SPARTA News March 2005

March 2005

SPARTA Chapter President’s Corner

by Brad Carson

March is here and I survived SHARE without too much rain (and no mudslides) and only two days of airport #%!!%*. I hope everyone enjoyed Jim Horne's talk last month on his visit to the CMG conference in Las Vegas. I always like the information that comes out of the CMG conferences even though some of it won't apply to our shop since we aren't a large environment (unlike Jim's employer).

Our z/OS 1.6 installation is a little stalled right now at DHTS. It seems that we need to generate a purchase order before we can actually order the ServerPac. Oh well, these things happen. I have been able to get our updated BMC MainVIEW products into production and now have a working MainVIEW/DB2 running. Now I can begin training our Operations staff on using the Started Task Manager in AutoOperator so that the next phase of system automation can be started. Always automation, what can I say?

At DDA I am working with DB2 distributed access for their Web based application initiative. The new DB2/Connect products leave a little to be desired but we will be able to overcome that. DDA has also had to make some networking changes that made for some fun with the IP configurations in z/OS, z/VM and the SCO Unix side of their Flex-ES server. We've managed to get through this without too many messed up routing statements. Ain't networking fun?

This month our speakers will be SPARTA members Duane Reaugh from DTS Software, Ed Webb from SAS Institute and myself to talk to you about our visit to SHARE in Anaheim. I look forward to seeing you all at LabCorp on the 22nd.

P.S. Be sure to ask for Tommy Thomas when you arrive at LabCorp. BarBQ, drinks, and dessert will be provided.


Pay Your $20 Dues This Month!


Future Speakers
(subject to change)


Mar. 22 - SHARE Recap by multiple speakers
Apr. 26 - TBA

We need ideas and volunteers for future speakers. Presentations don’t have to be fancy, just informative and interesting. Even a 5 or 10 minute talk can start an interesting interaction. Contact Duane Reaugh by phone as noted below.

2004-2005 SPARTA
Board of Directors

Brad Carson - President
Duke Health Technology Solutions 919-668-0545
2424 Ervin Road, Suite 9000
Durham, NC 27710


Duane Reaugh - Vice President
DTS Software 919-833-8426
2913 Wake Forest Road
Raleigh, NC 27609-7841

Mike Lockey - Secretary
Guilford Co. Information Services 336-641-6235
201 N. Eugene St.
Greensboro, NC 27401

Tommy Thomas - Treasurer
LabCorp 336-436-4178
231 Maple Ave, Koury Ctr 3rd Fl. 919-361-7267
Burlington, NC 27215

Ed Webb - Communications Director
SAS Institute 919-531-4162
SAS Campus Drive
Cary, NC 27513

Meetings

Meetings are scheduled for the last Tuesday evening of each month (except no meeting in December), with optional dinner at 6:15 p.m. and the meeting beginning at 7:00 p.m.

These monthly meetings usually are held at LabCorp’s Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology (CMBP) near the Research Triangle Park (see last page). Take I-40 to Miami Boulevard and go north. Turn right onto Alexander Drive. Go about a mile or so. Then turn right into LabCorp complex and turn Left to the CMBP Building. In the lobby, sign in as a visitor to see Tommy Thomas. Tommy will escort you to the conference room.

Call for Articles

If you have any ideas for speakers, presentations, newsletter articles, or are interested in taking part in a presentation, PLEASE contact one of the Board of Directors with your suggestions.

Newsletter Mailings

The SPARTA chapter policy is to mail a copy of the monthly chapter newsletter to each SPARTA member, NaSPA national, each advertiser, persons who have requested a copy, and to other chapters who send us a copy of their newsletter. The newsletter is mailed about the 20th of each month so you can prepare for the meeting. The mailing list is maintained by Mike Lockey at (336) 412-6235; if you have corrections or problems receiving your newsletter, call Mike.

Feb. 2005 CBT Tape Online

The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V468 (dated Feb. 14, 2005) are available from www.cbttape.org.

If you need help obtaining one or more files, contact Brad Carson at Duke Health or Ed Webb at SAS (see Board of Director’s list for contact info).

Minutes of the February 22nd, 2005 Meeting

•Meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM by Brad Carson, the Chapter President.

•Eleven (11) people were present of which ten (10) were members.

•Everyone in the room introduced themselves, told where they worked, and briefly described their job function.

•The minutes of January 2005 meeting were accepted as published in the February 2005 newsletter.

•Tommy Thomas, the Chapter Treasurer, gave the Treasurer's report. As of January 31, 2005, the balance is $1253.56. Motion was made and approved to accept the Treasurer's Report.

OLD BUSINESS

•Articles are needed for this newsletter. If you would like to write an article for this newsletter, please contact Ed Webb. Keep in mind that you don't really need to write the article, it can be an article that you read that you would like to share with the membership.

•The SPARTA Web site is available. To access the SPARTA Web site, point your Web browser to this site: http://www.spartanc.org. Please send any comments or suggestions about the Web site to Mike Lockey. Be sure to check the site every once in a while to see any new or changed information.

•Brad Carson reminded everyone to leave the conference room clean.


NEW BUSINESS

•Future Speakers and Topics:
(subject to change)

Mar 2005: SHARE Recap - multiple speakers
Apr 2005: TBA

If you have suggestions about speakers and topics, contact Duane Reaugh.

•Thanks to Tommy Thomas of LabCorp for hosting the February meeting.

•The March 22nd SPARTA meeting will be held at LabCorp in the RTP.

•Food for the March meeting will be BarBQ, drinks and dessert.

•Brad reminded everyone to pay their annual dues of $20, if they have not already done so.

•Brad asked if it was necessary to form a 2005 SPARTA officer nominating committee. The nominating committee would not be necessary if the current officers agreed to remain in their current positions.

•The business portion of the meeting ended at 7:35 p.m.

•Jim Horne of Lowes Companies presented his CMG 2004 Trip Report.

Some of the topics Jim discussed were:

- DB2 Tuning Tips

See DB2 Stored Procedures (SG24-4693-01) book

Use MXG DB2ACCTP data

Origin data only in DB2 SMF 101 - not WLM

- z990 Report Times

Presented by Dr. H. Pat Artis

Measurement improved from 128 to 0.5 microsecond - a mere discrete measurement improvement of 256 times.

There is no bug in the way z990s report time. I/Os can be off in precision by up to 300 microseconds on a z900 verses a z990. This is entirely due to improvement in the precision of measurement

- DB2 update for WLM

- WAS, Websphere and WLM

- MXG for Dummies

The meeting ended at 8:00 p.m.

Treasurer’s Report for March 2005

contributed by Tommy Thomas

The balance in the account is $ 1209.66 as of March 31, 2005.

Financial Report
3/01/2004 through 03/31/2005

Items of Interest

SPARTA Schedule and Menu for 2005

contributed by Tommy Thomas and Chris Blackshire

Mar 22 - BBQ
Apr 26 - Pizza
May 23 - Chicken
Jun 28 - Subs
Jul 26 - BBQ
Aug 30 - Pizza
Sep 27 - Chicken
Oct 25 - Subs
Nov 29 - BBQ


The Software Patent Conundrum

contributed by Chris Blackshire

February 3, 2005

By David Coursey

Patents pose a simple question: Should an idea be protectable and, if so, how should it be protected and for what period of time? You'd think that as important as ideas have become and how long they've been around-like forever - that by 2005 we'd know how to protect them.

Not so. And what's happening in Europe is a pretty good indication of how far we haven't come. The EU parliament's legal affairs committee this week put the effort to create new patent law back to square one. This is seen in some circles as a win by open-source advocates and a loss for the big software companies.

Both sides of the debate in the EU claim they want no part of a U.S.-style patent system, rather their differences can be found in how liberal the final regulations will be drafted. Open-source proponents want no software patents at all, while companies whose names you'd immediately recognize want some degree of patentability.

Europe has traditionally been less friendly to intellectual property claims than the U.S., from which much of the world's IP law has sprung. Software patents, sometimes very controversial on this side of the Atlantic, have been slower to catch on in the EU.

The basic argument is the same that the open-source advocates always trot out: Patents lock up good ideas that should be freely available for use by anyone.

On the other hand, big companies - which happen to own most patents - are not supportive of this approach. Understandably, they say that it's the patents themselves that spark innovation by offering a reward for those companies with the best ideas.

To better understand this complex issue, I spent a long while talking with Greg Aharonian, a buddy who's a frequent patent critic and writes the Internet Patent News Service. While he frequently criticizes the patent system in the U.S. for its unwieldiness and unclear regulations, he remains an optimist, believing that patents are still the best hope of protecting and supporting real innovation.

Like the U.S., European patent law is often confusing and seems to run in circles. The goal of the open-source proponents, at least for some, is to make software non-patentable. They believe copyright protection alone is enough.

The distinction is important, according to Aharonian. Patents are about protecting ideas while copyrights are about protecting the expression of ideas. This strikes close to the difference between art and science: Art is something most people know when they see it but find maddeningly frustrating to express.

Essentially, a patent protects a specific idea that can be described on paper. A copyright protects the expression of that idea - it's use - but not the idea itself.

For software, this means someone can use a bunch of other people's ideas, implement them differently, and copyright the final work as their own. A patent, meanwhile, would protect the ideas themselves, requiring a license for their use.

If you come up with lots of original ideas, then you want patent protection for them. If you create finished works, then you might prefer copyright, because it allows free use of ideas and protects their final expression. If you're not very inventive-which for Aharonian includes most of the open-source movement-then copyright would be your choice.

Proponents of open-source software generally like copyright because it gives them lots of freedom without worries of infringement. They contend that an invention like the cotton gin and other physical objects are different than the concepts expressed in software code.

Companies such as IBM, inventors of the modern equivalents of cotton gins, want to protect their inventions-and the frequently huge investments needed to bring them to market. They prefer the protection of patents.

IBM just widened the discovery phase in its Unix/Linux intellectual property cases with SCO, seeking evidence from Intel, Target, Sherwin-Williams, Oracle and others. ....

Aharonian contends that patents, because they require the idea to be expressly stated and filed publicly, can spark others to create a better and non-infringing arena. Furthermore, in the U.S., patents are valid for only 20 years and often effective for only 5 or 6 years, after which the ideas go into the public domain.

However, the term of a U.S. copyright is now 100 years, largely due to the efforts of the Walt Disney Co., which pushed an extension through Congress whenever the copyright on Mickey Mouse is due to expire.

Thus, copyrighted open-source software actually has more protection than patented software.

For Europeans, the decision is what level of protection to provide. At present, IP protection there is seen as weak, a situation that supposedly benefits smaller businesses and open source developers.

The choice is a political one. And just as the Europeans seemed to have reached one, the EU did an about-face and is going back to the drawing board. Good luck to them.

For me, their choice is obvious: Patents, but with a system behind them that is much clearer and easier to implement than the very-messy U.S. patent code.

For more insights from David Coursey, check out his Weblog.

Copyright (c) 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Humor


Understanding Engineers

Contributed by Chris Blackshire

Understanding Engineers - Take One:

Two engineering students were walking across campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?" The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want." The second engineer nodded approvingly, 'Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

Understanding Engineers - Take Two:

To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Understanding Engineers - Take Three:

A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!" The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!"

The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word with him." "Hi George! Say, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?"

The greens keeper replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime." The group was silent for a moment.

The pastor said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight." The doctor said, "Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them." The engineer said, "Why can't these guys play at night?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Four:

What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers? Mechanical Engineers build weapons and Civil Engineers build targets.

Understanding Engineers - Take Five:

The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?" The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?" The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?" The graduate with an Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Six:

Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body. One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints." Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections." The last one said, "Actually it was a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Seven:

Normal people ... believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet."

Understanding Engineers - Take Eight:

An architect, an artist and an engineer were discussing whether it was better to spend time with the wife or a mistress. The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship. The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because the passion and mystery he found there. The engineer said, "I like both." "Both?" Engineer: "Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the lab and get some work done."

Understanding Engineers - Take Nine:

An engineer was crossing a road one-day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.

The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week." The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket.

The frog then cried out,"If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want." Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.

Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, and that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that's cool."


A Backup Funny

Contributed by Chris Blackshire

Sung to the tune of the Beatles' song "Yesterday"

Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,
There's not half the files there used to be,
And there's a milestone hanging over me
The system crashed so suddenly.

I pushed something wrong
What it was I could not say.

Now all my data's gone
and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.

Yesterday,
The need for back-ups seemed so far away.
I knew my data was all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.

Membership Information

Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Location: LabCorp in the RTP

Take I-40 to Miami Boulevard and go north. Turn right onto Alexander Drive. Go about a mile or so. Then turn right into LabCorp complex and turn left to the CMBP Building. In the lobby, sign in as a visitor to see Tommy Thomas. Tommy will escort you to the conference room.

Free Food: BarBQ, Drinks, Dessert

Program:

SHARE Conference Reports

Speakers:

Brad Carson, Duane Reaugh, Ed Webb

SPARTA News
P.O. Box 13194
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-3194











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