IBM is accused of patent betrayal

MAINFRAME GIANT IBM has broken its own promise not to sue open source companies over the use of some its patents.

Big Blue announced its intention not to drag open sauce developers into court back in 2005, and apparently managed to stick to its promise for five years. Now however, IBM has pointed its Nazgul lawyers at mainframe emulator Turbohercules, alleging that it is infringing some IBM patents.

According to blog posts from Turbohercules' chief, IBM has threatened the firm with a lawsuit, but only since it got around to building its own mainframe emulator.

"Readers may draw their own conclusions as to whose software is the 'knock-off' and whose is the real thing", wrote Roger Bowler, creator of Hercules and co-founder of the company.

The argument has seen some to-ing and fro-ing and Turbohercules has returned fire with its own legal case.

According to Bowler, IBM has alleged that, "Turbohercules seeks a free ride on IBM's 'massive investments in the mainframe by marketing systems that attempt to mimic the functionality' of its machines."

In response Turbohercules has filed an antitrust claim against IBM in France, however it is not seeking any damages despite IBM's move seeming to be against its own patent pledge.

"We are not asking that IBM be subjected to punishing fines or anything like that. We simply want IBM to agree to allow legitimate paying customers of its z/OS mainframe operating system to deploy that software on the hardware platforms of their choice - including, should they so choose, on low-cost servers using Intel or AMD microprocessors and Hercules," he said.

IBM has apparently rebuffed any attempts from the firm to discuss the issue and come to reconciliation, and hasn't helped its case by accusing the firm of being not much more than a knock-off merchant, something that really appears to have riled Bowler.

"Hercules is not a fake Gucci handbag. Hercules has never pretended to be an IBM-brand product, and no customer would ever mistake it for such. Hercules is a third-party, open source software-based emulator developed in good faith using IBM's published documentation of its z/Architecture," he added.

Also worthy of his ire was the fact that it was IBM that actually enabled, and encouraged developers to create programs based on its code.

"It would never have occurred to me to attempt a software emulation of the IBM mainframe if IBM itself did not publish thousands of pages of very detailed documentation explaining precisely how to do that," continued Bowler.

But, this is not just one company against another, Turbohercules is making its stand on behalf of any company doing business based on its open source code.

"This ecosystem not only earns IBM well-deserved profits on its past investments, but also provides the infrastructure for many of the world's most important business applications and - last but not least - employment for tens of thousands of highly skilled people", he said. µ