The following message is a courtesy copy of an article that has been posted to bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers as well.
t...@harminc.net (Tony Harminc) writes: > I don't know about a total IT budget of $38k, but in 1975 licensed software > was pretty much a novelty. The first priced version of MVS (or any other IBM > OS except perhaps ACP/TPF?) had yet to appear, and most software was written > in house. Some shops were using priced IBM software like PL/I Optimizer, or > the COBOL equivalent, and bigger places ran non-free IMS and/or CICS. And > there were priced (duh) products from other vendors, like Syncsort. But > buying run-the-business application packages was pretty rare. 23jun69 unbundling announcement started charging for software, SE services, other stuff (result of various litigation). however, corporation managed to make the case that kernel software should still be free ... misc. past posts mentioning unbundling http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundling the distraction of the FS project allowed the 360/370 product pipeline to go dry ... with the failure of FS ... some past posts http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys there was mad rush to get products back into the 370 product pipeline (both hardware & software; aka FS was planned to replace 370 something that was radically different from 370). the lack of products in the pipeline was also used to explain the clone processors being able to gain foothold in the market. as a result, there was decision to also start charging for kernel software. I had been doing 360/370 during the FS period (and even made some less than complimentary observations about the FS activity) ... somewhat as a result ... some of that stuff was picked up as part of basic vm370 release 3. There was then decision made to package up lots of my other stuff and release it as an independent "resource manager" ... nad it was selected to be the guinea pig for kernel software charging. I got to spend lots of time with business, planning, legal groups on the subject of kernel software charging. Part of the policy was that kernel software directly involved in hardware support was to remain free ... but other stuff could be charged for. The "resource manager" was shipped as separately charged for product. The pricing of such software had to at least cover the cost of the development (aka pricing couldn't be done at leas than the development cost). Getting close to release ... the work on deciding price for MVS resource manager had been done ... and the direction was that my resource manager couldn't be shipped at lower price than what was being planned for the MVS resource manager (although the MVS development costs had been enormously greater ... all the work that I had done with regard to my costs for setting price ... just went out the window). http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#fairshare http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#wsclock During the transition period, the other kernel pricing policy was that free software couldn't have prerequisite on charged for kernel software. For vm370 release 4, there was decision to release multiprocessor support (as support for hardware, would be part of the free kernel base). The problem was that I had included in my resource manager ... a whole bunch of code that multiprocessor support used. The resolution was that something like 90% of the code in my "release 3" resource manager ... was moved into the free release 4 kernel (w/o changing the price of the resource manager). http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp More & more software (both kernel & non-kernel) was being charged for. vm/370 release 6 was still free ... but had a lower-priced kernel add-on (bsepp, for entry level and midrange customers) that was subset of the higher-priced SEPP (which had absorbed my resource manager and added a bunch of other stuff). As previously mentioned, VM/SP "Release 1" marked the end of transition in kernel software pricing, BSEPP/SEPP were merged back into the base kernel ... and the whole thing became charged for (the name change also reflected change, instead of vm/370 "release 7" ... it was vm "system product" release 1 ... i.e. a charged-for product). recent posts: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#14 Happy DEC-10 Day http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#27 HONE & VMSHARE http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#39 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#42 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#43 What was old is new again (water chilled) http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#60 LPARs: More or Less? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#62 LPARs: More or Less? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#66 LPARs: More or Less? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#79 LPARs: More or Less? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#17 Senior Java Developer vs. MVS Systems Programmer (warning: Conley rant) http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#24 Unbundling & HONE http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#25 HONE Compute Intensive http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#28 What was old is new again (water chilled) http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#29 HONE & VMSHARE http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#31 What was old is new again (water chilled) http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#36 What was old is new again (water chilled) http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#42 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#50 LPARs: More or Less? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#56 z9 / z10 instruction speed(s) -- 42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
