Re: News - Commercial Version of Hercules - Turbo Hercules

--- In [email protected], "Dave Wade" <g4ugm@...> wrote:
>
> >I am not familiar with timing issues. As was pointed
> >out (I think), they appear to have filed the patent 
> >years after the instruction was created and people
> >were already emulating it. But even assuming that
> >their timing is acceptable, and they're allowed to
> >patent something after people have spent a lot of
> >effort creating it - WHAT OTHER FRIGGIN CHOICE
> >IS THERE TO MAKE A COMPATIBLE MACHINE TO RUN Z/OS
> >AND ITS APPLICATIONS??? IBM asserting this is
> >simply saying "we don't want any competition for
> >our hardware, so you can't run z/OS software on
> >anything other than our hardware".
> 
> Well at this point in time yes. The reasons there were Plug Compatible
> Mainframes was because IBM was covered by Anti-Trust legislation which
> required it to license and documents its systems and interfaces. 

In this case, we don't greatly care that IBM isn't
being forced to document its interfaces. They have
published their interface of their own free will
anyway - otherwise their customers can't use it.

There are some things that aren't documented very
well (DIAG?) but we can apparently live without
that for the time being.

> These days
> that is no longer the case, and at present IBM has not only refused to
> license any emulator to run 64-bit code, but it refused to 
> renew FunSofts
> licenses for Flex effectively rendering many IBM CUSTOMERS 
> investment in in null and void. 

Ok, well I guess we've got an exact repeat of that
then.

> It also bought PSI to avoid licensing code to them, and is in
> litigation with Neon over the use of speciality engines for running
> non-authorized code..
> 
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/15/neon_zprime_ibm_lawsuit/
> 
> If you follow the threads on IBM-MAIN and IBMVM lists you will see that many
> people on there believe that there is something fundamentally different
> about the way z Series mainframes are built which makes them more reliable,
> and therefore have a higher business value. If it allowed emulation IBM
> would be sending out "mixed messages" so it bans them.

This would not be a message from IBM, mixed or
otherwise. They have no right to stop others
from creating.

BFN.  Paul.