Re: iSociety Fireside Chat recording available?

[Joe Pluta <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jeff Crosby wrote:
> Brian,
>
> Those are very good points.  We have SWMA.  "OS/400" to "i5/OS" cost us
> nothing _because_ we have SWMA.  Why is "WDSC" to "RDi" not covered?
> Because it runs on a client?  So does "Client Access" and it was covered
> when it was renamed "iSeries Access".
>
> I don't know the answers.
>
>   
I do. <grin>

The answer is simply this: IBM painted themselves into a corner by 
giving System i developers unlimited seats to the best development tool 
in the world essentially for free.  We can argue until the cows come 
home about what "free" means - yes, we paid for the compiler and we paid 
for the hardware and we paid for a lot of things over the years, and 
truth be told we paid too much - but unfortunately there are no 
reparations for overcharging in the past; we don't get the new tools for 
free now.

If IBM were to charge the going rate for WDSC, it would be a couple of 
grand a seat.  That would kill us all.  So what they did was come up 
with a way for machines with reasonable numbers of developers to move on 
to a version of the new tools.  Me, I hate the idea that the new tools 
are green screen only and that web application development costs more 
than green screen development; that's only helps the inertia and causes 
people to either choose other web development avenues or give up on the 
web completely.  But I can see their point as well; the web tools don't 
magically get written.

That part I don't have the answer for.

One thing I do think that we should *ALL* demand is that IBM stop giving 
us things for free and then yanking the rug out.  That's some seriously 
twisted behavior, and needs to stop.  Put out free beta versions, or 
free community editions, or whatever, and let us know that there will be 
a charge in the future if the thing takes off.  But the bait and switch 
that has happened throughout the WebSphere tooling lifecycle (WAS, EGL, 
WDSC) needs to stop now.  I *think* IBM recognizes that, and it would be 
nice for someone from the group to get on here and testify.

Joe