http://www.developer.com/java/other/article.php/3490721/IBM-Continues-Bolstering-Open-Source-Commitment.htm
Corporate behemoth Big Blue has long since established itself as a leading sponsor of the open source community, regularly making significant contributions of software, money, and human capital. Yet even in light of its already rampant activity over the past few years, 2005 is already proving to be particularly impressive in terms of the ninety-four year old company's almost weekly announcements of various new open source committments. Two of the most recent donations have come in the form of thirty software projects and the release of 500 patents for open source use.
Donated to the popular Sourceforge.net collaborative development site, the software projects encompass an eclectic array of purposes, including Linux drivers, network simulators, and bioinformatic and developer tools. At press time only a partial listing of the projects was available, however this should be suffice to give one a taste of what's been made available.
ACP Modem (Mwave) Driver for Linux - http://sf.net/projects/acpmodem/ AIX Toolbox - http://sf.net/projects/aixtoolbox/ BlueHoc: Bluetooth ad-hoc network simulator - http://sf.net/projects/bluehoc/ Dynamic Probe Class Library - http://sf.net/projects/dpcl/ Dynamic Probes - http://sf.net/projects/dprobes/ International Components for Unicode (ICU) Libraries - http://sf.net/projects/icu/ Java POS Config Loader - http://sf.net/projects/jposloader/ Jikes Compiler for the Java Language - http://sf.net/projects/jikes/ Jikes RVM - http://sf.net/projects/jikesrvm/ Journaled File System - http://sf.net/projects/jfs/ LSID (Life Science Identifier) - http://sf.net/projects/lsid/ LTC Linux Kernel Performance Project - http://sf.net/projects/linuxperf/ Memory Expansion Technology (MXT) Linux Support Patch - http://sf.net/projects/mxt/ OpenCryptoki Linux drivers - http://sf.net/projects/opencryptoki/ OpenSSH on AIX - http://sf.net/projects/openssh-aix/ Standards Based Linux Instrumentation (SBLIM) - http://sf.net/projects/sblim/ Java Web Services Description Toolkit (JWSDLTCK) - http://sf.net/projects/jwsdltck/ TCL extension library for IBM Speech Manager Applications Programming Interface (SMAPI) - http://sf.net/projects/tclsmapi/ JTOpen - http://sf.net/projects/jt400/ UDDI4J Java Class Library - http://sf.net/projects/uddi4j/ Web Services Description Language for Java (WSDL4J) - http://sf.net/projects/wsdl4j/
IBM is easily one of the most storied patentees in the world, owning a portfolio of an estimated 40,000 patents and regularly taking in an estimated $1 billion in annual revenues for patent licensing. Earlier this year IBM released 500 of its patents, allowing free use for open source projects. As the list is far too extensive to recount in this article, a list of categories is instead summarized here, followed by a link to a PDF on IBM's site consisting of a complete list.
View a complete list of available patents via the IBM website.
W. Jason Gilmore (http://www.wjgilmore.com/) is the Open Source Editor for Apress (http://www.apress.com/). He's the author of Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL: Novice to Professional (Apress, 2004. 748pp.). His work has been featured within many of the computing industry's leading publications, including Linux Magazine, O'Reillynet, Devshed, Zend.com, and Webreview.
IBM Continues Bolstering Open Source Commitment
March 17, 2005
The Software Projects
The Mwave Linux driver supports software-based telephony on the Linux operating system.
The AIX Toolbox for Linux Applications is a collection of RPM packages comprising tools built for the IBM AIX 5L operating system.
BlueHoc is a network simulator that helps developers evaluate Bluetooth-enabled devices under a variety of networking scenarios.
The Dynamic Probe Class Library is a C++ class library used by developers to generate dynamic code used for monitoring an application's execution.
Dynamic Probes is a Linux-based software debugger.
The ICU libraries are a set of C++ and Java libraries offering mature Unicode support for a variety of platforms, supporting the latest Unicode standard.
The JavaPOS Config Loader is a configuration manager for the Java Point of Sale platform.
Jikes is an open source Java compiler available on both the Windows and Unix platforms.
The Jikes Research Virtual Machine is useful for executing Java programs created with the intent of researching virtual machine design concepts.
A Journaled File System is optimized for use in a high-performance environment, and is capable of quickly recovering in the case of a system crash.
The LSID is a protocol for detecting and assembling bioinformatic data located across a network.
The LTC Linux Kernel Performance Project intends to create tools for reviewing and improving Linux kernel performance.
MXT is a hardware-based technology for compressing RAM, thereby increasing the amount of RAM available to a system. This patch provides support for MXT when used in conjunction with Linux kernel 2.4 and greater.
The Public-key Cryptography Standards provide a set of standards for public key cryptography, with standard #11 defining a technology-independent API for smart cards and PCMCIA cards, dubbed Cryptoki. This project provides Linux support for PKCS#11.
The OpenSSH on AIX project offers installation packages supporting OpenSSH on the AIX operating system.
The SBLIM project provides enhanced capabilities for managing Linux over a network by incorporating support for the Web-based Enterprise Management (WBEM) Initiative.
The JWSDL Toolkit aids in the implementation of the Java API's for Web Services Description Language documents. This specification was developed by the Java Community Process.
The TCL/SMAPI enables the integration of IBM's Speech Manager Applications Programming Interface in Tcl applications.
JTOpen is a library of Java classes used to interact with the IBM iSeries and AS/400 servers.
UDDI4J is a Java Class library used to interact with the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration registry.
WSDL4J is reference implementation for JSR110, allowing for the creation, manipulation and representation of WSDL documents.
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