Bug#975496: O: hercules -- System/370, ESA/390 and z/Architecture Emulator

Package: wnpp
Severity: normal

I intend to orphan the hercules package. It's an s390(x) emulator and
the package itself is in fairly good shape overall. It's mostly that I
have no use for it for several years now. (And mostly I do not want to
feel responsible for it anymore.)

Upstream has been trying for years to get a 4.0 release together[0], but
the last commit for that was back in 2019. The website also moved around
a bunch of times. So it's unclear at this point how maintained it is, if
at all.

qemu also offers a usable s390x emulator. I'd say that hercules is a lot
more true to the original hardware, especially if you need to emulate
the platform for something else than Linux. Or if you want to emulate an
ancient System/360 or System/370.

The package's description is:

>  Hercules is an open source software implementation of the mainframe System/370
>  and ESA/390 architectures, in addition to the new 64-bit z/Architecture.
>  .
>  This means that your PC can emulate an IBM mainframe processor. The
>  mainframe can range from a 360 to a z900 - running in "System/370"
>  mode, "ESA/390" mode, or "z/Architecture" mode. Hercules executes
>  S/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture instructions and channel
>  programs. It emulates mainframe I/O devices by using PC devices. For
>  example, 3390 DASD devices are emulated by large files on your hard
>  disk, and local 3270 screens are emulated by tn3270 sessions.
>  .
>  Hercules implements only the raw S/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture
>  instruction set; it does not provide any operating system facilities. This
>  means that you need to provide an operating system or standalone program which
>  Hercules can load from an emulated disk or tape device. You will have to use a
>  free software operating system such as Linux, write the operating system or
>  standalone program yourself, obtain a license from IBM to run one of their
>  operating systems on your PC, or use IBM programs and operating systems which
>  have been placed in the public domain.
>  .
>  Virtual networking can be accomplished using the TUN/TAP driver in
>  host Linux kernel.

[0] https://github.com/hercules-390/hyperion

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iQEzBAEBCAAdFiEEPzuChCNsw7gPxr3/RG4lRTXQVuwFAl+66TkACgkQRG4lRTXQ
VuzK7gf/YgnrAkBcQXZHdZORGGj36dhRVJ1lxBCwXj/Lv75yX0soDzuNBVUB9om4
GvjAV6Jbx6r3uyPypSlaakMY6ng0Vg0L8XYj0h/J7eIuylhVBZKVXOGoGMlqfXB8
xnlS0nyZA2VgG6Qix9NXAKldYMtbJ0biWVPkDWYno7/dJwIaaW4ZWzEdVDbD9+J0
SzbtWpU/t9i0YLpvlmayjIvju2lDev7CV791v9Be8gFZ33ErBc1+Bm+e2u6Y+7Vy
DbH/DcIPg41kjo/GEqcS6iLyh2bqXFJWwzuMM197XKqihHIXKKx3ilcybgjFExyQ
Bnli8PvBT29OjtxtuDKKakrvGYqrUw==
=AKF1
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----