John Mertic, Director of Program Management at the Linux Foundation, explains how the Open Mainframe Project just opened real IBM Z and z/OS infrastructure to any open source project for development, testing, and education, ending years of hardware access gaps for the community.
Full article and transcript: https://tfir.io/mainframe-infrastructure-open-source-linux-foundation/
Most open source contributors targeting mainframe have never touched real hardware. Emulators and documentation can only go so far, and production mainframe systems behave differently in ways that matter when you are writing or porting code that will run on them.
In this exclusive interview with Swapnil Bhartiya at TFiR, John Mertic, Director of Program Management at the Linux Foundation and a key figure in the Open Mainframe Project, walks through what the new infrastructure program provides, who can access it, how to apply, and what IBM, Broadcom, and other contributors have built to make it work at scale.
Key Topics Covered:
– Why mainframe hardware has been inaccessible for open source contributors and what made this problem so persistent
– What the new infrastructure offering includes: standard z/Linux and z/OS images, flexible configurations for projects with specific requirements
– How the Technical Advisory Committee governs access and evaluates applications from open source maintainers
– The roles IBM, Broadcom, and Converged Technology played in bringing hardware, software, and expertise together
– Where the Open Mainframe Project is heading next, including AI, observability, and sustained open source porting strategies
00:00 Why Mainframe Hardware Has Always Been Out of Reach
01:10 What the Open Mainframe Project Does and Why It Exists
02:51 Announcing Open Infrastructure Access for Open Source Projects
05:15 What Developers Get and How the Application Process Works
08:54 IBM and Broadcom Involvement Explained
09:57 What Comes Next: AI, Observability, and Ecosystem Growth
12:30 Community Response and Projects Already Applying
13:28 How to Apply for Mainframe Infrastructure Access
#OpenMainframe #LinuxFoundation #IBMZLinux #OpenSource #MainframeDevelopment
