed into the primary methodology for driving software innovation.
Interwoven throughout the article are accounts of my personal journey during my time at IBM, specifically during the unforgettable years as a member of the IBM Linux Impact Team. Our mission achieved remarkable success, evident today every time a non-desktop IT professional interacts with a computer system, which is now commonly built entirely on dependable, enterprise-ready Open Source software.
While people tell success stories in specific projects, what we did between 2001 and 2008 changed the entire IT industry! Without that evangelism and adoption of Open Source work, you as an IT professional would probably be using only Windows and Solaris today. You wouldn’t have embraced the cloud, wouldn’t know what DevOps is, and would likely be completely 100% dependent on software licensing.
My blog is full of stories from that time.
Time to tag some people I worked with on those years: Marcelo Braunstein, Cecilia Faria, Jose Carlos Fadel, John Walicki, Manuel Silveyra, Gisele Lloret Spinola de Araújo, Haroldo Hoffmann, Paulo Aragão, Auta Souza, Samuel Garofalo Masini, Rafael Peregrino da Silva, Lucas Ravagnani