Hello!
I remember, just not the content of the conversation, one with an
IBMer when they certified Linux as one of their guests, a discussion.
We met over lunch that day, and spent the time talking. Finally the
subject of Hercules came up, he commented that the company was
considering legal action against the emulator. ( believe it was
finally quashed when they found out it was a perfect teaching vehicle.
I raised the subject of VM/370 release 6. I'd asked about having the
company release all of the product, not just the bits we had already.
He said no. I asked why. He raised several reasons, none of which made
sense to me then or now.
I suspect that if someone had the entire collection of the product
here, and MVS/370, which eventually became the release most of you
run, and made it available directly. Nothing would happen immediately.
It would only happen if someone from IBM did see it announced here.
Which is why we need to be very careful regarding that example of Z/OS
on Mr. Peabody's systems and be even more so regarding its use. (I do
not need to explain that connection now do I?)
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8@...
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."
On Tue, Nov 24, 2020 at 12:00 AM Jeffrey Melton via groups.io
<melman74@...> wrote:
[Edited Message Follows]
[Reason: EDIT: MVS/XA was released in 1983, not 1981.]
I don't claim to be a legal expert, but I am a subscriber to Moshix's YouTube channel, where only a year or two ago Moshix and a number of other hobbyists were formally engaged with IBM, attempting to persuade them to release to our community the distribution and source for MVS/XA, a vintage 1983 release.
IBM turned them down flat.
So I myself would definitely assume nothing regarding IBM's allowing a vintage 2011 release of Z/OS somehow finding its way to a well-known public domain site.
Put another way, if it WERE legal, we would certainly be hearing about it, most of all from IBM themselves, as it would be to IBM's great PR advantage to publicize such a massive release of proprietary intellectual property to the public domain. Does such a press release exist? Not that I've been able to Google...
As I don't want the legal department of Big Blue knocking on my door anytime soon, I'll be sticking to MVS 3.8j and the other known public domain OSs until I hear differently from IBM.
And this space belongs to Lando Calrissian because he bought it.
