RE: Attention Users of *SYSTEM State

Wow, I love your post, Harry! I don't agree with many of your assertions, 
but truly appreciate the loyalty evidenced by the impassioned prose. 
Having worked directly on this system and its predecessors for most of my 
career, I too understand that it's special.

A line-by-line debate probably wouldn't be productive for either of us, 
but I'd like to make the following points so you and others better 
understand the reasoning behind this change. First, Bruce didn't author 
the post, nor did some manager decide that better integrity is the way to 
go. Real customer problems motivate this change. The language in the post 
isn't political; it's what we're actually planning to accomplish. We're 
also very sincere about providing an opportunity to improve the system 
with additional application programming interfaces. Please request 
interfaces with as much specificity as possible, so it's clear what the 
exact needs are. 

Please don't dismiss this request by assuming you'll work around this 
change. Integrity improvements are ongoing and most aren't preannounced. 
This change could affect applications with legitimate purposes implemented 
by unsafe means, and we all want useful applications to continue to be 
successful. That's why this notice is being put out before the change is 
made.

A cornerstone of iSeries systems is their integrity, where integrity is 
defined as doing what the system is designed to do, and only those things. 
Is the system integrity impervious? No, there's no such computer system in 
existence. On the other hand, iSeries integrity and reliability are 
already very strong in most ways. We strive to keep that advantage, yet 
integrity is not static; continual improvements must be made in order to 
maintain or improve upon it, as the uses and users of computer systems 
change. You implied that resource applied to improving integrity should be 
used for other purposes. The particular system change noted in Bruce's 
post will take very little development resource. Providing new interfaces 
may take significant resource. So, this change isn't about doing things on 
the cheap; it's investment in doing things the "right" way, which benefits 
everyone in the long run. Creative people such as many of the readers here 
can be innovative without potentially compromising the design and 
implementation of the operating system. 

You issued a challenge to name specific instances of problems caused by 
system state use by applications. I assure you they have occurred, but of 
course I won't break the confidence of those customers by naming them. You 
also asked for new tools to be more competitive. Here's your chance to ask 
for specific, helpful interfaces. Please take full advantage of it, to 
help all of us who want this computer system to continue to succeed.

Paul Godtland
IBM Rochester
(not IBM's official voice)