Re: [open-cobol-list] Open cobol professional support?

[Brian Tiffin]

I can only give a volunteer doc-writer's rah rah biss boom bah on this one.

I bumped into OpenCOBOL a few months ago.  I'm an OpenVMS polyFORTH and REBOL 
programmer by trade, but delve into as many environments as I can.

OpenCOBOL impressed me on first try.  Enough to make me want to use some of my 
time to help out with documentation.  The early FAQ is now at 
http://add1tocobol.com/opencobol/docs

Being one to wander, I've also written up early proof of concept linkages to

external scripting e.g. gnuplot, bash, REBOL
POSIX Message Queues; testing ok, still early.
libcurl; with a functioning application to refresh the OC 1.1 tarball.
spidermonkey javascript; testing ok, but still very early
starting on the investigation on how to best wrap GTK+

these are still toy interfaces, simplified, but with the cobc tool and the 
CALL and cob_resolve interfaces, they can and probably will be solidified and 
published.

Firebird embedded SQL EXEC preprocessor for COBOL built into GPRE seems pretty 
close to usable, and I'd like to open a dialog with the engineers.

On support packages;  there may not be any currently (and there may well be - 
I'm still pretty new to following this project and must admit to not having 
the ear of many big players), but I've been pondering the potential of 
running a shop that offered support contracts for open COBOL and OpenCOBOL in 
particular.  I don't see many downsides as long as things start small and 
clients understand that with COBOL's 50 year history, OpenCOBOL 1.0 is still 
in its first year.

Note; totally couch level cheerleading.  I don't know what things would be 
like in the trenches, but I'd opine that open COBOL will grow and will hold 
its own going forward.
 
Cheers,
Brian

On September 15, 2008 10:30:47 pm Fast Primes wrote:
> Thanks for the replies to my last question.
>
> My next question--are there any combined support packages that have
> significant professional usage? By support packages, I mean database (DB2
> say), screen IO, scipt language (replacing old style IBM, HP, etc JCL),? In
> short what is the "total" environment required to undertake professional
> complete projects and who provides it?
>
> Is IBM utilizing open cobol in any way--as part of it's Linux and DB2
> promotion for example?
>
> I suppose in a fundamental sense, I'm asking why pay any attention to "open
> cobol"?
>
> Thanks.
>
> FP--who has some 25 years of programming/systems experience.
>
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