OK, that's enough.

Roger Bowler

Oct 7, 2001

Up till 5 months ago, this forum was a friendly place for reasonable,
and generally informed, technical discussion. Since then, the
content has degenerated, a significant proportion of the traffic now
consisting of name calling and point scoring rather than anything of
substance. Postings containing words like "juvenile", "obfuscation",
"rubbish", and "get a grip" are, in my judgement, designed to provoke
angry responses, of which we have just seen an extreme example. In
return, Phil has been described as "pompous", "disingenuous", and
"combative".

This is not the purpose of this forum.

While it is valid to raise a relevant point for discussion, as Phil
Payne first did in May, the constant reiteration of the same point in
a hostile and provocative style indicates to me an intention to annoy
and disrupt the group with noise rather than an intention to help.
It is my judgement therefore that, on balance, this forum functions
better without Phil's contributions. I invite Phil to move his
discussion to another list.

Fish's posting, incidentally, while it may contain some valid points,
is expressed in language unacceptable in this forum.

Now let's get back to doing something useful.
Roger Bowler

9:23 am

Re: OK, that's enough.

gah@...

Oct 7, 2001

First of all, while I would never post anything like what
Fish posted, I was happy to see it here. It does seem that
the discussion has gone on long enough, and someone needed to
end it. Now, maybe it shouldn't have gotten to that point,
but that is a different question.

It is possible that hercules infringes on IBM patents.
That is, unfortunately, the way the patent process works.

There are many products that we use every day that infringe
on patents. Some for patents that never should have been
granted in the first place, others that are so ambiguous
that no-one will ever know for sure.

The way the patent process works is that, if someone believes
that a patent is wrong, that is, should not have been granted,
one must put down millions of dollars to prove it in court,
and the other side millions of dollars to defend it. In many
cases it isn't worthwhile for either side to do that, so it
doesn't happen.

Hercules-370 should not infringe any patents, as S/370 is
older than the patent lifetime. Hercules-390 may, but as
it currently exists, the main use would be to run
licensed OS's, and then other questions come in.

I would doubt that there would be a business model running
Linux on Hercules. Some of us find it fun to do, but Linux
runs well on so many other machines that most development
could be done just as well on the other machines.
If the final port is worth doing, someone with a P/390
can do it. That would only be necessary if IBM sent
"cease and desist" letters to anyone actually running
Linux on Hercules, and that doesn't seem likely.
If they are running it to port to L/390 that could only
be seen as positive for IBM.

So, I agree with Fish, even though I wouldn't write what he did.
IBM knows about Hercules, if there was a question about it we
should have heard about it by now. We are all doing this
because we like IBM, not because we don't.

(I do know people who run Microsoft OS's but who don't like
Microsoft. I don't think that applies in this case.)

-- glen

4:50 pm