I'm still here, though not posting much these days. I pulled out my source file
-- about 1 1/2 inches thick, including SHARE SSD (SHARE Secretary's
Distribution, as opposed to solid state device!) #349 from August 1986, and
SHARE 64 Session #0042, "All Your Fears are Sourceless" (report of the VM
Source Committee). But I don't think Wikipedia accepts my file cabinet as
secondary source (that word again!). Plus clippings, etc. I'll see whether
anything useful I have is available online -- though it's likely all from 1980s
so might not be conclusive proof of current status.
On Thu, 14 Apr 2022 11:23:09 -0400, Tony Harminc <t...@harminc.net> wrote:
>On Thu, 14 Apr 2022 at 07:37, Seymour J Metz <sme...@gmu.edu> wrote:
>
>> I'm editing the wikipedia [[Operating system]] article, and another editor
>> has challenged the sentence "The logic manuals for their contemporary
>> descendants, z/VM, z/VSE and z/VM, are not available to the general public."
>> What are the relevant URLs for IBM's policy? Thanks.
>
>The OCO (or more subtle) status of current software is in the
>announcement letters. Using IBM URLs as a reference is a bit of a
>trap, because IBM so frequently removes and rearranges things, and
>seems to have a global robots.txt that prohibits pretty much
>everything.
>
>It's not obvious to me that the existence of published logic manuals
>aligns with the OCO status of a product. IIRC many products that were
>not OCO have still had logic manuals withdrawn in favour of
>"diagnostic guides" and the like. At the same time some of those
>diagnostic books are remarkably detailed, and the logic is described
>or can be inferred even though the source code is not available.
>
>I also seem to remember some discussion of this on this very list,
>including the definitions of terms like "restricted materials of IBM",
>"object code only", and so on. I'm not finding them in a quick search,
>but one thing that did come up is a 2018 post from Gabe Goldberg, who
>said he had "my OCO file -- a decade or so worth of material
>documenting IBM's folly removing source code ("Object Code Only" for
>those who didn't live through it). " Might be worth contacting him.
>I'm not sure he's still active on this list, but g...@gabegold.com
>looks to be current.
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