White Papers
Abstract
This document describes how Open Source Software for AIX is supported.
Content
This document describes IBM's general intent with providing, maintaining, and supporting Open Source Packages on AIX.
This document does not override any licenses or warranties provided with the open source packages.
This document does not override any licenses or warranties provided with the open source packages.
Nor does it serve as a guarantee of receiving IBM support for any open source package.
Base AIX Media, Expansion Pack, and Web Download Pack
IBM provides a small number of open source packages with the Base AIX Media and additional packages on the Expansion Pack and Web Download Pack Programs site. These packages are available for customer use, but IBM does not own the code, and did not develop or exhaustively test the code. These packages are subject to the terms of the licenses they are provided under, but in general are supported by IBM Support with the following important limitations and exceptions:
- IBM cannot guarantee how quickly we are able to debug issues nor our ability to provide code fixes. IBM does not own the code and we may have to work with the open source communities to resolve issues.
- These packages may lack some functionality on AIX versus other platforms. These limitations will not be addressed by IBM Support. Enhancement requests for these packages can be made via IBM Ideas.
- Binary compatibility between versions of open source software shipped with different AIX levels is not guaranteed as IBM does not own the code.
- IBM will support the shipped open source packages themselves, but cannot support the usage of those packages. Some examples that must be handled by the open source communities are: installation of additional modules, failures installing rpm packages, and issues with applications written in perl, python, or bash.
- For ongoing use by customer and 3rd party applications, instead of configuring them to use the packages shipped with Base AIX, it may be better to use the packages from the Expansion Pack, Web Download Pack, or AIX Toolbox. These packages are built to install along side existing Base AIX versions. The packages shipped with Base AIX may be left on old versions or be updated or removed as part of normal TL and SP updates, as required by Base AIX code. This could potentially disrupt any other users of the packages.
- Some parts of these open source packages are only present as dependencies for AIX functionality. IBM does not support these for any type of direct, external, or 3rd party use. These are not usually installed to default AIX paths, and should not be copied or linked to default paths. Use the packages from the AIX Toolbox instead.
These exceptions include:- All dependencies of rpm shipped in /usr/opt/rpm
- All dependencies of AIX shipped in /usr/opt/oss
- /usr/lib/sasl/libsasl.a, /usr/lib/libxerces.a, and /usr/ccs/lib/libxml2.a
AIX Toolbox for Open Source Software
IBM also provides the AIX Toolbox with 400+ open source and GNU packages built for AIX. Software provided on the AIX Toolbox is provided "as is" and not supported by IBM Support at this time. However, there is a very active AIX Open Source Software Forum that can be used to help resolve issues, know when packages are updated with security fixes, and request new packages be ported to AIX. For more information, please visit the AIX Toolbox for Open Source Software site.
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Document Information
Modified date:
10 April 2023
UID
ibm16839833