Tom Marchant wrote:
>Yes, AFAIK TSO is still an acronym for Time Sharing Option. Big deal.
>TSO was an option for OS/MVT. It never was an option for MVS.

Of course TSO is optional in the plain meaning of the word, beyond de
minimis use at least. That should have been clear from my Cognos example.

To pick a couple more random examples, z/OS Version 2 includes the z/OS
Font Collection and the IBM Directory Server for z/OS. Must you use those
elements? I hope you do, but no, their use is optional. They are shipped at
no additional charge with the base operating system, and surely that's a
good thing, but so what? When I use Cognos, I'm a z/OS user. I'm not a TSO
user. There are literally billions of z/OS users who are not TSO users.

As another analogy, there are also billions of Linux users. All Android
smartphone users are Linux users, for example. Only a tiny fraction of
Linux users are bash (the specific command line shell) users. A bash
restriction would only be meaningful, if it's meaningful, to bash users
specifically. Not to all Linux or all Android users. And that simple,
factual observation doesn't change whether bash is or is not sitting on the
disk (or flash memory) of the particular Linux device.

....But, don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not opposed to longer length TSO
user IDs! I wrote that I'm in favor. I recommend letting IBM know what
business problem you're not solving today that you could be solving if TSO
had longer length IDs. However, if there's no "tree falling in the woods,"
then what are we worried about? A "restriction" matters only if it, er,
restricts. Please tell IBM what actually restricts you from solving a
business problem, or at least could based on reasonable forecasts.

Tony Harminc wrote:
>I obviously wasn't clear: It's the "subsystem" part I'm asking about,
>not the "MVS" part.

Oh, OK. I would refer you to John Eells's excellent explanation. (Thanks,
John.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy Sipples
IT Architect Executive, Industry Solutions, IBM z Systems, AP/GCG/MEA
E-Mail: [email protected]

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