I also agree strongly with most of Chris and Wayne's comments, and Dean Kent has also spoke well of the situation.
I've even prepared in one of my prototypes by already coding copious #if defined WINDOZE/#elsif statements into my C code. But I have to stress that it's not just z/OS that is attracting niche developers (*cough* z/VSE *cough* z/VM *cough* z/TPF). Random thought - I wonder what would happen if Fujitsu and Hitachi decided to release their clones of MVS and VSE to hobbyists. Yeah, yeah, there's legal agreements, etc., which probably preclude that. Later, Ray -- M. Ray Mullins Roseville, CA, USA http://www.catherdersoftware.com/ http://www.mrmullins.big-bear-city.ca.us/ > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Wayne Driscoll > Sent: Wednesday 13 June 2007 11:21 > To: IBM-MAIN@BAMA.UA.EDU > Subject: Re: Patents, Copyrights, Profits, Flex and Hercules > > Timothy, > First I agree strongly with Chris, having been there done that, porting > an application generally requires recoding (a ton of #ifdef statements > inserted into the code), and also, it doesn't answer the original > question about how does someone with an idea for a z/OS product (not a > linux product) get to develop it, without coming up with a ton of money, > or finding a company to let them write it. No offense, but if I am > going to write a linux product, I can spend less than a thousand dollars > US and get a dual core intel box and put Fedora linux on it, and I can > start writing it. Why would I give a hoot about running it on a z box, > especially if I had to pay as much per month for access as the whole > machine (that I own, can carry with me (assuming a laptop), and don't > need internet access)? As for you comments about IBM buying software > companies and putting out software (much of which is OEM'd, not written > by IBM internally btw), I think that IBM is attempting to become a > monolith on z/OS development, and killing the Flex and suing any others > is part of that strategy! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html