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Status Not under consideration
Workspace IBM i
Created by Guest
Created on Mar 14, 2017

IBM should offer inexpensive no-production-use IBM i licenses for discontinued hardware

The title says it all: for a nominal* charge, IBM should offer limited (processor, user count, use case) licenses to run the core IBM i OS and related no-charge licensed products on Power Systems hardware that is no longer sold and/or supported, along with downloadable copies of software so licensed.

* Free would, of course, be ideal, but a small (sub-$1,000 OTC) fee to offset IBM's costs in administering the program would be reasonable.


Use Case:

Uses include:
- personal education
- historical preservation
- open source development
- fun


Idea priority Medium
  • Guest
    Reply
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    Sep 29, 2022

    The forthgoing decline of IBM for this types of request was the reason for me to create PUB400.COM

    about 20 years ago...

  • Guest
    Reply
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    Oct 1, 2019

    IBM is declining this request since several options are currently available for developers. Refer to my previous comment.

  • Guest
    Reply
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    Sep 26, 2019

    A few notes:
    - Since the Power Software life cycle and HW life cycle are not specifically related, there are many clients who are running production on machines which are withdrawn. E.g. IBM withdrew the POWER8 S814s (and other POWER8 machines) from marketing in 1H2019, but there are thousands of clients still running production on those machines.
    - The root of this request and other similar input/feedback from the community is that need for programmers to get experience with the latest technology, open source, and so forth. For the latest technology, you'll need the latest release of IBM i. However withdrawn hardware does not always support our latest releases of IBM i.
    - Therefore, in order to get experience on the newest/latest technologies, the best way to do this is to get on the latest IBM i OS release and hardware. There are ways that developers can get this experience, e.g. ...
    - IBM Power Systems Virtual Server for IBM Cloud - rent a virtual machine on as small as a .25 core basis. (Note: this is a new offering, so we are still in process of adding our IBM i portfolio products in this cloud.)
    - There are many third party solutions that provide IBM i development capability, e.g.
    - IBM Skytap Solutions with IBM i
    - iDevCloud
    and many more.
    - In addition to the option above, if you are an application developer/ISV, we have the ISV Developer Discount program to get an excellent price on HW lease and deep-discounted software: IBM i and many products in the portfolio are 90+% discount. If you need information on this option, send an email to Linda Hirsch at LLHIRSCH@us.ibm.com.

  • Guest
    Reply
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    May 29, 2018

    Fully agree!

    Jason

  • Guest
    Reply
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    Oct 11, 2017

    Due to processing by IBM, this request was reassigned to have the following updated attributes:
    Brand - Servers and Systems Software
    Product family - Power Systems
    Product - IBM i
    Component - Install, Upgrade, Licensing
    Operating system - IBM i
    Source - None

    For recording keeping, the previous attributes were:
    Brand - Servers and Systems Software
    Product family - Power Systems
    Product - IBM i
    Component - Core OS
    Operating system - IBM i
    Source - None

  • Guest
    Reply
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    Mar 15, 2017

    I support this RFE.

    Additionally, as part of the #IBMiOSS community, I can confirm that many members have echoed this same request as one effective method to help enable the education/experimentation necessary to increase confidence in the new open source software solutions being released.