Re: Webfacing out, EGL in

Jon Paris wrote:

Since this is at least the 3rd time this discussion has taken place here (or has it all been just one long never-ending thread!) I am not getting into it all again. However, I will just make a comment to clarify Joe's statement below.

And I wasn't going to spend time on this, either, but I'll clarify Jon's statements.

Zend PHP for i not free. The Zend Platform is actually quite expensive,
and as I understand it even the Zend Core is a for-fee product; IBM is
just shipping with the first three years of maintenance waived, but
after that it costs.

Zend Core for i is no charge at present as is the basic support package.

According to Zend's site, "Basic support" means web-based support with 48 hour response. No phone support. To get phone response (during business hours only), you have to go to Gold (IT Jungle says $4000 for a single CPU, six hour response time) or Platinum ($10,000 for a single CPU, two hour response time).

Zend's original deal with IBM was for a three year period (i.e. it was not a 3 year "warranty" after which you had to pay). That arrangement expires (I assume) in mid 2009 - since GA was in mid 2006. To the best of my knowledge, both IBM and Zend intend for that arrangement to continue on into the future - but the details have not yet been finalized. The likelihood is that a similar deal will be available on into the future - at least I hope so. But things change so who knows - At one time I thought I'd have an up-to-date version of WDSC available for "free" forever but that dream has ended <ducking and running>.

And as Jon points out, even though that expiration is only a year away, there's still no word on a continuation. But hey, we're gambling types here <smile>.

The Zend Platform (which now includes 5250 Bridge) is where Zend look to make their money.

I'm pretty sure Zend expects anybody implementing PHP to get Zend Platform. Platform includes code acceleration, caching, compression; basically all the features you need for production PHP implementation. In fact, I believe there are two versions of Zend Platform, PS and ES. The stuff I mentioned is the PS version; if you want BIRT reporting or Java integration or session clustering, that's the ES version.

I'm not sure if they package the two versions differently on the i, but whatever the bundling model, you can expect at least several thousand additional in licensing and several thousand more in annual support, unless you're comfortable with 48-hour web-only support.

The new Eclipse-based Zend Studio is also additional cost - about $400 a year for support.


So I guess technically, PHP is indeed free. You can install a slower, less capable version with web-only support and no Eclipse IDE for free. However, I suspect that anybody actually using PHP in production will have to opt for one of the "non-free" options. I'll be interested to see if anybody actually goes to production using the free PHP.



Joe