Etiquette

Ahah! Now we know. Some postings from IBM-MAIN;

On Tue, 10 Jul 2001 09:31:33 +0100, Phil Payne
<phil@...> wrote:

>
>As I've said on the Hercules board, this isn't really the issue. IBM will
licence System/390 software for the Intel platform under certain specific
conditions - serious enquiries only, please, or I can imagine them being
swamped. As a private individual, you stand little chance - as a one-man ISV
somewhat more.
>
>The issue is how the System/390 runtime environment is produced, and has a lot
to do with IBM's intellectual property. Even things as old and basic as Dual
Address Space are patented.
>
>
Yes, Phil has raised the issue of IBM's intellectual property and I have
supported his right to raise this for consideration. However, what he did not
say at the time is that he has a commercial interest in the issue as shown by
his previous post to IBM-MAIN;

On Tue, 10 Jul 2001 09:26:54 +0100, Phil Payne
<phil@...> wrote:

>
>For users in Europe, I'm currently working on the European introduction of
Fundamental's product with NMC Informationssysteme in Hamburg. They have a test
and demo machine just north of Hamburg (near the airport) under 'open doors' -
users and potential partners (or even the wildly curious) are invited to email
info@...
>

Is his interest in Hercules the same as ours?
DC

*********************************************************************
This email is intended solely for the use of the individual to whom
it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged
material. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the
author and do not necessarily represent those of AGCO Limited.
If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have
received this email in error and that any use, dissemination,
forwarding, printing or copying of this email is strictly prohibited.

If you have received this email in error please forward it to
postmaster@...
*********************************************************************

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Well,

it has been a few months now that I was expecting this, although it makes
the disappointment no less.
In my opinion, IBM is facing a tough choice here, not unlike what's
happening with the taxi licenses in Amsterdam, and no doubt elsewhere in
the world. When the government liberated the market, they faced the
problem of having previously charged a *lot* of money for a licence. So
taxi drivers were not very happy; IBM has to face the fact that when there
are no more people like us willing to work on the platform, and ISV
activity and prices left to CA and the likes, the platform is facing a
certain, though admittedly very slow death. A wise choice for IBM would be
to compensate parties that were previously charged a lot of money for
things with a dwindling value in the real world, so we can advance without
the stealth opposition.

René Jansen
(who is an independant consultant without any major investment in any
platform at all, but likes his work on all of them)

"Dave Cartwright" <DaveCartwright@...> on 10-07-2001 11:02:12

Please respond to hercules-390@yahoogroups.com

To: Hercules <hercules-390@yahoogroups.com>
cc:
Subject: [hercules-390] Etiquette

Ahah! Now we know. Some postings from IBM-MAIN;

On Tue, 10 Jul 2001 09:31:33 +0100, Phil Payne
<phil@...> wrote:

>
>As I've said on the Hercules board, this isn't really the issue. IBM will
licence System/390 software for the Intel platform under certain specific
conditions - serious enquiries only, please, or I can imagine them being
swamped. As a private individual, you stand little chance - as a one-man
ISV somewhat more.
>
>The issue is how the System/390 runtime environment is produced, and has a
lot to do with IBM's intellectual property. Even things as old and basic
as Dual Address Space are patented.
>
>
Yes, Phil has raised the issue of IBM's intellectual property and I have
supported his right to raise this for consideration. However, what he did
not say at the time is that he has a commercial interest in the issue as
shown by his previous post to IBM-MAIN;

On Tue, 10 Jul 2001 09:26:54 +0100, Phil Payne
<phil@...> wrote:

>
>For users in Europe, I'm currently working on the European introduction of
Fundamental's product with NMC Informationssysteme in Hamburg. They have a
test and demo machine just north of Hamburg (near the airport) under 'open
doors' - users and potential partners (or even the wildly curious) are
invited to email info@...
>

Is his interest in Hercules the same as ours?
DC

*********************************************************************
This email is intended solely for the use of the individual to whom
it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged
material. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the
author and do not necessarily represent those of AGCO Limited.
If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have
received this email in error and that any use, dissemination,
forwarding, printing or copying of this email is strictly prohibited.

If you have received this email in error please forward it to
postmaster@...
*********************************************************************

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Community email addresses:
Post message: hercules-390@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe: hercules-390-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe: hercules-390-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
List owner: hercules-390-owner@yahoogroups.com

Files and archives at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hercules-390

Get the latest version of Hercules from:
http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

On Tue, Jul 10, 2001 at 10:02:12AM +0100, Dave Cartwright wrote:
> Ahah! Now we know. Some postings from IBM-MAIN; Yes, Phil has raised the
> issue of IBM's intellectual property and I have supported his right to
> raise this for consideration.

Indeed...and I just replied to Phil's posting on IBM-MAIN.

> Is his interest in Hercules the same as ours?

Probably not. However, that doesn't mean that his input isn't wanted here,
as with some other posters to thie list in the past.

Thanks for pointing this out, Dave...

--- In hercules-390@y..., "Dave Cartwright" <DaveCartwright@u...>
wrote:

> Ahah! Now we know. Some postings from IBM-MAIN;
>
> On Tue, 10 Jul 2001 09:31:33 +0100, Phil Payne <phil@I...> wrote:

> Yes, Phil has raised the issue of IBM's intellectual property and I
have supported his right to raise this for consideration. However,
what he did not say at the time is that he has a commercial interest
in the issue as shown by his previous post to IBM-MAIN;

When I first posted I had no such interest.

> On Tue, 10 Jul 2001 09:26:54 +0100, Phil Payne <phil@I...> wrote:

> >For users in Europe, I'm currently working on the European
introduction of Fundamental's product with NMC Informationssysteme in
Hamburg. They have a test and demo machine just north of Hamburg
(near the airport) under 'open doors' - users and potential partners
(or even the wildly curious) are invited to email info@n...

And now I have, and I've said so. Not that it's at all relevant.

> Is his interest in Hercules the same as ours?

Certainly not, but that's not an issue since the two markets hardly
overlap.

--- In hercules-390@y..., rvjansen@x wrote:
> Well,
>
> it has been a few months now that I was expecting this, although it
makes
> the disappointment no less.
> In my opinion, IBM is facing a tough choice here, ...

I don't see what you're disappointed about, or why IBM is involved.

If you licence (e.g.) OS/390 for an Intel platform it costs the same
whether you use FLEX-ES or any other emulator - there's no
differential issue. The only one is the legal one, and that's
interested me since long before I had any relationship with any
partners. As a matter of fact I'm only here because a friend of 23
years standing asked, and I won't be here more than a couple of weeks.

I will still comment on situations like the patent issue - I've been
involved with IBM in a competitive sense since joining Itel in 1978
and I've seen every concievable trick used since. I've also spent
20+ years (with Itel, NAS, Comparex, Amdahl) desperately trying to
avoid being sued by IBM.

IBM's apparent behaviour towards Hercules (in particular, but not
only) is so different from what I experienced then that it fascinates
me.

phil@... wrote:

> IBM's apparent behaviour towards Hercules (in particular, but not
> only) is so different from what I experienced then that it fascinates
> me.

I can understand that it fascinates you - it negates all your experience
in the PCM world. The apparent reason must be that IBM had a lot to
loose then, a monopoly which they gave away to Microsoft instead of the
PCM manufacturers, because they were looking the wrong way for the
danger. It has a lot to gain now. OS/MVS/OS390/Z programmers are between
40 and 50. They will be retiring en bloc in 10 to 15 years. The sales of
mainframes and mainframe software are decidedly low volume, with rumours
of, for example, not a single DB2 for OS/390 sold in 1999, and we are
not really fooled by restating sales in MIPS rates so they keep growing.
(This I heard at Gartner from someone and can be quite untrue, but sales
are not published). Lots of companies CEO's, boards would like to get
rid of the mainframe heritage - if they only knew how to replace those
big CICS and IMS applications. These feelings are mostly for the wrong
reasons and can lead to tensions with their IT departments and external
consultants - like me. But high ISV application pricing is one of the
right reasons, and this is tightly coupled with high entry level cost.
There is a definite skill shortage on the platform. I lost access to a
mainframe when I decided to leave my job some years ago. Hercules makes
it possible to keep on writing BAL with asm F under MVS 3.8, and TSO
Programs with STAX and PUTGET and other folklore. This means I can keep
my skills up to date - at least around the 1985 level. Linux on Z is a
thing that badly needs skills availability - just look at the 'your own
remote Linux LPAR' action they recently started. We could even make some
applications for Z without betting the company.

Now imagine what would happen if we had a hobby|laptop|development
licence for OS/390 on Hercules. This would mean that young (ahem) people
with some mainframe affinity do not need big investments to keep up with
technology (I would love to run a DB2 Sysplex on three copies of
Hercules, with one just running the CF code and the shared buffers - yes
I know it cannot be done - yet). Now, I do not mind working on NT or AIX
or MacOSX - but imagine being able to write applications for the
architecture we know and love and know to be better in many ways, they
might sell a few copies and mainframes. I would like to advise a Sysplex
as the ultimate parallel architecture to a customer, but I would also
like to know what I'm talking about, and that for me always means
hands-on. And I think the moment to Re-open source MVS is now, to avoid
having to put Hercules in a couple of years in the same directory as the
Atari-800 and DEC VAX emulators. The benefits will be in hardware sales
and services with less threats to the continuity of the platform.The
main reason for OCO was, I heard then, the rising cost of support, which
was then included in the hardware+OS cost. It is a different world now,
with people in different geographies and timezones working on CVS
repositories and newsgroups. Also, nowadays companies can charge for
support.

My comparison to the taxi drivers licence and legal situation was meant
to be in support of you, Phil - I *can* imagine what it must be like to
see this umwertung aller werte, but I still think the right thing to do
is to state your affiliations - and restate them when they change. Do
this at least as a courtesy to the work of people like Roger, Jay and
Jan, for which I, and I am sure lots of other people, have the highest
admiration.

Kind regards,

René Jansen.

Now how is the MacOS X - BSD port going - was that Mike Szlaga?

2:29 pm

Retirement.

Cory Hamasaki

Jul 10, 2001

** Reply to note from Ren‚ Vincent Jansen 10 Jul 2001 22:09:30 -0000

> It has a lot to gain now. OS/MVS/OS390/Z programmers are between
> 40 and 50. They will be retiring en bloc in 10 to 15 years.

Around here the ages are between 50 and 65 and they have been retiring
for a few years. The pace is picking up.

For a number of organizations, there is no good solution. It's happening
now.

Cory Hamasaki

7:35 pm

Re: Retirement.

Ted Rolle

Jul 10, 2001

Interesting... I'm 59, my favorite language is BAL. Thank goodness for
Hercules!

I just (yesterday) started a job in which I'm essentially kissing the
mainframe good-bye. I'm doing Linux/Web development as a full-time
regular employee.

I'll not be retiring soon, as my children are 12, 9, and 7. (Not that I
wouldn't LIKE to...) <g>

Now, if a few of these "hard-strapped" companies want to hustle me for an
outrageous salary, who am I to restrict their freedom?

Ted

6:47 pm

Re: Retirement.

phil@...

Jul 12, 2001

--- In hercules-390@y..., "Dave Cartwright" <DaveCartwright@u...

> Yes, Phil has raised the issue of IBM's intellectual property and I
have supported his right to raise this for consideration.

It was for rather more than consideration. It has been commonly
asserted here that IBM is at worst neutral towards Hercules and
perhaps even gently positive towards it. Common citations are a
Redbook chapter and a third-hand citation from an unnamed IBMer.

IBM is a big company. Not everyone in every division is up to speed
with the issues in other divisions. I think we all want IBM to be
flexible and responsive, so we have to tolerate the fact that - every
now and then - someone not up to speed will say something that the
division actually responsible for the issue will see differently.

I've recently had discussions with a number of IBMers who indicate
they have a contrary view to some of the ones expressed here.

12:20 am

Re: Retirement.

Jay Maynard

Jul 12, 2001

On Thu, Jul 12, 2001 at 07:20:12AM -0000, phil@...
wrote:
> It was for rather more than consideration.

Oh? For what, then? What is it you think we should do?

> It has been commonly
> asserted here that IBM is at worst neutral towards Hercules and
> perhaps even gently positive towards it. Common citations are a
> Redbook chapter and a third-hand citation from an unnamed IBMer.

Conversations I've had with several IBMers - some, I have been told, high on
the food chain - support this view as well.

> IBM is a big company. Not everyone in every division is up to speed
> with the issues in other divisions. I think we all want IBM to be
> flexible and responsive, so we have to tolerate the fact that - every
> now and then - someone not up to speed will say something that the
> division actually responsible for the issue will see differently.

No arguments here. That cuts both ways, however: it might be that the folks
you spoke to are the ones behind the curve.

> I've recently had discussions with a number of IBMers who indicate
> they have a contrary view to some of the ones expressed here.

I'm not surprised, as I'm sure that Hercules gores some oxen within IBM.
That said, if IBM was really unhappy with Hercules, I'm sure we'd have heard
from them before now, as their lawyers can move quickly enough, and Hercules
has definitely appeared on their radar. IBM also has nothing to gain by
delaying action once they've decided to move.

You mentioned a difference in IBM's response here from the days of yore. I
think the difference is simple: IBM has embraced open source. (I can hear
the gasps now.) I had the opportunity to discuss this with Eric Raymond a
couple of weeks ago, and he agrees with that assessment - and he's a hard
man to convince. One thing to remember is that open source is a community as
well as a philosophy, and one that will turn on someone who betrays it with
remarkable agility. IBM stands to gain a lot from open source, but to do so
requires that it behave in a way the open source community can support. This
includes not squashing open source projects and avoiding patent enforcement
proceedings for software patents, something the open source community
regards as particularly vile. To this way of thinking, IBM has more to lose
by killing Hercules than it does by letting it be: if the community gets
sufficiently annoyed, the benefits it gives IBM in mindshare - which leads
to market share - and free coding and debugging will vanish faster than
DF/EF did.

(As another data point on IBM's change in attitude, I'll note here that
they've ported Quake to AIX. That would have been unthinkable just a few
years ago...I mean, a GAME?! on a serious BUSINESS MACHINE?!!)

I choose to see all this as yet more evidence that IBM is serious about open
source software. If they give me cause to reevaluate that, I will, but until
then, I've got other things to worry about.

12:50 am