>
> Complain if you want but the reality is if you want a hobbyist license you
have
> to find a way for IBM to make money on it. Heck, you might get them to at
least
> listen to you if you could find a way for them to break-even on the
license (but
> I doubt it).
Interestingly, I am quite sure IBM doesn't make money on Linux itself.
They make their money with it in other ways. Where there is a will, there
is a way. The question is simply whether there is a will.
I was at an IBM seminar where they talked about TCP/IP vs. Token Ring. IBM
figured they would 'win' that battle because Token Ring was architecturally
superior. The finally admitted that the limitations that TCP/IP had were
simply engineering problems, and that the cost of Token Ring made it
uncompetitive. We now all use TCP/IP, however inferior it is.
MVS/VM/VSE will suffer the same fate unless IBM figures out a way to make it
cheap. I'm sure it is simply a business problem that can be solved if one
thinks 'outside the box'. For example, one could offer a completely
unsupported copy of zOS, zVM or VSE and Flex-ES for the cost of
copying/delivery/etc. with a license that says non-commercial use (Intel
does this with their Linux compilers, for example). If you want to later
develop a commercial product - you pay what everyone else pays. No loss
of revenues, as there is no support - but potentially a larger group of ISVs
later. Anyway, it seems like it has worked elsewhere for other 'inferior'
platforms... :-)
Regards,
Dean
>
> Regards,
> Jeff
> --
> Jeffrey C Barnard
> Barnard Software, Inc. http://www.bsiopti.com
> Phone 407-323-4773 Fax 407-323-4775
