PHP on i

Search400.com - Open Source on i

Today in my mail box I received the newsletter from the folks at Search400.com and this is what it said:

FROM THE EDITOR
Open source for i
[Leah Rosin, Associate Editor]

Last month I attended OSCON in Portland, Ore., and learned from Bernard Golden that open source utilization in the enterprise is on the rise. At the conference, IBM featured its free DB2 Express-C version of DB2 9. When I asked Rav Ahuja, the strategy manager of information management at IBM, whether this would work on i, he explained that it would if you run a Linux partition. All of this was a great primer on the implementation of open source and, specifically, Linux on i. And now the first of a three-part series of Linux on i is here.

Let us know what you think. And if you run or develop open source apps on a Linux partition on i, consider writing a tip or submitting a guest column.

RELATED INFORMATION:
> System i Blogger: Linux Foundation launches killer development tool
> System i Blogger: Getting started with Zend PHP

Firs I am humbled that they linked to my blog on ITKE, thank you Leah!, and second lets talk about this for a bit.

It’s all about the money is it not? I am pro open sourced dude, but let’s face it if your not making money or able to support your code writing habit then it’s all a wash? While the Linux community is best known for their OPEN projects, the IBM i has not seen this kind of energetic code writing.

There have been attempts at OPEN SOURCED projects for the IBM i over the years but it’s been scarce, and nothing out there that could change the face of a buisness. I would love to see an open sourced web site for all IBM i projects with many many active projects.

There should be CRM and ERP projects for the IBM i, and there just aren’t.Projects like this would do two things, drive people to contribute and wake up CRM and ERP software offerings to kick them in the tend bits so that they know they need to step up the code they are working on because there is a FREE open sourced equivilant that is coming and could replace them. It does create competition, even if it is frustrating.

I don’t see this being something that is going to happen anytime soon. The community does not lend itself to lots of after hours late night coding. For one the IBM i is not a platform you can just get at your local Best Buy and write some code for at home with your newly open i/OS. If that were the case I think we would see more OPEN projects.

I would still like to see IBM really rethink how they sell the smaller IBM i systems. I would love to be able to put down less that $2,000 USD and get and IBM i that I could work on, or maybe IBM takes a really large IBM i and places it in Rochester and lets you have a partition to write code on and stuff. That would cost them little to nothing but would foster community growth. They should offer it for FREE and more over allow any student in college a larger chunk of the machine than you would let me have, and IT professional. I can’t afford to have a new 520 at home, but I could afford to log into a partition that was FREE, then I could create a project, open source it on SorceForge and let the world help me build it and make it better. Sadly I don’t think IBM is that “hip” yet and they never will be.

If you are looking for IBM i Open Source Projects check these links:

Link :: Open Source for i

Link :: The iSeries-Toolkit

If you have a good project idea then let it be known! If you think IBM should build a sandbox for us all, say it. They are reading this blog and they do wonder what we are thinking. I would love to build a CRM package for the IBM i that is open sourced and free.  I am sure some of you out there have done it a thousand times but never like you wanted. Now is your chance.

Forum Thread on System i Network - Zend PHP Getting Started

PHP on the IBM i is going to be huge and here is a good thread that might help you get started using PHP on your IBM i. Thanks to all who have contributed to the thread.

Forum Thread on System i Network - Zend PHP Getting Started

Practical Web Services on the System i - Elena Lowery

In this article I outline two ways of creating web services from existing System i programs. The first approach is to deploy RPG programs in the new IBM Integrated Web Services Server for i, and the second is to create web services in Rational Developer for System i for SOA Construction (RDi SOA). In addition to giving step-by-step instructions, I explain the benefits of each implementation method and provide hints on how to successfully deploy web services in a production environment.

System i Network :: Practical Web Services on the System i - Elena Lowery

Why is IBM still selling HATS and not pushing PHP?

So full disclosure, I am an SME for COMMON and I speak and present about Linux on IBM i. I have pretty strong ties to the PHP @ IBM group in that the other two SMEs are both IBMers who preach the word for PHP, and other open source inititives at IBM. I have also worked for SEAGULL Software which sells what used to be called JWalk, which is a GUI modernization tool for the IBM i.

I was a Sales Engineer and don’t think I ever lost a deal to HATS when I was selling software…..any whoooooo!

Evidently HATS is still being pushed by IBM and the Four Hundred weekly email just reinforces that IBM is still lost. They should be pushing PHP on HTTP on the IBM i, yet they are still pushing a product that was pathetic 10 years ago, and can’t be much better now. I would love to see it and pick it apart compared to a PHP based web application.

Let the comments begin.

IBM i and ZEND -

Link to the POST- Mike Pavlak

 Zend Blog

 ”I got the chance to attend the php|tek conference in Chicago last week and it really opened my eyes to a lot of things. You see, the event was attended mostly by members of the PHP community supporting the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP…) stack. Since I was probably the ONLY i5 guy at the event I felt a little out of place. Aside from being over dressed (I wore a collared shirt) nearly everyone I talked to had not heard of the i5. And when Andi Gutmans, Zend Founder and CTO, gave the keynote and mentioned the i5 twice, nary a head was turning. But that’s OK. Maybe next year we will see a considerable improvement in the i5 community attendance, if you catch my drift.”

Great line from the post:

“Oh yeah, we got it easy…One of the sessions I attended was given by a network professional who specializes in clustering lots of little Intel boxes in order to scale PHP websites. I guess this is a cool thing for the Intel world. It involves a lot of complicated networking and servers and more. He went on and on about BGP and round robin DNS and all kinds of topics. The room was packed and the entire audience was absorbed! People really wanted to hear what this guy had to say. If only they knew. If only they were aware of the power of the Power systems like the IBM i. It was everything I could do to keep from shouting “Go get an i”! Maybe I should have. But, then again, I’d have to explain the benefit of scaling vertically vs. scaling horizontally. The benefits of having IBM on the speed dial and the fact that they can make a new machine appear out of thin air as long as your Business Partner completes the paperwork properly and on time”

Learning from Microsoft’s Mistakes

Now I am no developer, and when I say NO I mean NO so I am going to need some help making the connection. Seems as if the move for developers from Windows XP to Vista was a big one and may have been mishandled by Microsoft. Are we as an i community doing the same thing? Should we abandon RPG, COBOL, FORTRAN for the likes of JAVA, PHP and C?

Now being someone who likes new and shiny things I would say yes. I think the i attaching itself to PHP and MySQL is a step in the right direction and of course IBM have no idea how to foster that growth, and when I say that I mean no disrespect to IBM but, IBM sucks at build new communities. They don’t make things open source, and they don’t see FREE as a way to help. The recent Lotus movement where after OpenNTF being open for god knows how long now gets some attention from IBM is truly sad.

IBM should of course support the older languages, but should really place more emphasis on the new technology that is going to drive the system into a new era. Are we as i people destined for the same ill reputation as Microsoft and Vista because we are not “done right” and are not “hip” and a bit “free”. It’s time for IBM to really take a long hard look at the POWER platform and the OSes it runs and figure out how to tackle the next 20 years of growth. I can say PHP, C, MySQL, Python, AJAX, JAVA and other fancy words but how to get get them inside the i before it to late?