Timothy, I agree, except:
1) Its not simple :-) 2) The ported tools and toys are not "released by IBM as a product". I still don't believe that IBM has released any GPL-licensed z/OS tools as "products". Probably my fault... it would have been more clear if I would have said "supported products". IMO, this is one of the big problems with z/OS Unix .... other *nix implementations include a much better set of tools, such as the GNU tools. Take for example "bash". This is the most popular *nix shell, licensed under GPL, but it is not included with z/OS. Other *nix vendors ship their systems with a nice set of tools, and either fully support them, or in some cases have a "managed" support clause which is something less than "full support". See for example: http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/freeware/ Where, you will notice that many of the open source GPL tools are listed as "managed support": "m = managed: Sun provides existing patches and escalates new bugs to the developer community." Compare this to the z/OS Unix "tools and toys"... they are woefully incomplete and out of date. Kirk Wolf Dovetailed Technologies On Dec 20, 2007 12:42 AM, Timothy Sipples <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Kirk, I tried to phrase my (limited) answer succinctly yet accurately, but > it seems I didn't entirely succeed. > > The case you're describing is where the original author of the code (Sun > in > this case) (also) releases their code under non-GPL terms. In that case, > it's not "GPL code," is it? :-) (That specific code isn't.) Thus my > explanation doesn't apply -- I wasn't explaining anything about how code > under different licenses works. I was explaining how "GPL code" works, and > that specific code isn't GPL. > > If IBM or anyone else bases their work off the GPL source, then my > explanation does apply. It really is that simple. > > Yes, IBM has done some GPL-related work on z/OS. Here's some: > > http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/zos/unix/bpxa1ty1.html > > I believe you'll find several on the list with GPL licenses, or at least > licenses that are comparable to the GPL for purposes of this discussion > (i.e. which assure access to source code), e.g. emacs. > > But you did expand our knowledge. So you say that Sun's Java(TM) is > available under non-GPL terms. Thus we can conclude there is no assurance > that derivatives (from IBM, Sun, or anyone else) of the non-GPL code will > be available in source code form. That directly addresses the "I don't > know" part of my answer -- the first sentence :-) -- and I'm grateful for > that. Thanks. > > - - - - - > Timothy Sipples > IBM Consulting Enterprise Software Architect > Specializing in Software Architectures Related to System z > Based in Tokyo, Serving IBM Japan and IBM Asia-Pacific > E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > 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 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
