Douglas Becker writes:

[snip]

Thank you for the free advertising :-)

>Now it appears that QSS does not participate in giving away
>free software or participate in generating utilities which
>can be used freely by the HP3000 Community, unless something
>here has been missed, although they offer QWEBS for a modest
>price of $495.

I don't have an overiding need to 'apologize' to you or the
HP e3000 community and those on this list who know me would
probably concur. However, maybe you don't know me and some
others might not be aware as well since I have been mostly
absent from 3000-L for the last few years because of the
high rate of b.s. that has permeated the list. But keep
in mind that no matter what little I have contributed,
there are many more who have contributed much more than I. My
contributions are but a very small piece of the 'whole' which
is comprised of individuals who have spent countless hours
contributing to the success of this platform.

I offer that one's contribution to the HP e3000 community at large
is much more than contributing various 'free' utilities. In fact,
sometimes the 'free' utilities are ways for individuals to wave the
personal flag of 'hey look how smart I am'. While I do like to
get recognized for my work, I usually take a more low key approach.
Those who have met me know that based on God given attributes
I am already included to anything 'low'... but I digress :-)

I for one have been actively involved in Interex for a number of
years, having recently been serving on the Executive Board of
MPE Forum and until the 11/14 announcement been very active in
advocating the success and longevity of the HP e3000. I was
involved through these Interex affiliations on the team for morphing
IPROF into the 3000 Solutions Symposium and have given talks at
the 1999/2000 Symposium and am slated to give 2 talks at this year's
Conference.

I also have contributed countless hours in working with programmers in
the HP e3000 community to help them understand various technologies that
are not documented or contain emerging technologies not yet generally
known or understood in the MPE community.  I wrote the manual for our
QSDK middleware product and we make the manual freely available off
our web site. This manual has some nice discussions of socket/network
programming which many have found helpful as they have tried to grasp
this method of programming.

I have attended IPROF and HPWorld shows and through pre-submitted
questions and questions from the floor have been one of many who has
tried to hold HP accountable for their efforts in making the HP e3000
a success. I have also been extremely active with SIGCOBOL in advocating
to HP the need for improved COBOL language support. I have had many
'behind-the-scenes' exciting encounters with HP, which are usually
only discussed during those times of reminiscing over one's beverage
of choice :-)

I have owned parts of 3 different software companies for 22+ years that
have contributed many sales of new HP e3000 systems. We continue to sell
HP e3000 systems and even to this day continue to hire HP e3000 programmers.

In fact, through an early association with another individual, a core
product
was developed whose roots are in the software running a large number of k-12
sites in California on the HP e3000.

I have spent many hours (usually under NDA) working with HP and other
HP partners on various issues with the HP e3000, including beta-testing
numerous products and product revisions.

And yes, I might have even contributed some utilities over the years. Some
that
come to mind:

a. Cobol based host name lookup. Done prior to nslookup getting ported to
   MPE. GHN was the name. Source/binary downloadable since written.

b. Cobol based IP security for logons done before the client IP address was
   a variable you could retrieve. VTVERIFY was the name. Source/binary
   downloadable since writen.

c. Searchable 3000-L FAQ. Done as a cobol cgi subroutine to QWEBS. I have
given the
   source to numerous individuals who asked for it. This was written back
   in Oct-1996 as a demonstration project for QWEBS.

d. Cobol cgi subroutine for QWEBS which dynically displays Image/SQL
database
   structures. This was written in Oct-1996 as a demonstration project for
QWEBS.
   I have also given the source out to numerous individuals.

> Not participating in OpenMPE gives QSS a much clearer picture
> of why, as Duane seems to be saying, that OpenMPE has already
> failed [and if so, contributing to it in any way would by
> that logic would be a stupid thing to do].

QSS is more than me. I have 4 equal partners, many colleagues at the
company and numerous customers... some who have I have been associated
with 20+ years. At this time, we believe the marketplace has spoken
and staying on the HP e3000 platform is not the best choice for our
customers and our company. We actually came to this conclusion prior to
the 11/14 announcement due to our own platform and industry investigations.

QSS has no interest in homesteading or continuing to target the HP e3000
as a platform of choice. In fact, QSS will eventually stop supporting
MPE as a platform at some time in the future - regardless of what happens
to MPE through the OpenMPE efforts.

However, I do see value to the community for a method in which MPE
can continue to be supported and possibly enhanced beyond 12/31/2006. I
personally would prefer that it be provided by HP and I have made that
clear to those at HP who should best hear that message. I am waiting for
HP to make more announcements of their plans with regard to support of
MPE, hardware emulation, licensing 3'rd party software support, etc. before
supporting any 3'rd party organization at this time. I am personally for
the source code being archived (Stan has come good ideas here), but don't
see the value in a true open source model.

Keep in mind that as an active and valued ISV we are able to directly
communicate with HP and don't require OpenMPE or other organizations
to assist us with advocacy and communication with HP.

However, keep in mind that our primary mission is to support the
interests of our customers. I can't remember many customers buying
our software because it ran on the HP e3000. In fact, we have fought
the battle since 1981 over the perceptions in the marketplace that
have disadvantaged the HP e3000 as a mainstream platform.

While we continue to mourn the loss of a good friend, we are moving on
and not looking back.  Our customers have been universally supporting
this plan.

duane percox

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