> -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List <ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> > On Behalf Of Jon Perryman > Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2023 1:47 AM > To: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Will z/OS be obsolete in 5 years? > > IBM RHEL announced it's move to closed source (IBM RedHat Enterprise Linux). > With some changes, DB2, RACF and other z/OS products could run in Linux on > z16 in one sysplexed Linux image.
A heck of a lot of changes, for a start z/OS is EBCDIC and Linux is some modern descendant of ASCII ... ... and if they ran on Linux on Z than why won't they run on Linux on some other platform, surely only the largest players need Z.. .. although Amazon, E-Bay, Microsoft Cloud Services seem to manage without it.... > We know it's possible because IBM moved > Unix and TCP into z/OS. Did they really "move" TCP/IP & UNIX? The original TCP/IP in MVS came from VM and was written in PASCAL so not UNIX based. >From what I remember USS was written from scratch. The entry in Wikipedia >seems to confirm this, it says :- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_Services " ... It is the first UNIX 95 to not be derived from the AT&T source code. " So freshly created, not moved .... > IBM RHEL said closed source would force non-paying > customers to buy RHEL licenses but this makes no sense. As a statement, it makes perfect sense. If all else is equal it means they will receive money for something they don't at present. > Something else must be in play. Ah, a conspiracy theory. Of course other things are in play, but I believe they are more about protecting the image that "z" is different, in a good way to other platforms than moving zOS to Linux. In fact moving components from z/OS into Linux would, I believe devalue them and reduce their USPs.... > I created a survey at https://forms.gle/ZTPXsDJo8Z4H93sv7 to gain insights > into > IBM's decision to close source RHEL. You can skip the survey if you don't > want to > take it and view the survey results through this website. Feel free to pass > this > along. > I think IBM wants to integrate z/OS products to retain their investments and > expand their customer base.. Why do that. It would result in a huge loss of hardware revenue. IFLs for running UNIX are much cheaper than the CPUs needed to run z/OS. > Why is the z/OS community ignoring IBM RHEL closed source? Because its not relevant.? Is it ignoring it? > Are software vendors preparing their products for Linux? I assume that those that are relevant already have, but for any that were using free RHEL on Z to develop will now face extra charges. Will their prices go up? Will they exit the Z market. ... one last point, my question would be, is this likely to back-fire on IBM? Will it deter any one in a University or Academia from buying Z if they have to pay, or will IBM offer them a discount of 100%? Dave
