Re: open source IBM i. was Re: From RGP to ¿Java? -- MIDRANGE-L

I don't necessarly think enterprise OS's should be open source. The fact is
they are not and why should IBM have to do it? I'm not defending IBM here,
but you can't just pick on the IBM i almost all other platforms are the same
in this sense.

Because, IMHO, RPG doesn't need those features. RPG is for business logic.
Can you write business logic in Java or C#, sure, but it's MUCH easier in
RPG. Java/C# are great for a UI or services, RPG is great for
reading/writing files and keeping the business rules in place.

RPG is not and should not be an object oriented language. Not all
programming languages need to be created equal. If that were the case, then
why would we need anything other than C?

IBM DOES support and improve RPG and the i in general. Do they add every
feature you want? No, but why should they? I personally don't think that RPG
needs a nice GUI like others do. In the past IBM has tried to give us this
and very few people did anything with it, so they gave up and how can blame
them.

I agree to a point with EGL. I have not used it, so I don't want to speak
too ill of it, but I do wonder about the continued support for it. Maybe the
EGL community is bigger than I think though.

--
James R. Perkins

On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 09:12, Steve Richter <stephenrichter@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:

On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 11:26 AM, James Perkins <jrperkinsjr@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I should do this but...

The IBM i will never be and should never be opened source. Can you really
name an enterprise OS that is open source? Unix, Windows, Solaris (not
OpenSolaris), none of these is open source. Even most enterprise
implementations of Linux are closed.

presumably you think that an enterprise OS needs to be closed source
because it needs to be actively supported and improved. Which only a
profit driven organization can do. If so, that is not what is being
done with IBM i. ( I include ILE and RPG in the "IBM i" grouping. )

The open source policy could be that for profit, top down organized
companies are free to repackage and add onto the open source base as
they choose.

Fact is you are always ranting on how great .NET is. Microsoft is even

more

"closed source" than IBM. So, do you want Windows to go open source too?

As long as the company supports and improves the product, there is no
grievance.

EGL is a good example of why any IBM product should be approached with
caution. Why couldn't whatever superior language features there are
in EGL be added to RPG and ILE? Some of the great features of ASP.NET
MVC are built on additions to the .NET framework and languages.
--
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