On 2018-11-06 15:40:56 Michael wrote:
> On Tuesday 06 November 2018 03:01:22 pm J Leslie Turriff wrote:
> > I keep hoping that they will some day release a
> > back-level version of their Mainframe VM OS for use by hobbyists; that
> > would be a boon to their efforts to stem the tide of migration off their
> > proprietary platform, but they don't seem to recognize the power of
> > familiarizing potential users with their proprietary products.
>
> So way off topic...
>
> I think the non-release of the Mainframe OS is probably more from the point
> that the pool of skilled consultants for IBM mainframes would drop doing
> it. � IBM mainframe consultant rates back in the '90s sucked hard compared
> to Tandem (acquired by Compaq then HP) and the 'good' ones even then were
> bailing to other platforms.
>
> If the 3rd world low cost shops had access to the OS, then I'd guess the
> rates would get trashed just like PHP, and quite a few other
> languages/CMSes, have been trashed over the last 10+- years or so.
>
> First time business owners don't understand the huge difference in work
> ethic between (the majority of) 1st world labor and 3rd world labor, so...
> �rates drop...
>
> Actually I'm still surprised mainframes exist in the age of things like
> autoconfiguration ClusterKnoppix for Beowulf clusters, so maybe IBM is
> going down that route with the RH purchase?

	They still exist because of the massive costs of migration of legacy 
application software written since the 1960s are prohibitive.