Re: RE: CGIDEV2

Here it the text of an email that expect most will recieve.  Maybe it will
help the article.

<email>
Easy400 CGIDEV2 - Your action is required

Dear (name),
if you, as as subscriber of the IBM Easy400 site www-922.ibm.com ever used
CGIDEV2, you know for sure that this free software is the best gem ever
distributed by IBM to encourage RPG programmers in developing iSeries WEB
sites at no learning cost and with minimum hardware requirements.

CGIDEV was developed by Mel Rothman in 1996, enhanced by him to CGIDEV2 in
1999 when he was working for the IBM Custom Technology Center in IBM
Rochester, MN.
I discovered CGIDEV in 1997, rated it as a pure diamond, and established an
IBM site, named Easy400, intended to inform the public about the value of
the tool, through demonstrations, tutorials, and examples.

Once CGIDEV2 was available, I convinced IBM Rochester CTC management to let
me distribute it at no charge through my site.
Mel Rothman, though he retired a couple of years ago, continued to provide
support, fiexes and enhancements, which I cared to be made available
through the IBM Easy400 site.
The success of this piece of software, CGIDEV2, has been extremely high.
More than 30 articles, most in english language and in italian have been
published in the last five years. Some were stressing its easy-of-use and
performance, other were providing fine professional guides.

As to the number of iSeries WEB sites implemented through CGIDEV2, I have
no precise figure, though my educated guess - considering that the site has
currently exceeded 17 thousand subscribers from 126 countries, that a
number of developers have provided fine testimonials, and occasional news
have reached me by e-mail - is that at least 3 thousand iSeries (AS/400)
WEB sites have ben established through CGIDEV2.

Let us now come to the sad part of the story.
One month ago it was my turn to retire.

Knowing that IBM would not let me any longer maintain the IBM Easy400 site,
I have established my own new Easy400 site www.easy400.net where I plan to
provide futher software deliverables at no charge.

I did then ask the owner of CGIDEV2, the IBM CTC Rochester, to let me
redistribute CGIDEV2 from my site, in order to provide future maintenance
and enhancements. After consulting with the IBM lawyer, the answer was
negative, the rationale being that IBM would not give away its code, even
when - as the case is - no IBM resources have been made available for
supporting it any further.

I believe that such position is totally irrespective of the iSeries and
AS/400 customers needs all over the world. I know a large number of parties
that develop WEB applications for small customer who cannot afford the huge
hardware requirements needed to run WebSphere with a reasonable response
time. These parties would have rather migrated to Microsoft, but their
decisions were stopped by CGIDEV2 availability and support.

So what?

If you are an active CGIDEV2 developer, the time has come for you to stand
up and tell IBM that CGIDEV2 deserves better attention than paid from IBM
so far and must become Open Source. In this way Mel Rothman may continue
ehnacing the code and have it distributed through my new non-IBM Easy400
site.
What should you do.

Write a short letter telling the advantages CGIDEV2 has given to you, and
asking for its classification as Open Source.

Address it to the IBM World Wide iSeries Marketing Vicepresident Peter
Bingaman, bingaman@xxxxxxxxxx
Copy it to the Manager of the IBM Rochester CTC Center, Richard Ross,
rbross@xxxxxxxxxx
Do not forget to add a blank copy for me, Giovanni B. Perotti,
gb_perotti@xxxxxxxxxxx

If a few hundred letters hit the target in the next two days, IBM will have
material for reconsidering its position.

Dear (name), your active contribution for defending the iSeries community
is required NOW!
Thanks indeed,
Giovanni B. Perotti,
the man who made CGIDEV2 run around the word
gb_perotti@xxxxxxxxxxx

</email>
----------------------------
Bryan Dietz

Aktion Associates

web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 07/19/2005 04:56:53 PM:

>
> > If you add the comments from IBM that Giovanni has published on the
Easy400
> > list at Yahoo I don't think you'll see many signs of IBM wanting to
enhance
> > the product.
>
> I joined the Easy400 group on Yahoo, and went through and read the
> messages. It sounds like it's important that we get the word out to
> people!
>
> As such, I've contacted some people from the iSeries Network to see if
> they're interested in doing a news story on this.
> --