21 Oct
2011
21 Oct
'11
2:23 p.m.
From: vintagecoder at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2011 1:55 PM
Responding to myself and Rich:
I said:
>> If somebody was actually a sysprog *at the
time in an IBM shop* and
>> can tell what was released and when they started copyrighting things,
>> then great.
Rich said:
> I *know* what I'm talking about, with regard
to access to IBM sources. I
> was at SHARE in San Francisco when the great OCO debate heated up again,
> and still have my button reading "When source is outlawed, only outlaws
> will have source" in my collection. I remember the discussions of the
> changes in US copyright law, including court cases, which allowed program
> sources to be copyrighted and have the copyrights stand up, in
> _ComputerWorld_ and _Datamation_ and other trade rags.
So, since you were, what was the last release that was
not copyrighted and
what was the first release that was?
MVS 3.8J (that is, OS/VS2 Release 3.8, revision J) is definitely not. It
came out after we moved off IBM hardware for about 5 years at Chicago. I
seem to remember that we ran OS/MVT on the 370/168 Mod 3, rather than any
release of OS/VS2.
We ran an Amdahl 470 v8 under SVS (OS/VS2 Release 1--even then I kept
wanting it to be OS/VS1, but that was MFT's follow-on) from 1979 to 1984.
At that time, we went back to IBM hardware in the form of a 3031 running
MVS. I don't remember the exact version, because I was moving more and
more into the DEC-20 world at the time, and it didn't mke any difference
with respect to the JCL translator I wrote.
I think by the time we went to MVS, it was under copyright, which makes
it post-3.8J.
And when was the change to OCO?
I think OCO came in in the mid 1980s, but in any case well after I
stopped caring, so 1985 or later. We got 2 4381s running VM/HPO at LOTS
(Stanford's academic computing facility) in 1986, to go with our 4 -20s,
but I had nothing to do with running them. (Unlike the -20s with 1
system programmer (me), we hired 3 systems people to run the 2 IBM
boxes.) I don't recall for certain, but I *think* they may have been OCO.
Something tells me that I expressed surprise and disgust at that turn of
events. :-/
Sorry to be vague, but at the time, I had other concerns. Now, I have to
figure out what OS we're going to run on a 360/40 with 64K. (OK, I'm not
alone in this, but I've got the most IBM experience on the team so far.)
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/