To whoever wants to listen...
I was asked to have a call with Todd Britton, Vince Kerhin, and Alison
Butterill to discuss some of the recent activity around WDSC 7.0 packaging.
Of course it was mostly my personal concerns that I brought up and I wasn't
necessarily representing this community, though I think my opinions are in
alignment with most who are disgruntled.
I noted my displeasure concerning the totally-out-of-wack $4K+ price tag on
the two AE features and gave them ideas on how to resolve it (immediate
withdrawal of the price tag to $0k for the tech preview, put both features
in standard edition, send letter to community recognizing the snafu IBM
introduced stating it's mistake, include any disclaimers of future "per
feature" pricing).
We talked briefly about access to WDSC in general. A possible situation
brought up would be to have the standard edition freely available for
download from ibm.com. The potential problem is that WDSC is currently
bundled with a bunch of Java tooling that would then be free to whomever was
so inclined to visit ibm.com (if they could find it ;-). I recommended that
they simply package all the RPG/iSeries related features as the base install
and simply require WDSC to license itself to a iSeries (any iSeries) for
validation that it is in fact an iSeries customer using the tooling. Note
that you would still get a lot more from the WDSC base install than
RPG/iSeries related things (i.e. XML/WSDL/XSD related editors for instance)
as those aren't really a strategic direction for IBM as they are freely
available in the base eclipse install with free plugins.
I relayed my thoughts for how WDSC should be licensed also. The main thing
they need to do is have the initial entry into WDSC be free so programmers
can see the ROI and relay it to upper management. When management can
physically see something more easily built with WDSC, and learn how much
LESS time it took, they can then start justifying different costs. I
recommended initial copies (up to 5) be absolutely free, which would
facilitate adoption by smaller shops that don't have large checkbooks, and
get it in the hands of developers to try out for the larger shops. Then the
larger shops that have the money to pay for ROI can get out their checkbooks
for developers over 5. Obviously they would have to be creative and jive
with what customers are already paying in regards to 5722WDS.
We kinda took a rabbit trail down the path of EGL/Java discussing how those
are IBM's visionary cash cow. I still feel IBM is shooting themselves in the
foot as they are encouraging people to be "cross platform" when I am
thoroughly enjoying being locked on the iSeries with RPG (I have second to
none features in most areas)! At the end of the day I simply want 1/100th
of the Java/Rational budget to be put into next generation _native_ RPG
tooling. When you think of 1/100th of the budget Java/Rational gets please
remember all of the work being done at places like AlphaWorks and
DeveloperWorks (
http://alphaworks.ibm.com/ and
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/ respectively) - that's a lot of money
being thrown at Java development and essentially money being thrown at
"cross platform".
In the end the conversation was fairly transparent which I loved (vs.
generic/political emails like the one most of us received). They have
intentions of fully "righting" their wrongs and I believe them. I told them
that the proof will be in the pudding though:-) Righting the wrongs might
not be the end result most have in their minds (i.e. no addtl charge
software), but it will be much better than $4k price tags. I am of the
mindset that if paying a little extra for features that give solid ROI means
I get new functionality in 1 year vs. 5 years then I am open to that. We
have already lived through what happens when a development staff doesn't
have money to throw at new features - look at where we are at with RPG. Yes
I know the language is getting more changes now than ever, but it just isn't
keeping up with business needs. We need more _native_ ways to take our
companies into the next generation of applications and IBM isn't giving that
too us right now unless we want to drink the Java/EGL Kool-Aid (which taste
good for the first few months, but eventually leaves you dry in the mouth,
fatigued, and wanting water(RPG) ). Part of the problem is IBM needs to
understand that we don't want technologies that are half Java/VB and half
RPG. WE WANT NATIVE as that seems to be the only thing IBM can keep from
deprecating (using term loosely in reference to VA RPG). IMO, VA RPG didn't
take off because it wasn't part of the core RPG compiler spec.
Anyways, thanks for listening and I will keep you posted.
Aaron Bartell - Lover of WDSC
http://mowyourlawn.com
midrange.com
