IBM may or may not win the patent issue. Also, I am not at all convinced that IBM will win any "Thou shalt not reverse engineer" argument.
However, I have no doubt whatsoever that IBM will prevail in respect to the terms of the IBM licensing agreement. I suggest to you that the success of that argument in the courts will be fatal to PSI. In simple terms, I believe that where PSI has a problem is that rather than using an "instruction simulator" they are translating executable IBM object code into executable Itanium object code, which is a violation of the IBM licensing agreement. The restrictions on such activities are clearly spelling out in all IBM licensing agreements. I do not have experience on a FLEX-ES system, but in the case of Hercules, no such translation occurs. Instead, each instruction is interpreted as it is encountered. As a consequence, Hercules can not achieve the performance levels achievable by real hardware Contrary to the opinions of others, I do not expect IBM vs. PSI to be long and drawn out. IBM will win on the licensing agreement. The restraining order arising out of that win in conjunction with treble damages awarded to IBM will likely make an end of PSI. John P Baker Software Engineer Both FLEX-ES and Hercules are emulators to the extent that a s/390 or z/Architecture program using only the machine instructions that are documented in the PoP cannot determine that it is not running on a native IBM box. By the way, both emulators also support several machine instructions that are not publicly documented by IBM. z/OS relies on some of those undocumented instructions. The only argument that IBM can have with any emulator provider is when the provider supports undocumented instructions. IBM got slapped with a consent decree several years ago, requiring IBM to disclose such undocumented instructions to its competitors. It was called a "TIDA" (Technical Information Disclosure Agreement) document, and it was expensive. A TIDA document looks and reads just like the PoPs description of a single machine instruction. Now that IBM doesn't have to disclose such information to plug-compatible competitors, any competitor that can successfully run z/OS must be using undocumented machine instructions. z/OS cannot run on a machine that only supports the z/PoPs machine instructions. In order to run z/OS, the competitor must use a "real" IBM box and try to reverse engineer the undocumented instructions. This was common practice in the old "consent decree" days for Amdahl and Hitachi, because for some instructions it was cheaper than paying for a TIDA document. I think the patent lawsuit will likely boil down to a "you may not reverse engineer IBM z/Architecture" complaint. It seems that PSI's only defense is to re-argue the old consent decree case, in effect, that IBM is a monopoly when it controls the hardware and the operating system. Jeffrey D. Smith Principal Product Architect Farsight Systems Corporation 700 KEN PRATT BLVD. #204-159 LONGMONT, CO 80501-6452 303-774-9381 direct 303-484-6170 FAX http://www.farsight-systems.com/ comments are invited on my encryption project ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
