On 12/20/2015 03:36 PM, Shmuel Metz (Seymour J.) wrote: > In <[email protected]>, on 12/20/2015 > at 02:57 PM, "Joel C. Ewing" <[email protected]> said: > >> No (about the "free", not about the "dead for decades"), DOS/VS was >> the last really free base (last version Release 34?). Perhaps >> technically DOS/VSE was "free", as there didn't appear to be a >> monthly licensing charge for DOS/VSE itself (Computerworld, April 30, >> 1979, p4), but in the practical sense a production DOS/VSE system was >> definitely not free as there were monthly support charges for >> DOS/VSE > Are you sure that you're thinking of DOS/VSE itself and not addons > like VSE/AF? > >> plus support charges for must-have VSE add-on components like >> VSE/Power and others. > The same could be said of DOS/VS or even of DOS/360. Those addons were > optional. > I can speak from my own knowledge only on IBM DOS/VSE not on IBM DOS/VS (prior to DOS/VSE our shop ran Itel DOS/VS on S/360 boxes), but the ComputerWorld article I referenced said that with DOS/VSE users started to pay for components that used to be free with IBM DOS/VS, one example explicitly named being VSE/Power versus Power/VS. So even if Power was optional with DOS/VS, it was apparently still free. It was also stated that more components over time would be separated off from the VSE SCP by IBM (to make them separately chargeable) and they would require both DOS/VSE and VSE/AF (also a monthly license charge) as a base for all other components. That sounds to me like multiple monthly charges could not be avoided with DOS/VSE and at least implied that had not been the case before with some users of DOS/VS. I recall our management dealing with multiple OS component software charges with DOS/VSE, but I wasn't that aware of pre-VSE system costs, which involved some 3rd-party-vendor arrangement.
-- Joel C. Ewing, Bentonville, AR [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
