RE: RE: CGIDEV2

I got mine too.
This is not news to me.
When Mel retired, another "high-profile" iSeries supporter and I offered to
"take over" distribution and enhancements for CGIDEV2 at no cost to IBM.
IBM's response was "How much will you pay us to do that?" 
After laughing for a while, I thought about it and made a rather limited
offer of $1000. IBM laughed at the offer and that was the end of it.
So I decided to create a better, faster CGI library for RPG. One that did
not have most of the built-in limitations of CGIDEVx. That is the only
reason why CGILIB in RPG xTools exists today. If IBM had allowed me to pay
them for CGIDEV2 I would have continued to use it.
I convert www.rpgiv.com, www.rpgxtools.com and www.rpgworld.com to CGILIB
from CGIDEV2 in less than an afternoon. When writing it I used what I feel
are more consistent procedure names, but tried to keep the parameters
syntactically similar to CGIDEV2. 
So instead of this in CGIDEV2:
   updHtmlVar('CUSTNO':%char(custno));
You code this in CGILIB:
   cgiSetVar('CUSTNO':%char(custno));

If I'm one of those IBM Executives who don't know OS/400 or RPG from a BMW,
why would I care about a few programmers who want some free code that IBM
has been giving away, when in fact those same people already have the source
code? 

CGIDEV2 was and is a historically tool for the RPG IV programmer. Without,
virtually no real CGI/Web development would have been down using RPG IV. But
now there is CGILIB and at least 3 or 4 other commercial tools that make it
as easy to build web applications with RPG IV. If you want a "supported"
product, you need to consider buying one. If you don't as I've said you
already have the source code for CGIDEV2.  
This whole notion of "free software" as in CGIDEV2 is really powerful for
the first 15 minutes while there's group think going on, and everybody is
giving positive feedback. But after those 15 minutes are up, 99.9 percent of
the people just want to download a free copy of the code, while that 0.01
percent person has to keep updating/supporting it for free. But you know
what, that person probably has a mortgage just like you and needs to earn a
living somehow. If something is this powerful, to evoke this kind of
response, why not just pay for it? I mean, we're talking about a business
purchase, not a personal computer software package that we pick up from Best
Buy. It isn't coming out of our pockets, in fact, if it's a great as we all
claim it is, wouldn't it be smart to invest in it too?



-Bob Cozzi
www.RPGxTools.com
If everything is under control, you are going too slow.
- Mario Andretti


-----Original Message-----
From: web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Bryan Dietz
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 6:47 PM
To: Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: [WEB400] 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.
> --