IBM policies on distribution of \"source\"

[Joshua Knight]

In a contribution dated 30 Jul 88 06:47:58 GMT, chris at mimsy.uucp
(Chris Torek) writes:

 >            ...  The reasons you cannot get VMS or MVS sources are also
 > more historical than anything else.  [Incidentally, you *can* get
 > sources from IBM in some cases, but what you get may not be what you
 > expected.]  ...

I don't even speak for IBM, so I *certainly* don't have anything to say
about VMS sources. :-)

IBM did distribute "source" for most if not all of its mainframe
software products at least before 1983.  I was at a SHARE (large IBM
systems users group) meeting in 1983 when IBM said that it would be
moving towards binary distributions of major software systems.  IBM
calls this "OCO" which is an abbreviation for Object Code Only.  IBM
also announced a major OCO product for VM/CMS, SQL/DS, at about the
same time.  I was glad I was in the audience and not up on the podium
fielding questions.  The audience, largely systems support people,
seemed rather hostile.  There were buttons being circulated with
"When Source is Outlawed, Only Outlaws will have Source", etc.

IBM's position on this is best articulated by someone whose job it
is to talk about IBM policy and that's certainly not me.  In any event,
until relatively recently (in the history of software for IBM 360/370's)
customers could get at least microfiche of most MVS "source".  Thus I'm
not sure that the reasons IBM is going more towards not releasing
"source" are, as Chris suggests, "historical".  Probably it's a minor
point, the IBM MVS and VM/CMS "ambience" is clearly very different from
that of Unix, binary distribution or not.

I put "source" in quotes for reasons which are not of great interest
to Unix-Wizards.  I'm not very knowledgeable about IBM's policies or
past practices in this area, so further comments from me on the topic
are as likely to be misleading as informative.

Any opinions expressed or implied are mine and not my employer's.
Your mileage may vary, etc.

			Josh Knight
			IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
josh at ibm.com, josh at yktvmh.BITNET