System iNetwork

Do I have a vote? Does COMMON have non paying members?

Should COMMON be an advocate for the open sourcing of IBM i? Since IBM is clearly not interested in improving core functions like ILE ( SRVPGMs need reflection ), CL ( needs better SQL support ), Commands ( srvpgm procs as cmd processing pgm ), SQL procedures ( need better error handling ) .... IBM should do the decent thing and open source the OS so that others can make these improvements.

Agree, candidates, or disagree?

Steve, that is a great question, but I don't know how much the COMMON Board has with those issues. We all know IBM is a bit behind the curve with these products, but the board should be focused on COMMON needs first. For example:

1. What do you plan to do with the merger of i + p on POWER? Will SHARE become apart of COMMON or the other way around?

2. If they do merge, how soon, it should have happen this year but all i see is talk and not real talk of making one big POWER conf.?

COMMON voting is for COMMON members only. You have to pay to play.

-David

David,

It seems to me that COMMON is already working on including AIX folks in their conference. They've broadcasted a call for AIX presentations all over the place.

However, I don't think that AIX people consider themselves AIX people. The AIX operating system is not a part of their identity the same way that IBM i is a part of ours.

Instead, they think of themselves as being part of a Unix community, and as being Unix experts. There are a lot of Unix/Unix-like platforms that are all very similar, and the skills and knowledge (with some adjustment) translate to all of them.

Do you remember at COMMON in Chicago in 2005? The UserBlue conference (AIX) was there for part of the time, sharing convention space with COMMON. Did you notice how much smaller it was than COMMON? I suspect that's because of what I was saying before, they don't really see themselves as AIX people so much as Unix people.

Besides... is SHARE really a System p group? I thought it was the mainframe group...? Or is it both?

Steve,

Do you know of a single open source project in the IBM i community that's being supported and developed by the community? I'm involved in several open source projects, and folks seem to treat them as "Scott's projects"... meaning that they're happy to use the software, and sometimes if business is slow, they're willing to help me test stuff. But volunteers to help code and support are very rare. I think making IBM i open source would be the surest way to kill it. It would also hurt IBM tremendously, because they have a ton of trade secrets that would be exposed.

Furthermore, I don't think the community really wants IBM i to be open source. People pride themselves on having the stablest, most trouble-free environment. They want all of the components to be developed together by the same team, supported by the same team, etc. They want to pay for a support contract, and know that if worse comes to worst, the actual developer of their software will be obligated to help them fix it. I don't really see our community wanting this system to be community-supported, and openly developed.

Regarding your suggestions for improvements to ILE, CL, etc... I'm pretty sure those ideas aren't new to very many people, either at COMMON or IBM. I've heard the CL engineers talk to the audience about whether embedded SQL is important to them or not. I've heard them talk about having commands call procedures, to see if it's important to the crowd, and also talk about why that may never happen. I've heard the RPG architects talking about the pains of prototypes, and how it would be nice to eliminate them. (which makes me wonder why you'd want CL commands to call procedures, instead of using reflection and eliminating the need for commands...). None of these are new ideas.

Even if the BOD candidates hadn't heard the ideas from IBM, I'm pretty sure they've seen your opinions ... hard to miss.

Chris,

I don't know what to ask the BOD nominees... except that I'd like to hear what issues are important to THEM... I'd like to see what they think is important for COMMON and our community and why. That would give me a lot of info on which candidate I'd like to see on the BOD.

Another issue that I think is important is actually getting people involved in voting. Much like the governmental elections, it seems like there's a lot of apathy, and not too many people care to take the time to vote. However, right now is a momentous time for our community. It's a cross-roads of sort. Electing the right people to be our leaders is particularly important, now. I'd really love to see the candidates make it clear why their thoughts/issues are important going forward, and make it very clear what the differences in philosophies between the candidates are. They must all be different, right? If not, what difference does it make which one I vote for?

Just my opinions, of course.

One of the problems with COMMON is that the number of people who vote is so low. Most companies don't regard membership as a benefit - just a cost that they have to pay to send people to the conference. The person assigned to hold the vote for the company often has never attended - and sometimes is in the purchasing department and hasn't a clue what COMMON even is.

I'd like to hear what plans the contenders have for making COMMON a truly democratic membership based organization. In my opinion the folks who attend conferences should be the ones who vote.

There are many other issues that I might raise personally - but since they don't affect the majority of the community I won't discuss them here.

"...Furthermore, I don't think the community really wants IBM i to be open source. People pride themselves on having the stablest, most trouble-free environment. ..."

Those who want a better system have left or are leaving the community. Just as the person who would buy a GM car today likely thinks GM mgmt is doing a great job, the majority of remaining IBM i users probably value stability over new features like managed code, dynamic programming and other aspects of .NET.

I dont see why an open source, experimental version of IBM i would affect the IBM i that many still value and buy. The mainline Linux distributions are not adversely affected by versions cooked up in college computer labs.

Scott says he has heard IBM engineers discuss the need for ILE, RPG and CL improvements. If the argument is that the community replied it did not want the change, then my reply is a reminder that the slowest adopters of the S/38, designed by G Glenn Henry, were S/34 users. If the IBM engineers were confirming that core improvements ( like ILE reflection to eliminate that 1990s technology - RPG procedure prototyping ) were needed - then the fact that the improvement have not happened is proof to me that they never will - unless outsiders have open source access.

-Steve

Although these candidates are running for the COMMON Board, most of us regard them as leaders in the System i community and hope that they will provide directions on System i development and lead the field.




Thus, it would be good to learn about the candidates' stands on the state of System i and their thoughts on the future of System i. More importantly, we would like to know what they intend to do for COMMON and the System i community, and how they intend to move System i forward.

Let's phrase Steve question a little differently.
Potential Common Board member’s, what is you opinion of IBM direction with i?. Is there any way we as the i User community can have a voice to let IBM know that we still see this platform the most viable business platform IBM has. Is there a channel through which Common and the i User community can work together to express that we would like to see the platform grow and improve, even if it means letting the user community have a vested interest, stake and contribution in that growth and improvement? How can your election and our membership make a difference to the platform direction?

The answer to these questions, to me, makes the difference if Common is worth the time and costs and who I would like to see heading the organization.

May be Chris would like to interview the candidates and report the findings on System i Network(*smile*)?


I am sure the readers would be interested in this reporting.

[*Note from Chris: Hey Keng! I'll provide the candidates with a few of the best questions via email and let them respond that way. It'll give them a chance to collect their thoughts before they respond. And then I'll post their answers.]