We reserve names in the A-I range for IBM products. Things starting with
J-Z can be assigned to others by request to [email protected].
The reason to assign prefixes at all is to avoid the problems we once
had with more than one IBM product using the same names for different
things. For example, I seem to recall that z/OS and IMS might both have
"WTO" macros. By extension, other software vendors can ask for prefixes
so their part names don't collide with those supplied by others who
"play nice."
As some products have very old part names that were chosen ahead of this
standard, they are "grandfathered" and not required to rename their
parts. For example, we have no plans to ever rename TSO/E's "SEND"
command even though it starts with an "S" or to rename the
aforementioned WTO macro. But as the list of those things is (or should
be) static, and people know or can discover them with reasonable ease,
what we have is some level of protection against the introduction of new
parts that will have naming conflicts with each other.
I have never asked, and several people have been on the other end of
that e-mail address over the years and might have done it differently,
but prefixes are quite possibly chosen on a next-one-available basis
most of the time. Historically, some packagers both inside and outside
IBM have asked for (and gotten) prefixes they wanted, but I think most
just "ask for a prefix" and use whatever they get, so they don't
actually stand for anything in particular. Once in a while, someone
decides they don't like the prefix assigned and asks for another.
(However, I rather doubt that we've ever tried to assign "BAD," or "IRK"
to anyone, or ever would!)
Of course, other collisions are possible for which no prefixes are
assigned. FMIDs come to mind. For FMIDs, we always use H or E for base
functions and J or F for dependent functions but we have no way to help
prevent cross-vendor FMID naming conflicts.
[email protected] (John McKown) wrote:
Hearsay from a past email which I remember from an IBM'er is that IBM
reserved a number of prefixes which start with a particular alphabetic
for themselves and another set guaranteed "for users" (would never be
used by IBM). He also said that the 3 character prefix was assigned by
"somebody" within IBM at their own whim. I.e. they are just picked "at
random" and don't really mean anything.
--
John Eells
z/OS Technical Marketing
IBM Poughkeepsie
[email protected]
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