On Mon, 2 Dec 2002, Adam Thornton wrote: > On Fri, Nov 29, 2002 at 03:10:23PM -0500, Peter D. Ward wrote: > > What you paint is a false dilemma. One merely needs to correspond > > with those whose posts on Hercules indicate z/VM use, from which one > > can determine that the vast majority trade illegitimately for their own > > pecuniary purposes. > > I'm not sure I believe all of this statement. > > I will grant that the majority (I'm not sure how you define "vast") of > people running z/VM on Hercules are not doing so legally; other than the > IBM folks who are entitled to use it, and myself (running on Linux/390), > I'm unaware of anyone else running z/VM legally. Still, I don't think > that the total z/VM user pool on Hercules is very large at all, and if > there are a few other people like me (or IBMmers running z/VM legally > because they're IBMmers), then "vast" may be a misnomer.
I'm not sure I agree that "the majority of people running z/VM on Hercules are not doing so legally." The peer pressure against doing so is fairly strong, and there are IBM folk there and one would assume some of those will be protective of their employers' interests. How you'd spot someone illicitly running IBM software a I don't know. I assume those writing from ibm.com addresses have the necessary approvals, but then it's not unknown for IBM people to have external email addresses. Even a check with names folk use against whois.ibm.com wouldn't produce much - I don't reveal my name on all the lists I'm on, and not for any particular reason - it's just that as an antispam measure I have an assortment of email addresses and I've not bothered to associate my name with them all. > > However, it strikes me that you may consider putting a z/VM system down > on Hercules in order to learn how to operate z/VM, and then, having done > that, selling your services as a z/VM systems programmer, to be > "pecuniary purposes." If so, then the number probably does go up quite > a bit. I don't view this as "pecuniary purposes," myself, any more than > I did learning Linux by playing with a Linux box and then being able to > eventually sell my Linux skills. Do you include self-education in > "pecuniary purposes?" I think this is something IBM should encourage. To me sure, taking action against someone doing this would be akin to IBM mugging itself. For that matter, if I were to get a copy of OS/390 and some development tools, install it all on my Athlon 1.4 and start coding, and IBM discovered it and took action against me, who would benefit? IBM's customers wouldn't benefit from any software I might develop. I'd not become a success and want to buy an IBM box to provide myself with a better test environment with all the benefits of having the real hardware instead of a pale immitation. If I were using unauthorised copies of the software, it would probably because the cost of acquiring licences was too great and the difficulty of getting no-charge licences too great. I'm not one who sees Hercules as a viable platform for keeping my business data, but for developing software my Athlon would do a fine job. -- Cheers John. Join the "Linux Support by Small Businesses" list at http://mail.computerdatasafe.com.au/mailman/listinfo/lssb
