Re: slanted article "Inside System Storage -- by Tony Pearson"

--- In [email protected], Paul Raulerson <paul.raulerson@...> wrote:
>
> Facts - there have to be more facts that this. 
> Whatever else IBM may be, it is not stupid. And 
> no matter how far IBM has turned away from we 
> developers, it will always be aware of where 
> the money is. 

Of course it is. Maintaining a monopoly and
strangling competition is exactly what companies
are meant to do, both morally and financially.

It's someone else's job to break that, IBM
shouldn't have to do it themselves. Nor should
Microsoft have to be the ones to cut off their
own arm.

> It is quite possible IBM did offer someone a 
> license for z/OS on Hercules

Actually, it's quite unlikely. Otherwise it would
have come out as part of the dispute.

> For example, if they priced z/OS at say, 
> $1,000,000 per engine or more.

If IBM had come back with such a thing, you'd be
hearing the TurboHercules complaint starting off
with that figure and saying it is predatory
behaviour.  It isn't.  It's "no sale".

> Or there could be a dozen more possibilities, 
> all of which are valid from IBM's viewpoint.

Occam's Razor will tell you that the (undisputed
by IBM) TurboHercules complaint has all the main
facts in it. You can see copies of IBM's letters
too.

> Remember, IBM is pretty generous in the open 
> source department

Try putting that statement to them, and suggest
that they open source z/OS, and report back on how
successful you were.

Hell, I'll settle for just getting them to put in
writing that MVS 3.8j, which is already open-sourced,
and has no copyright notice, can be legally
redistributed.

Good luck with that one too.

Generous?  Devious!

> Which is why I repeat that there have to be more facts than this. 

Um, no, there doesn't need to be. It's all quite
well explained already. If you were IBM, wouldn't
you do exactly what they are being accused of? I
probably would. Or else I would resign, as I would
hope that I would not implement policies that are
against the best interest of IBM, after having been
paid to do so.

> Really best to be careful what we say. 
> Unproven or unprovable things about IBM will 
> come back to haunt us.

More unfounded speculation. We already are being
haunted anyway. The whole world is haunted by
IBM and Microsoft's respective monopolies. It's
unbelievable that in a world with more
(unreasonable) anti-capitalist protestors than
you can shake a stick at, that there isn't a
permanent hippy farm parked outside of IBM and
Microsoft.

> Eventually, IBM will be coming to an agreement 
> about Hercules. 

Eventually IBM will HOPEFULLY be forced by government
legislation to end its predatory anti-capitalist
practices. The biggest danger I see is numbskulls
in the government falling for the "oh, it's just
another server" lie (which they have a history of
falling for already).

> We all want that agreement to be the most 
> beneficial for the Hercules community. 

I'm after an agreement that is most beneficial
for the business community, personally. and that
should allow PSI as a competitor to both
TurboHercules and IBM.

BFN.  Paul.