RE: Getting legal! -- MIDRANGE-L

At 01:41 PM 7/29/02 -0400, you wrote:

>Even if I scratch back to a prior release, or even the release that came
>with the box, I still don't think I'm running legally.

This is really sad. Only a select few probably really know all the details.
I usually am not for law suites, but I hope there is one over IBM's lack of
detail on this. And I have read my license agreements. Called IBM key
center. How many people know where the proof of entitlement (POE) is? How
many know you are to destroy the previous version (the opposite of
Microsoft). Who knows what it takes to transfer an LPP to another company?
Another AS400 in the same company. What happens if an employee gets a hold
of a previous version of a POE and sells it? I am thinking trouble for the
company, but does IBM even have a way to track them, they do have numbers
on them. Do companies selling old AS/400's even know there maybe more value
in the Software then the hardware if it is licensed to that AS/400 and can
be transferred.  How about if you go from a P30 to a P10 could you sell the
P30 software and buy P10 software? I can see why you would not want to but
can you? And if you can transfer software now should it be considered an asset.

On the July 23rd call someone said what was he going to do with software on
his old AS/400 it was worthless. Did anyone at IBM say now wait you might
be able to sell your software if you meet these requirements your software
maybe worth something.

And this all goes back to when the software could not be transferred. You
bought it, it was yours.



>This is unfortunate. I would like to be able to run the latest OS, but can't
>afford to pay IBM for developing things I don't want and will never use.
>I'm not against paying for what I'm using--I'm one of those people that even
>pays for shareware. On the other hand, this is a hobby system with no money
>being made from it with a potential tools developer working on it, and from
>the responses I've gotten here, IBM just doesn't seem to care--except about
>their money.

Companies are in business to make money. Just because you do not charge an
amount for anything you are doing with the AS/400, does not mean you could
not learn from using it and get a bigger salary because of that knowledge.
And who would police this.

IBM offers discount for developers  http://www.developer.ibm.com/


>How is it they can get away with sticking your machine into a processor
>group, but not adjusting the pricing for age? Don't extremely different
>(CPW-wise) machines end up in the same group? Do they want all the old
>machines in landfills? This is just silly. They are shooting themselves in
>the foot by not supporting the little guy. This isn't Windows we're talking
>about. This is a platform with extreme differences in performance and
>software should be priced to match.

It is called tiered pricing, without the age factor. Ok lets say IBM says
ok lets put an age factor in the price of software. Now instead of a
customer buying a 250 they buy a 510 because now the hardware and software
are dirt cheap.

I agree there has to be a happy medium between ripping off customers and
giving away the farm.

John Ross