Talk:Comparison of operating systems/Archive 4

There are several issues with the way data are presented for MVS

• The term MVS applies to everything from OS/VS2 Release 2 through z/OS.
• No version of MVS is bundled with the hardware, although the rates vary depending on what it is licensed to run on.
• The license varies depending on the version.

The following exist:

OS/VS2 R2 through R3.8

Source code freely available

Service provided as object code and listings on microfiche

MVS/SE

Add on to OS/VS2 R3.7 (Release 1) and R3.8 (Release 2)

Licensed

Source code and microfiche restricted to licensees

MVS/SP Version 1

Add on to OS/VS2 R3.8

Licensed

Source code and microfiche restricted to licensees

MVS/XA

Add on to OS/VS2 R3.8

Licensed

Source code and microfiche restricted to licensees

MVS/ESA

Licensed

Source code and microfiche restricted to licensees

OS/390

Licensed

Source code and microfiche not available

z/OS

Licensed

Source code and microfiche not available

The above somewhat oversimplifies, as the transition to object code only (OCO) was more gradual.

Currently there are table entries for MVS, OS/390 and z/OS. I'm not sure whether to use separate table entries for the four flavors prior to OS/390 or to group them in some way. Thoughts? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:09, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

OS/390 seems to indicate that it was mainly a change to the way some (optional(?) components were packaged, combined with some marketing people deciding to change the name. The latter doesn't render it a Shiny New Operating System separate from MVS; do the other changes do so, or should there be "MVS, OS/390" entries covering both?

Does z/OS include changes other than "we now support 64-bit hardware and applications"? Many other OSes have addes support for 64-bit hardware and applications without being labeled Shiny New OSes, just "version N+1, now with 64-bit support". If not, I'd be inclined to lump it together with MVS and OS/390 - and, for the other variants, do the same as well, unless they have changes that render them Shiny New Operating Systems rather than "

Every change in product name, release and version has new code and new feature, with a huge amount being carried forward. The selection of what is bundled, what is optional and how the code is packaged has changed multiple times. The z/OS V2 documentation still uses the term for some of the manuals. In particular, z/OS V1R1^[1] is not just OS/390 V2R10 with 64-bit addresses. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 01:15, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Every change in product name, release and version has new code and new feature, with a huge amount being carried forward. That's true of most OSes, but most changes aren't considered to result in a new OS, just a new version; which changes, if any, would make the OS with those changes a Shiny New OS? Guy Harris (talk) 01:48, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

The question isn't whether each is a Shiny New OS, but rather how to present the cost and license in the table. They both change as you got from version to version, so if you consider them to all be the same OS then you need some way to split and label the relevant table cells; I don't believe that {{free}} and {{nonfree}} can coexist within the same cell. Secondary issues are why whatever justifies separate entries for OS/390 and z/OS does not apply to MVS/370, MVS/XA and MVS/ESA and what to do about products that are available both for a monthly fee and for a one time charge. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 10:57, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

I don't believe that {{free}} and {{nonfree}} can coexist within the same cell. They can't, but you can play tricks with rowspan to have separate rows for some columns.

whatever justifies separate entries for OS/390 and z/OS The "whatever" is probably to be "they don't have the string "MVS" in their names", which also answers "why ... does not apply to {list of OSes whose names being with "MVS"}". :-) (I.e., it's the magic of marketing names; there are probaby people there who think that "Mac OS X" and "macOS" are different OSes (I'm not sure what they think about "OS X"), or that somehow Apple deciding to switch from a numbering scheme intended to make people think "Mac OS X" continues after "Mac OS 9" to a numbering schme intended to make people think that "macOS" is in the same extended family as "iOS" and "iPadOS" and.... (Sun changing the numbering schme for Solaris, because they realized that the object-oriented microkernel buzzword buzzword buzzword buzzword buzzword Solaris 3 would probably never happen, didn't seem to provoke that sort of response.))

what to do about products that are available both for a monthly fee and for a one time charge Use {{nonfree|Monthly license US$5,000, one-time charge US$5,000,000}} or whatever. Guy Harris (talk) 11:51, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

So are you recommending splitting columns Cost, availability, Preferred license and Target system type into separate rows for free, chargeable MVS/370, XA and ESA? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:42, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

If having a single row for all members of what might be considered the MVS family is better than having separate rows for everything in the family, yes, splitting columns could work. (Note that we have a single row for macOS, the two name changes nonwithstanding and a single row for the (desktop) Windows NT family, the variety of names used for desktop NT-based OSes nonwithstanding, so having a single row for the MVS family might make sense.) (And speaking of IBM mainframe OSes, there's a row for "z/VM", which lists "VM" - which has no row - as its predecessor. Would a row for the VM family make sense?) Guy Harris (talk) 19:31, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

I wound up splitting it into free and licensed. @Guy Harris: I believe that the best thing to do with VM would be to have an entry for each of

• CP-67
• Virtual Machine Facility/370 (VM/370)
• Licensed VM prior to z/VM
• z/VM

leaving out CP-40 and lumping all of VM/BSE, VM/SE, VM/SP, VM/SP HPO, VM/XA MF, VM/XA SF, VM/XA SP and VM/ESA together. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 02:36, 14 May 2023 (UTC) -- Revised 16:32, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

That seems similar in structure to the way OS/360 and successors are presented, so that'd work. (But were early version of z/OS also supported on S/390?) Guy Harris (talk) 11:54, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

The z/OS announcement^[1] lists supported S/390 processors:

z/OS Version 1 Release 1 runs only on servers that implement certain architectural enhancements. The following IBM servers have these enhancements:

• z900 or comparable server
• S/390 Parallel Enterprise Servers — Generation 5 and Generation 6 models or comparable server
• All models of the Multiprise 3000 Enterprise Server or comparable server

You could run z/OS through Version 1 Release 5 on ESA/390 hardware, with only 24 and 31-bit virtual addresses; everything after that requires z/Architecture. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 09:02, 16 May 2023 (UTC)