[HECnet] long term paks

[Paul Koning]

> On Mar 13, 2020, at 4:24 PM, Thomas DeBellis <tommytimesharing at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I should add, however, that even IBM has come to understand the value of having people understanding and adoring their operating systems and maximizing the knowledgeable user base.  Otherwise, finding people to do maintenance can be problematic (== $$$) or impossible.
> 
> My understanding is that while you can't get the most current version of the various 390 based OS's, you can get older ones for free for hobbyist usage.  OK...

I know some old OS/360 versions are freely available, but that's for a different reason.  They are in the public domain because IBM exposed the sources without copyright notice, at a time when US law said that absence of notice meant the item is in the public domain.  The same applies to various other software; CDC's COS comes to mind.

The law changed quite a while ago, but when I started in the software profession it was pounded into our skulls to put copyright notices on stuff because back then it actually made a real difference.

	paul