[open-cobol-list] Cobol Birthday Party Results LOTS happening....

[Aoirthoir An Broc]

Howdy ALL!

As some of yens know it is 50 years since Cobol was first given life by means of being given its name. Several of my crew had a brief lunch In Akron Ohio with Frank, the founder and editor of Cobol Magazine. So here are the results.

First we are ALL pumped. This includes Frank, our local team here in Cleveland Ohio and the Add1toCobol teams. So I hope more of yall start joining us at:

http://bit.ly/add1toChat for chat, shared ideas, training, and so on. More of us are starting to IDLE in there, so if you join, please feel free to idle. The more of us there, the greater chance someone will be around when you are there.

Frank will make some announcements himself but he has a way for folks that want to use a proprietary compiler, to upload programs to his server for compile. Agreements are in place with the provider of the compiler, so its legal and provides an interesting business model.

Of course we talked about doing the same thing with OpenCobol. I've already started to hand out user accounts on my dreamhost for people that want to test OpenCobol with the web. But if we could move entirely to a Web Based interface, including a web based IDE, even better!

He did give us some recommends to make OpenCobol an even stronger competitor in the market, which covered the same issues we talked about in #add1.to chat. These include documentation (on the way thanks to Gary), a support system for PAID support (ideas are flowing but we need help!), GUI, easy web interface, easy windows install, User Defined Functions and other things. Basically the very same things we've been talking about for a while and have gradually been implementing. But now we want to move full steam ahead.

Another thing he wants to do is FOSS a LOT of code. He, and many Cobolers have DECADES of code available. Thanks to Vincent Coen, we've already got a lot of code. But the more we get, the better the ecosystem for all of us. He knows many Cobolers and is already in talks with them to FOSS their code. So this looks to move ahead rapidly. As much as possible the code will be posted to the add1 subversion Repository. We will keep everyone updated. Anyone that would like to add their own code just email me at address@hidden.

Another topic he brought up was that all of the Cobol compilers are basically stealing customers from each other. But having the issues above solved, will create reasons for persons to choose Cobol instead of say php, c, ruby, and so on. We've talked more about this on add1.to chat yesterday. So Currey Adkins (Jim and his crew) are already studying what they need to do to contribute. 

I will be sending out another, but we really need to get a team together to help Roger so we can push this stuff forward and the team is forming. If you want to be a part of it, please be in #add1.to chat on irc.mibbit.com (from the web again that address is http://bit.ly/add1toChat ). Even if you are idling, you'll be able to skim the chat and contribute, or benefit real time.

If anyone has any questions please feel free to respond, we're excited about where we are going to be taking Cobol thanks greatly to OpenCobol amongst many others.

Kind Regards
Aoirthoir

-- 
Aoirthoir An Broc
http://www.add1.to
Regular Add 1 To meetings:
Where: MIBBIT IRC (irc.mibbit.com)
Channel: #add1.to
Access from the web: http://bit.ly/add1toChat

Date: Sundays
Time: 9:00am Eastern

::::::::NOTE IMPORTANT::::::::::
There has been some confusion as to the time. I believe this is because the United States uses Daylight Savings Time. On top of this the Government recently extended the dates that EDT (eastern daylight time) would run. So to be sure that you make it at 9am Eastern, I have this link:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=179

That shows the time in New York City at the moment of viewing. It also explains the current UTC offset for the Eastern Zone in the United States. Simply compare the current time that site states, with your current time and you will know how far off we are from you.
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We're there all of the time, even when we do not have a meeting. Stop on by for OpenCobol and Add 1 To Support and chat.