My point of view is this: although our efforts are focused on preservation of our heritage, this is only part of it, it is not a museum(1), and recent releases of OS and VM from the community contain clear anachronisms - which I am very happy about!

I am not inclined to regard the simulator a part of this museum, and I would love it to move forward. In my view, when end of support for a specific application, like the VM/370CE set, is *clearly indicated*, well in advance, *and* a version that is compatible with older versions *is kept online* (with an optional, do-it-yourself upgrade path).

The version indication can be of the form ‘VM/370CE VxRyMz is tested with release X of Hercules, and issues can be filed for releases upwards of version Y only; lower versions are not supported by the maintainers’.

I deplore the forking that took place but let’s not open that wound. In my opinion, the introduction of an incompatibility, for instance in the Hercules parameters, must have a very good reason. This is why I am particularly happy with Fish’s and Bobs latest email exchange.

Let me finish with: we, the users and maybe only occasional developers are very thankful for all your work on this, and look at VM/370CE, how very nice it has become with the xedit and rexx compatible, well working contributions on it.

best regards,

搁别苍é.

(1) well maybe the ideal museum, in which you can play with everything, everything works, and keeps getting better.