Tony, Speaking as a former vendor (a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . . ), far be it from me to suggest that you give away valuable intellectual property. That is contrary to all self-interest (never mind the enlightened kind), and I would not ask or expect any vendor to do that.
BUT. If the code you spent so many man-hours perfecting is mainly carefully crafted interfaces to IBM-supplied GUPI API's and recovery techniques, that is another can of worms entirely. If the IBM is not providing ALL of its customers with the level and clarity of documentation needed to use the GUPI API's and interfaces that it provides (well, minus the ones it charges NDA-level fees for like the enclave-on-ZiIP secrets) then it is IBM who is seriously at fault. What you spent man-days perfecting should have been just a SMOP based on IBM-supplied documentation of a level and clarity sufficient for a competent programmer to use. But also I do agree that there are more cheating, self-aggrandizing programmers out there whose idea of "sharing" is considerably less than ethical. The less-than-ethical side of the "hacker" culture (the "black" hats and just plain criminals) have given rise to far too much evil behavior all around the world. If you're not a journalist, it is ethical to name the sources of your ideas, but not everyone seems to think so. Cheers. Peter -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Tony Thigpen Sent: Monday, November 12, 2018 8:28 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Why are sophisticated system-level coding examples not available? [was: RE: Recommended method for accessing secondary access spaces] Speaking as a vendor. There are several interfaces that I had to invest a *lot* of time to get working right. And using those interfaces is what makes my products efficient and market worthy. If I were to publish some of my interface code, some new guy would have 75% of a product that can compete with my product. In other words, what I spend a man-year bringing to market, he can bring to market in just 3 man-months because he used my code. I don't mind market competition, but I do mind competing against my own code. And, that is just the business facts. On the flip side, I do share code that is small or that I acquired from someone else. As an example, I just made an update to a program 'found on the internet' that was written by someone who has passed away. This update was made for a specific vendor and is code that they will offer to their clients. I insisted that they ship both the unchanged source code and the new source code (since I had only changed about 20 lines). Another point: If you look at my web site and the free programs, you will find several TCP/IP Client and Server programs in Cobol. http://dinomasters.com/coolstuff I help people a lot with this type of programming. But, I remember the case where someone asked my help on a program that a previous programmer had written. When he sent me the code, it was one of my samples with just my name removed and the previous programmer's name added. I even found my emails with the previous employee helping him understand the programs. And, he told everybody the code was his (per the guy that I helped later). That stinks. [The bug was already corrected on my web site and available for download.] Tony Thigpen Farley, Peter x23353 wrote on 11/12/18 1:13 PM: > Not jumping on Ed Jaffe or Peter Relson or any of the other thoughtful and > helpful responders in this email chain, but it still rankles me that there > are no good examples anywhere (not at IBM and not at CBT) for programmers to > review that show exactly how to set up and use "SRB to the other address > space and PC-ss back to the requesting address space" or any similarly > sophisticated system-level application coding technique. > > Why is system-level application coding made an obscure mystery to which only > IBM and (some) ISV's have access? Good examples that show how to "do the > right thing" would avoid an awful lot of dangerous experimentation. > "Security through obscurity" is, I think all here would agree. NOT a good > thing. > > If you don't show programmers how to do it right, you can't really yell at > them for not doing so. > > Maybe if the ISV's got together (at SHARE maybe?) they could agree on > publishing stripped-down HOWTO examples based on the work they have already > done to "do the right thing". That way no one ISV is alone in exposing any > potentially valuable intellectual property. > > And of course IBM really ought to be publishing good examples too, but I > suspect the answer to that is the usual "what business justification can you > show to make it a profitable exercise to spend valuable and scarce resources > doing?". > > How about helping your customers not to give themselves serious trouble that > you could help them avoid? > > Just my $0.02USD worth. > > Peter -- This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. 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