> -----Original Message-----
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2005 3:32 AM
> To: IBM-MAIN@BAMA.UA.EDU
> Subject: Wouldn't it be WIKI and SourceForge time?
>
> Hi all gentle listers,
> I'm a MVS/OS390/zOS professional for many years (oops more than 25, but
> STILL under 50 ;-).
> One thing that bothers me for at least 2-3 years, following many
> discussions about the future of the "MVS"-Platform, is the slow adoption
> rate to new technologies for OUR use.
First question of CEO/CFO/CIO/Board of Directors: Where is the profit in
it? Does it increase market share/reduce expenses/increase revenue?
Business purpose first, technology purpose later. Slow adoption has much
more to do with business reasons than retrograde technologists (i.e., us).
*Some* of us are doing this "stuff" ourselves, just not on our employer's
time or equipment, since they do not seem interested in it.
> If we (the IBM-MAIN community, the most valuable source at all) would
> adopt faster to WIKI's (as a knowledgebase) and/or SourceForge (sorry to
> CBT) our loved OS would be much more attractive to newbies.
> I know, this sounds like a call to revolution. But please take it as a
> recommendation to evolution.
Cart before horse. What advantage is WIKI over IBM-MAIN and other mailing
lists? What added benefit would list members or lurkers get (other than
experience using WIKI, which can be gotten elsewhere)?
Sourceforge is a wonderful resource and community. Today, NONE of the tools
used to make/build/test software in that (sourceforge) world can help you
when you have to update a CICS COBOL program to fix a bug, or get a patch
from IBM for the operating system and apply it across 20 LPAR's with no
disruption of business. Under z/OS, the *ix tools aren't even standard GNU
tools, (though that situation is improving, slowly, as ports are completed),
and most of those tools ONLY apply to the Unix Services environment and file
systems. None of them helps in the daily jobs our employers pay us to
perform. Not yet, anyway.
CAN something like sourceforge be used to perform controlled maintenance of
CICS COBOL and the other MVS projects we must support? Yes, they *can*, but
unless IBM writes it, promotes it, and supports it, no business manager is
going to allow you use it. Too much business and career risk.
It has very little to do with technology and everything to do with business.
> IBM has moved very fast (compared to IBM 10 years ago) to internet
> standards and has donated really huge amounts of man years to the open
> source community (see Eclipse, CloudScape, ICU and many many others).
> Are'nt we obliged to do the same? It is'nt hard to maintain a WIKI or to
> use CVS or Subversion. Why don't we do that?
> Even IBM went to uci.sourceforge.net for it's Unicode libraries.
Just NOT for their installed base of batch programs and transaction
processing. And it *is* hard to use CVS for anything when you can't compile
CICS COBOL and link to a standard PDS LOADLIB for testing and QA and
Production. There aren't any "promotion" tools available for standard
change control procedures that all mainframe businesses MUST use (especially
ISO 9000 shops).
> Please, don't get me wrong (I'm not an employee of wikipedia or
> sourceforge and never will be :-). CBT is ok but incompatible with
> anything else than "MVS" and pretty much the DINO style.
When z/OS Unix Services is indistinguishable from a standard GNU linux (and
not just posix) environment AND supports appropriate interfaces to current
MVS technology (i.e., transparent access to MVS/EBCDIC files and data from
all utilities), then maybe there will be a need/desire for a sourceforge
equivalent of CBT. Until then CBT does the job. It isn't broken, so
there's no need to fix it, much less replace it.
> Sort of the same is true to Share and and the DinoRing (no offense
> please). But {things are changing} faster as I really thought befor
> entering Java/Eclipse and other really powerfull technologies.
> If we want to survive, WE better should adopt.
When there is a profitable business reason to do it, then it will happen.
Not before.
> Serious discussions (and opposite views) are very welcome.
> Peter
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