RE: Attention Users of *SYSTEM State -- MI400

Bruce, 

Really this sounds like, Hi I am from the IRS and I am here to help you.
This MI area is the group that is on the cutting creating products, that IBM
cannot or will not create.   In fact, I have heard from IBM many times, that
they did not know the customers needed something.  Yet we know things the
customer is asking for.  

I used to be an IBM coder, I sat in a little office overlooking the parking
lot.  How many times do you think I talked to the customer when I was there?
You are right, none.  (You can tell I was a coder, I cannot spell or do
grammar correctly.) Now, since I am free, I talk to customers almost every
day.

Now if you don't allow us to access stuff without being in the restrictive
state, then we either put the machine in the system state, or we change the
PowerPC (or whatever CPU) instructions to get access. There are less of us
than can do that. MMMMM that means the few that can do it, will be in higher
demand. But it still will be done, you can not block that access. You can
only make it harder to get to.

As an example, we have one product which processes the image tiff files.  We
were forced to make this, be cause need the speed. We tried the API, IBM
supplied.  It did not work, and no one could get it working after a year. It
was a lot easier for us to process them in the system.  A heck of lot
faster.  

One of the things now which appears to be needed, which we are working on,
is the .net communications processing.  You know Microsoft is beating your
butt on this.  Did you see their marketing, targeting the OS/400? It is a
pain to currently writing .net products on the i5. Will you be able to keep
up with Microsoft, and their wily marketing creations? 

But we can run Microsoft on the i5.  Just install Linux, then run wine. By
the way, now we don't need Rochester with their os/400.  

But in reality Microsoft doesn't work very well compared to the os/400. So
now you are giving us a choice. Either go to the bad (but it is getting
better) Microsoft code, which lets us do anything.  Or keep with a better
OS, that cannot keep up with the industry.  

Look a the history of man to see if this type restrictions work. How about
the Soviets?  They tried to control their society, to make it safer and run
better. Who decided what happens, the elite at the top.  Sound familiar. 

I worked at IBM, everything was done by committees. Want to change one thing
on the screen, it takes 25 people 2 days to decide to do it, and takes one
programmer 30 seconds to change. 

Personally, I feel this decision is aimed at people like fast400.  Someone
(we all love) beat your butt by showing the world IBM did not have an
interactive processor, but an interactive governor which actually penalized
customers very severely for being loyal as/400 customers. IBM gives
customers almost a 50% price break, if they don't use the os/400.  But you
loyal customers which have been with you for 15 years, then get high 100%
OS/400 tax.  Now that is a great way to keep your customers. Do we get
frequent flyer miles too? 

Right now there is a lot of rumblings in the market, the os/400 is going
away.  I was in a meeting 2 days ago. The customer is one of the largest
insurance companies in the world.  They actually want to develop with .net.
(Microsoft), because they don't feel the os/400 will last.  This is not the
only customer either.   You might not have to worry about the operating
system in 2 years, if the customers keep thinking this way.

I personally think IBM management needs to pull their head out (of
somewhere), and start looking at the industry and come up with new products
which are better. Not restrict things. 

Oh yea, you created Websphere AS for the 400. Fire it up on a large i5, and
there goes the performance. Why do you think there are so many competitors
of the product?  We wrote our own http server to handle web screens.  Guess
which is more efficient. By about 10,000%. We just took sockets, and wrote
HTML from port 80.  Our HTML server does not have any security holes. How
can I be so confident, we didn't write it to run programs, but just respond
with data. Why cannot IBM spend time doing this, instead of using their
resources to restrict us.  Oh yea, it is the system integrity at stake.

Another customer need's a copy of the government terrorist list every day.
(OFAC). It is on their web site.  Does IBM have any easy tools to grab it
and put it in a database? Of course not.  We either have to write it
ourselves, use Microsoft, or do it manually.  Have you bothered to read the
information on IBM's XML processor.  Now talk about something that will put
you to sleep, read that manual. But is IBM changing that, NO, they want to
make the system more reliable. 

Will this change you are doing stop the Arbiter(sp) from locking up any
more? We have a customer who has theirs lock up three times on them.  Only
solution as we all know is reboot.  Isn't that Microsoft's solution to most
problems?  This security will stop all of that, right? But, this action is
being taken to enable a leap forward in the system's
already-strong reliability and integrity.  (HUH)


This action is being taken to enable a leap forward in the system's
already-strong reliability and integrity. The highest levels of reliability
and integrity cannot be achieved, even with extensive design and testing,
if unknown code is accessing operating system control blocks and internal
functions. For example, synchronization protocols used for accessing
operating system data structures cannot be effective unless all accessing
code uses those protocols. In addition, system state code that's not part
of the operating system can degrade customer control of objects, because
some functions perform reduced authority checking for system state code.

You really should be a politician. Name me one time over the last 15 years,
when my code or anyone's code from the MI world's caused this?  I am
waiting.  It will be less than 10 instances.  Now tell me how many times
someone switched to Microsoft, because it is easier to use Microsoft?  You
resources are heading in the wrong direction.


Quit making Fort Knox stronger, and give us quick and easy tools to be
competitive.  The first one I can think of, give us socket tools which
process sockets for us. Don't make us parse, or search in the stream for us.
Just give us the record that is sent.  Give us an function in RPG to
%SENDIPRCD or %RCVIPRCD. Turn the ip programming nightmare into something
bulletproof, and free us to do other things.  But yes.  No guarantee can be
made that all requested interfaces will be provided.



One of the most effective things we have done is access the crypt function.
We can do DES and 3DES, Industry standards for over 30 years.  Where are
those API's. Oops, you forgot them. There are in MI. Where are they located
beside MI?  In fact IBM invented DES in 1968, I think. It is in the MI
instructions to access, but where is the API.  It has been a banking
industry standard for over 35 years.  Where is the API? But yes you have to
make the operating system more secure.  

My point is that with more restrictions, you limit our ability to be
creative and inventive.  I think the manager who decided close the already
closed system,   was the same one who closed the patent office in the
1800's.  Remember everything that could be invented, had been invented? Is
that the same thinking here, if it hadn't been invented, then you are not
letting us invent it on the os/400, unless IBM decides we need it. 

Isn't that just like the last government health proposal?  You are not sick,
unless the government says you are sick?  We don't need something, unless
IBM thinks we need it.  Remember the IBM slogan from years ago?  THINK



Why do I complain so much? I think the OS/400 is one of the best operating
systems ever made. But I thought this about my grandpa's model A Ford too. I
want it to stay around, I do not want to be Microsoft's little Bitch.  

So wakeup, smell the coffee, and give us tools to be more competitive, and
leave the operating system integrity alone. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.


Harry 



P.S. Now, don't nick pick, I know some of these are not going to be affected
by the system state. They are used for examples. Let us invent. You IBM, we
create applications for customers. 








     





-----Original Message-----
From: mi400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:mi400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Bruce Vining
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 10:16 AM
To: MI Programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: [MI400] Attention Users of *SYSTEM State





Within two years IBM plans to remove the i5/OS ability to restore system
state programs not digitally signed by IBM. Only programs provided by IBM
will be able to use system state. Any other system state programs will have
to be changed to use supported interfaces accessible from user state.

It is anticipated that some new application programming interfaces will be
needed to allow user state access to some functions that can now be
accessed only from system state. If you find that you need such a new
interface, please send your request to bvining@xxxxxxxxxxx

No guarantee can be made that all requested interfaces will be provided.
However, the sooner your needs are known, the more likely an interface can
be supplied to meet them.

This action is being taken to enable a leap forward in the system's
already-strong reliability and integrity. The highest levels of reliability
and integrity cannot be achieved, even with extensive design and testing,
if unknown code is accessing operating system control blocks and internal
functions. For example, synchronization protocols used for accessing
operating system data structures cannot be effective unless all accessing
code uses those protocols. In addition, system state code that's not part
of the operating system can degrade customer control of objects, because
some functions perform reduced authority checking for system state code.

Thank you for checking your programs very soon if this integrity
enhancement might affect them!

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