IBM and the labors of TurboHercules

“Once upon a time, IBM was seen as the dark force in the
computing industry – Darth Vader in a Charlie Chaplin mask. More
recently, though, the company has come across as a strong friend of
Linux and free software. It contributes a lot of code and has made
a point of defending against SCO in ways which defended Linux as a
whole. But IBM still makes people nervous, a feeling which is not
helped by the company’s massive patent portfolio and support for
software patents in Europe. So, when the word got out that IBM was
asserting its patents against an open-source company, it’s not
surprising that the discussion quickly got heated. But perhaps it’s
time to calm down a bit and look at what is really going on.

“The story starts with the Hercules emulator, which lets PC-type
systems pretend to be IBM’s System/370 and ESA/390 mainframe
architectures. Hercules is good enough to run systems like z/OS or
z/VM, and, according to the project’s FAQ, it has been used for
production use at times, even if that’s not its stated purpose. The
project is licensed under the OSI-certified Q Public License.

“Enter TurboHercules SAS, which seeks to commercialize the
Hercules system. The company offers supported versions of Hercules
– optionally bundled with hardware – aimed at the disaster recovery
market. Keeping a backup mainframe around is an expensive
proposition; keeping a few commodity systems running Hercules is
rather cheaper. It’s not hard to imagine why companies which are
stuck with software which must run on a mainframe might be tempted
by this product – as a backup plan or as a way to migrate off the
mainframes entirely.”

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