Re: [SUSPECTED SPAM] Emulation of IBM i

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:06 AM Jim <jdonoghue04@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I'm thinking about an emulation at the MI layer, and most likely emulation
of certain stuff below it (SLIC layer). In theory, anything you could
install and run on the real thing, you could install and run in the
emulation. It's probably too large and complex, and full of too many legal
problems, but I'm curious if it's useful in this day and age where there
are so many cloud-based options already.

Honestly, I don't think it's interesting at all except as a purely
academic exercise. Or if that's your Everest, and you must climb it
"just because it's there".

In practical terms (given the world we have today, including the fact
that such an emulator doesn't already exist), it is going to be
vastly, vastly, vastly cheaper just to buy an IBM i on Power hardware,
especially if you want the vaunted reliability and compatibility with
existing midrange software, which in my view are pretty much THE
reasons to be involved with IBM midrange stuff at all in the first
place.

Your original question was formulated this way:

Forget about the legal can of
worms it would open: If someone had a bunch of time and money to develop
such a tool, would anyone use it?

I think the more pertinent question is: Would anybody spend all that
time and money to develop it? I think it would be prohibitively
expensive. If you can forget the legal issues AND the technical issues
AND assume that such a tool has already been built, then I think there
is a chance someone might use it.

Here's what I consider a more interesting thought experiment: Let's
suppose IBM really were to remove the legal barriers and open this up
to clones, more or less like the situation with the PC in the 1980s.
Would IBM's midrange business suffer? Would the aggregate (IBM +
clones) midrange market grow?

I think the answers to both of those are "perhaps, slightly".
Stauncher midrange fans might feel differently.

John Y.