In a message dated 4/18/2007 1:23:58 P.M. Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >41. >Beginning with IBM's introduction in 1964 of its S/360 line of mainframe computers and operating systems, and continuing with subsequent model lines, IBM freely and broadly disseminated the architecture specifications of its mainframe computers and operating systems. Customers, competitors, and other third-party software and hardware developers used the information disseminated by IBM to create software and hardware products designed specifically for use with IBM's mainframe computers and operating systems. >Denied.
>How they can deny the POO (Amdahl and PSI term), I'll never know. You have to know how to parse in Legalese. 1st sentence - "freely and broadly" are not defined sufficiently. "architecture specifications" could be interpreted by IBM to mean the microchip design of their instruction processing units, memory units, etc. They might even claim that IBM did not introduce their S/360 line until 1965, and merely "announced" in 1964. This would introduce a factual error into the sentence with which they could not possibly agree. 2nd sentence - "designed specifically" how can IBM possibly know how or why a competitor did anything or for what purpose they intended a product? Perhaps the competitors designed their products as general purpose computers for several markets, only one of which was IBM's mainframe computers and operating systems. The fact that such products were used only with IBM's mainframe computers and operating systems does not prove that they could not be used with other vendors' computers and operating systems. This is like trying to prove a negative. It seems to me that paragraph 41 is a key argument to which IBM will never admit. In that case, they will invent an innumerable number of legal nuances and subterfuges to obfuscate that which was obvious to those of us with common sense and who were involved with mainframe computers back in those days. Their dissemination sure looked free and broad to me at the time. Obfuscation, smoke, and mirrors are corporate lawyers' best specialty. Bill Fairchild Plainfield, IL ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
