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Has anyone actually used the Management Central->Definitions->Product feature to define a Licensed Program Product?

What a piece of junk! Here are the things I find wrong with it. Hopefully, someone who has used it successfully may have solutions or work-arounds for these problems:

1) Each optional component requires a separate library--the Software Product APIs do not impose this restriction so why does *MGTC?

2) Can't control dynamic naming of installation libraries--the Software Product APIs do not impose this restriction so why does *MGTC?

3) All options in a product must share the same licensing (i.e., Concurrent, Registered, Processor)--the Software Product APIs do not impose this restriction so why does *MGTC?

4) Can't control the product load names nor the feature codes--the Software Product APIs do not impose this restriction so why does *MGTC?

5) All paths have to exist prior to defining the product.

6) All paths have to be selected one by one--slow and painful for a complex product even if you only need to do it once.

7) Requires SEPARATE systems in order to install different languages-- haven't they heard of SECONDARY language support?

8) Can't specify the message identifiers or message file for component text descriptions (can fix this after the fact but it gets undone by the next build).

9) Can't build product as QSECOFR (how stupid is that? although this appears to be fixed on later releases)

10) End up with Q-named (i.e., IBM) objects in your product

11) Can't create cover letters for fixes.

12) There appear to be other design defects related to ownership of fixes, authority to build products, etc. but I don't have time to experiment to determine exact behavioural problems.

Seems to me this is completely useless for packaging anything other than a simple single-licence fairly basic product. Might be OK for in- house applications (although I can't see anyone going to this effort) but is useless for a proper product.

I was trying to build a product WITHOUT referring to documentation because Navigator is such an intuitive interface [sarcasm] however I ran into problems with Management Central and some of its design flaws (like storing the IP address for end-point systems instead of resolving via DNS) so I started searching for solutions to those problems and encountered the "Managing OS/400 with Operations Navigator V5R1 Volume 4: Packages and Products" Redbook. I note that it states:

"The Packages and Products component of Operations Navigator provides a function within
Management Central as a subset of the product packaging options available from System
Manager."

The operative word is "subset" so I suppose I've just answered my own append--although I do not consider "subset" sufficient justification for some of the obvious flaws in the design of this tool.

Ah well, back to using my own packaging tools ...

Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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