If anyone feels like e-mailing me the PDF of the redbook with* the hercules
stuff in it, please do.
|---------+---------------------------->
| | Mike Ross |
| | <mross666@hotmail|
| | .com> |
| | Sent by: Linux on|
| | 390 Port |
| | <[EMAIL PROTECTED]|
| | IST.EDU> |
| | |
| | |
| | 04/15/2002 11:13 |
| | AM |
| | Please respond to|
| | Linux on 390 Port|
| | |
|---------+---------------------------->
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|
|
| To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
|
| cc:
|
| Subject: Re: OK who messed with the redbook?
|
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> > As of (apparently) March 21st, the Redbook has been revised (without
> > incrementing the version number, contrary to normal IBM
> > practice), and *all*
> > references to Hercules have been carefully expunged!
> > Anyone with a clue what's going on? Suspicious of rewriting history!
>
>Pure speculation, but I would guess that Hercules has gotten far enough up
>into IBM's radar in terms of licensing and intellectual property
>"borrowing"
>that they may be compelled to do something about it, and publishing
>information like this in a IBM-sponsored publication is tacitly
encouraging
>such activities so the lawyers probably jumped on someone's head and had
>the redbook quickly revised before some smart sea-lawyer grabbed onto it
as
>a copyright/intellectual property dilution.
There might be something in that, but it strikes me very much as 'locking
the stable door' if that was the thought process which occured: the redbook
in question has been out for over six months. Pulling the Hercules
references now seems pointless. Also, if IBM had substantive IP concerns
about Herc (and there's no reason to suspect that they do), they would go
after Jay, Roger, and the lead developers, not just pull references from a
redbook!
>The question now in *my* head is whether IBM will make the intelligent
>choice: a hobbyist license or certification of Hercules for purchase of a
>regular license, or the dumb choice: unleashing the lawyers and trying to
>have Hercules eliminated via legal action. Let's hope it's the former --
it
>would do wonders for the acceptance of the 390 as a viable application
>architecture again.
That question has been in a lot of peoples heads for some time, and I can
think of very few people who would disagree with you. If they were foolish
enough to go for the latter option - use legal muscle to shut down a very
successful open-source operation (or try to shut it down; it would just go
overseas, it ain't going away!) - they would loose a hell of a lot of the
goodwill capital they've built up in the open-source community.
Mike
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