> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of > Paul Gilmartin > Sent: Friday, September 29, 2023 4:26 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: PL/X > > On Fri, 29 Sep 2023 16:01:52 -0400, David Spiegel wrote: > > >Hi Peter, > >There is another solution ... make PL/xxxx available especially to > >students/enthusiasts/hobbyists. > > > does z Xplore achieve any of that?
Not at all. No PL/xxxxx is available to students on the Zxplore z/OS system. COBOL, PL/I, XLC/XLC++, HLASM, python, and a bash shell environment for Unix access. No GNU utilities, no gcc, etc. No xlclang products. > >While doing that, provide an "amateur" version of z/OS for the same > >crowd and allow *anyone* to run it on Hercules (or equivalent) on > >Intel/AMD hardware. > >It's not yet (but almost) too late to stop the Big Iron golden goose > >from dying. > >These 2 suggestions might cause a renewed interest for next generation > >mainframers. Zxplore provides some of this, though in a *very* constrained environment. Some of the "challenges" are quite educational and instructive, but you don’t get to "play around" with system-level changes, only application-level stuff (along with a few interesting devops tasks). No installing any software at all is allowed, not even python packages in a python virtual environment. Definitively NOT a vehicle for training systems programming personnel. > >(Unfortunately, however, it's 40 years too late to reverse the illogical > >OCO policy.) > > > Is the rationale to thwart users who would seek support saying, > "I made only a *little*change* in the source!" Possibly, but since most if not all of the actual PL/X code in the operating system and products is not supplied (except for some macro expansions), there is very little (likely zero) chance of that happening. > >On 2023-09-29 12:54, Peter Relson wrote: > >> Regarding PL/X documentation, wouldn't sharing such information outside of > >> IBM, in the absence of having some sort of license agreement, be "bad > >> form" (or worse)? > >> > would it be undercutting some contractual agreements or exclusive licenses? That may be more of an issue at this point, though the number of ISV's who may have licenses is probably far smaller than it once was due to vast consolidation in the ISV ranks, though I almost forgot the ISV's / outsourcers that have been hired to maintain IBM internal source. My own opinion of the root cause at this point is institutional inertia and "old think" in the IBM executive suite, quite possibly admixed with legitimate fear of bad-actor nation-states and criminal black hats. Peter This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any attachments from your system. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
