Re: Have you read this?

[boldt@xxxxxxxxxx]

L.S. wrote:
>You mean that magazines like, Linux Journal, Linux World, Maximum Linux
>.... are totally user supported? You mean that all those ads I see for
>Vmware, Corel, and Asante systems are all paid for by individual users?
>I think not.
>Yes, linux hackers donate a large amount of code to their community but
>it is Major companies like Red Hat, Yellow Dog, Caldera and Corel who
>insure that linux receives the attention it has been getting of late.
>Red Hat dumped a large chunk of the profits from sale of their distro
>back into r&d, have begun to provide software like Applixware at a
>price.
>So IBM spends much more in development, and marketing of the AS/400 as
>compared to the linux crowd, given the current status of the 400 what
>does that say about IBM's marketing department?

I think you have it backwards.  All of these companies you mention
came about as a result of the success of Linux.  They did nothing
to bring Linux to the forefront - its users did.  Once Linux was
viable enough for businesses to get involved with, they did, but
not before.


>As with any OS at some point users are the best resource for information
>and documentation. But it appears you are asking us to do IBM's job.
>Make OS/400 open source, make RPG open source. Then, if we fail to
>achieve the heights of the linux crowd, you can moan till your hearts
>content.

Our job is to provide tools and support for those tools.  But RPG
programmers need more, things like robust service programs.
Service programs for doing web pages and financial applications.
How much are you willing to pay IBM for these kinds of extras?
To a great extent, we leave this up to others.  In most cases in
the AS/400 world, the additional functionality is provided by other
companies.  If you don't want to code up some package for free, then
why not develop one for sale?  But please don't expect IBM to do
everything for you.

Although my bosses have other opinions, personally, I have no
objections to making RPG open-source.  But how many RPG programmers
would have the necessary compiler skills to maintain it?

Cheers!  Hans

Hans Boldt, ILE RPG Development, IBM Toronto Lab, boldt@ca.ibm.com


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