Re: open sourcing discontinued offerings

From: Bob Crothers <bob2@CStoneIndy.com>

> Hmmm,  isn't this exactly one of things Microsoft was raked over the coals
> for not that long ago?

IBM will vigorously claim the "they" are not a monopoly (as Microsoft
tried to say) although one could argue that on the AS/400 platform
IBM has the same advantages of "inside" knowledge as Microsoft
on Windoze and that IBM therefore is a de facto monopoly for
the captive users that can't afford to rewrite everything to move
off the platform.

>
> From: Jill Aitoro <jilla@iseriesnetwork.com>
> > doesn't open source it's OV/400 product, since it's not making money on
it
> > anymore anyway. I looked into it, and it appears the product is too
> tightly
> > integrated with the operating system.
>
> and there is the rub. Because of the tight integration, IBM would have to
> tell the open source people (and everybody else) about all these hooks
> into the OS that they don't people to know about. This limits the number
> of people making software for the box, but hat seems to be alright with
> IBM.
>