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I agree with Joe. You can complain about CFINT and the interactive tax until Windows runs right; the bottom line is you're bound by IBM's contracts and licensing agreements because you agreed to the terms and conditions. While your organization is burning through millions of legal fees arguing against the basics of contract law, your competitors are investing in coders, education, development tools, and maybe even Joe Pluta's ideas. Okay, you don't like CFINT; B*F*D. Even if your contingency fee lawyer could dream up some horrible "damages", the claim would be dismissed out of hand (every contract on the planet provides protection against indirect/consequential damages and lost profits). So what are you suing for? The right to use some utility? Just wait for V5R2, when IBM will change all the internals and Fast400 won't work any more. Fast forward a couple of years and transport to the winner's circle, now occupied by IBM, your lawyers, and your competitors. Who's the loser (in the legal and juvenile sense of the word)? The ones tilting at the CFINT windmill while carrying the Fast400 banner. I don't think there are any API's available for Fast400-type functions; a reasonable interpretation of that situation, given all the other API's available and supported, is that IBM considers that area of work management an extension of several IBM-architected boundaries and concepts (trusted translator, TIMI, etc.). If it's not documented and not explicitly supported, you're using the function at your own risk. But my memory is foggy: did anybody actually use Fast400? This whole situation is surreal...look at the mystery surrounding the rise and fall of Tiger Tools. If we were approaching April 1, I'd be thinking Fast400, the Loch Ness monster, crop circles, Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, and the "Taster's Choice" couple are cut from the same cloth. Otherwise, it might be nothing more than an amusing exercise in poking IBM with a sharp stick to see if Big Blue will blink in the early 2002 announcements. Most of us will be eating turkey tomorrow; some will be eating crow when V5R2 hits! -----Original Message----- From: midrange-l-admin@midrange.com [mailto:midrange-l-admin@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Joe Pluta Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2001 11:10 PM To: midrange-l@midrange.com Subject: RE: protect your system from altered or "patched" MI programs... I'd just like to point out the facts of the situation: If you rewrite your code to run as client/server, IBM is OK with it. If you use something like my tool that makes changes at the source level to change your user interface, IBM is OK with it. If you hack the operating system to circumvent the licensing agreement, IBM is not OK with it. Moral and ethical arguments notwithstanding, the reality of the situation is that IBM is pushing us to move away from the green screen. Not that reality is always the best argument to use on this list <grin>, but it seems to me that the energy spent complaining about the situation would be better used helping work on a transition architecture. Take that with the grain of salt it deserves given my position, but it sure seems that any more conversation spent arguing about this PTF is sheer wasted effort. Joe Pluta www.plutabrothers.com _______________________________________________ This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing list To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options, visit: http://lists.midrange.com/cgi-bin/listinfo/midrange-l or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@midrange.com Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives at http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.
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