Considerations of IBM license for Hercules

syncmf

May 24, 2005

Hi all,

I`m very satisfied that the issue of IBM license for FLEX made
resonance. Fortunately, we have few customers who provide us with an
access to their computers, so we usually keep the license agreement of
any provider. But a need of Hercules is still very actual - to check
new features of OS, for example.If it's considered as a license issue
? If it is, I have a common question about Hercules - what was the
reason of enabling TCPIP and zSeries support in Hercules - anyone who
uses these features in the modern OS, automatically violates the
agreement. Hercules remains authorized when using only public
S360/370. According to this, the Hercules distribution must be
stopped, since today's version of Hercules was built by the people who
violated the IBM license. Am I right ?
My opinion is that all of us need to reconsider our position with IBM
by requiring a special license for Hercules "iron". They understand
that the home-use of Hercules by professionals will only propagate the
MF , while the current trend is downsizing, continuing for many years.
From the other side, more than 3000 professionals in the world use
Hercules, hiding that fact from IBM. Does anybody know about any OPEN
SOURCE PROJECT in the MF area ?
I don't, and the reason of that is clear. BTW I have some ideas for
OPEN SOURCE in MF , based on my 25 years' experience in development of
system products. This topic is out of the Hercules forum scope, so
anyone who wants to discuss it, can email to glapidus@....
Now, going back to the main topic of the letter, I just remembered a
typical IBM license agreement. It usually restricts against copying,
using , duplicating , etc.
The funny thing is that after using of FLEX-AWS converting routine,
the new created files are not probably protected by the license
agreement ??? !!! What is your opinion ?

Thanks anyone who has read it

Gennady Lapidus
Metaque Ltd.

5:13 pm

Re: Considerations of IBM license for Hercules

Jay Maynard

May 24, 2005

On Tue, May 24, 2005 at 05:13:49PM -0000, syncmf wrote:
> ? If it is, I have a common question about Hercules - what was the
> reason of enabling TCPIP and zSeries support in Hercules - anyone who
> uses these features in the modern OS, automatically violates the
> agreement. Hercules remains authorized when using only public
> S360/370. According to this, the Hercules distribution must be
> stopped, since today's version of Hercules was built by the people who
> violated the IBM license. Am I right ?

Wrong.
I'll be happy to discuss this with you in hercules-advocacy, where it's on
topic. It's off-topic here.

5:33 pm

Re: Considerations of IBM license for Hercules

Adam Thornton

May 24, 2005

On May 24, 2005, at 12:13 PM, syncmf wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I`m very satisfied that the issue of IBM license for FLEX made
> resonance. Fortunately, we have few customers who provide us with an
> access to their computers, so we usually keep the license agreement of
> any provider. But a need of Hercules is still very actual - to check
> new features of OS, for example.If it's considered as a license issue
> ? If it is, I have a common question about Hercules - what was the
> reason of enabling TCPIP and zSeries support in Hercules - anyone who
> uses these features in the modern OS, automatically violates the
> agreement.

I think a lot of zSeries Linux users would disagree with you. A lot
of Debian development happens on Herc boxes, although less than used
to be the case, since we were able to get some OSDL machines to use.

> Hercules remains authorized when using only public
> S360/370. According to this, the Hercules distribution must be
> stopped, since today's version of Hercules was built by the people who
> violated the IBM license. Am I right ?

No, you're on crack. No one is likely to stop me from running Linux
on my Herc box.

> My opinion is that all of us need to reconsider our position with IBM
> by requiring a special license for Hercules "iron". They understand
> that the home-use of Hercules by professionals will only propagate the
> MF , while the current trend is downsizing, continuing for many years.
>
>> From the other side, more than 3000 professionals in the world use
>>
> Hercules, hiding that fact from IBM. Does anybody know about any OPEN
> SOURCE PROJECT in the MF area ?

Yeah. Maybe you'd like to look at http://www.sinenomine.net. That's
my employer. We do quite a lot of Open Source work on S/390 and
zSeries systems.

> I don't, and the reason of that is clear.

Ignorance?

Adam

5:37 pm