<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">No-one from IBM responded to this, so
here is my two cents. Please note also that all this discussion is
hypothetical, since IBM has only announced its intentions and the actual
transaction has yet to take place.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The main issue for COIN probably boils
down to whether the level of participation by IBMers will be affected.
Of course, no-one can know how busy any of us are going to be with
non-COIN projects -- this varies from year to year, certainly -- and the
impact could go both ways: adding ILOG to IBM creates more potential distractions
for IBMers who contribute to COIN, on the other hand, incorporating ILOGers
into IBM means that the pool of potential contributors to COIN will go
up!</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The message from our management is that
IBM Research is committed to open source, and COIN-OR in particular. IBM
has devoted a lot of resources to open source over many years, and there
are many examples of IBM products successfully coexisting with an open
source community -- even with the same developers. Examples are gcc,
Apache, Eclipse, and I am sure there are more. So I think that the
net effect will be positive for COIN -- it simply increases the scale of
computational OR going on within IBM and thereby increases the potential
for COIN-OR participation.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Speaking personally, COIN gives me both
an opportunity and an incentive to get ideas and code circulating in the
community. Successful participation in an open source community does
get rewarded by IBM management (from time to time) and is certainly something
I highlight in my annual review. Finally, let me also emphasize that
I personally regard participation in COIN to be a valuable part of my career
in OR. I am sure all of us here feel the same way. </font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Alan</font>
<br><a href=http://www.research.ibm.com/people/k/kingaj/><font size=2 face="sans-serif">http://www.research.ibm.com/people/k/kingaj/</font></a>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<table width=100%>
<tr valign=top>
<td><font size=1 color=#5f5f5f face="sans-serif">From:</font>
<td><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Matthew Saltzman <mjs@clemson.edu></font>
<tr valign=top>
<td><font size=1 color=#5f5f5f face="sans-serif">To:</font>
<td><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Sebastian Nowozin <nowozin@gmail.com></font>
<tr>
<td valign=top><font size=1 color=#5f5f5f face="sans-serif">Cc:</font>
<td><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Discussions about open source software
for Operations Research <coin-discuss@list.coin-or.org></font>
<tr valign=top>
<td><font size=1 color=#5f5f5f face="sans-serif">Date:</font>
<td><font size=1 face="sans-serif">07/28/2008 04:40 PM</font>
<tr valign=top>
<td><font size=1 color=#5f5f5f face="sans-serif">Subject:</font>
<td><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Re: [Coin-discuss] Off-topic: IBM's
planned aquisition of Ilog</font></table>
<br>
<hr noshade>
<br>
<br>
<br><tt><font size=2><br>
On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 22:24 +0200, Sebastian Nowozin wrote:<br>
> Hello everybody,<br>
> <br>
> see<br>
> </font></tt><a href="http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/24740.wss"><tt><font size=2>http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/24740.wss</font></tt></a><tt><font size=2><br>
> </font></tt><a href="http://mat.tepper.cmu.edu/blog/?p=307"><tt><font size=2>http://mat.tepper.cmu.edu/blog/?p=307</font></tt></a><tt><font size=2><br>
> <br>
> The few details in the press release above makes discussion somewhat
<br>
> difficult, but is there a chance that this will directly or indirectly
<br>
> affect the COIN-OR project?<br>
<br>
At this point, I know no more than you do.<br>
<br>
Nobody has contacted us about it. The news is very recent and the
press<br>
release makes no reference to CPLEX.<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Matthew Saltzman<br>
<br>
Clemson University Math Sciences<br>
mjs AT clemson DOT edu<br>
</font></tt><a href=http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs><tt><font size=2>http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs</font></tt></a><tt><font size=2><br>
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<br>
<br>