IBM initiates Open Source project, seeks developers

– by Tina Gasperson –
IBM is announcing an Open Source project called SBLIM (Standards Based Linux Instrumentation for Manageability). This is a new thing for Big Blue — although the company participates in more than 40 Open Source software projects including Mozilla, PHP, and Apache, this is the first open, collaborative effort that it has ever initiated, says Sheila Harnett, the technical lead for IBM’s Linux Technology Center.
SBLIM, pronounced “sublime,” is an outgrowth and adjunct to WBEM, or Web-Based Enterprise Management, which is “a set of management and Internet standard technologies developed to unify the management of enterprise computing environments.”

“WBEM is a common way to access information that needs to be managed” in an enterprise setting, explains Harnett. “It’s a Web-based model to access standardized systems information.”

SBLIM contributors are working on “providers,” applications which will make a way, via the Linux operating system, for the information from various platforms that may reside in an enterprise, to be gathered, standardized, and placed in a data repository that can then be accessed by WBEM. SBLIM “providers” operate in conjunction with WBEM. “It doesn’t stand by itself,” says Harnett of the code that will come out of the project.

So far, contributors to the just-announced project have completed two “providers,” says Harnett, one for RPMs installed on a given system, and one to interpret filesystem/volume information. The project is self-hosted by IBM, using a modified SourceForge collaboration system, and is licensed under the Open Source Initiative-approved Common Public License. SBLIM’s project leader is Viktor Mihajlovski. IBM is hoping to build an active community around SBLIM, a project it calls “extensive.”

C developers interested in getting involved should visit the project site and subscribe to the developer list to find out how to get started.