Thank you for this reminder, we owe IBM a lot for their early Linux efforts.
I was pushing Linux into production, hard, for a very large company in the late 90s, with only limited success. It wasn't until 2001, because of IBM, when the nearly fanatical resistance to Linux started to fade.
IBM does truly deserve credit for making Linux a safe choice for corporate IT. Few people remember this, but believe me I sat in on IT focus groups in 2001-ish.
Every. Single. Person. In every single session in every city said "there's no way we could use it in production". In every group, there was one who added "... but if IBM..." (literally as a sentence fragment like that), then the whole room would agree out loud.
Spooky. And then IBM came out with a big Linux campaign and the rest is history. Anyway, that happened.
It doesn't make a business for IBM. But it was a good contribution. That too was a way for IBM to sell consulting services. Which is all they really are.