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Wow. An entire thread devoted to this question, and so far this is the only answer that actually addresses the problem. Every other suggestions seems to be "changes languages", or "here's how to avoid bugs".

Anyway, let's talk specifics here. For the theoretical end of software fault tolerance, you can get a quick overview here or here.

In terms of practicalities, I know of an older fault tolerance library for Unix that includes watchdog, checkpointing, and replication utilities, and was created by AT&T (details and downloads here). A newer version appears to be available for Windows under the name SwiFT. Disclaimer: I haven't actually used either of these, and they both seem a little old. But I don't know of anything newer that isn't a proprietary in-house solution.

Finally, in terms of general design patterns for fault-tolerant distributed systems, you can't go past Joe Armstrong's PhD thesis, "Making reliable systems in the presence of software errors". While it's mostly about Erlang, many of the ideas he presents are readily applicable to other languages too.

• Instanciate coding guidelines - code must be easy to read. Minor variation in coding flavour shouldnt be here, merely the large scope.
• Avoid if...else if...else if...else if... - constructs. They are especially hard to follow, and can often be replaced by switch/case-statements.
• Require large modularization of code. - No function/method should be more than about 40 to 100 lines, the fewer the better, but don't be too rigid here - some functions/methods are better of being straight-on than modularized.
• Code for each case-statement in a switch should be a call to a method/function that encapsulates actions and declarations. (not always possible, but if the code exceeds 4-5 lines a function/method should be considered).
• Don't nest a switch/case inside a switch/case - do the nested switch in a called function/method.
• All code must be reviewed.
• Test cases for each module, which requires writing a bunch f test code that can be used for regression testing changes.
• Don't allow compiler warnings. (-Wall shall be used if using gcc, possibly also other options)
• Declare your own types to manage code neatly.
• It's better to write code cleanly than to write it in the most compact manner unless it's a real performance issue.
• Document each module to describe why it is and what it is doing.
• Place each class in it's own file - like Java.
• Be sure to keep as much as possibly 'private' and only relax to 'protected' or 'public' when needed.
• Variables in classes should have get/set methods and shouldn't be accessed directly unless there is a performance issue. Set methods can then be able to validate indata and reject or throw an exception on bad data.
• If something can't be resloved without a compiler warning - think again and if still not possible - document that reason before the code review.
• Run the code under analysis of leak and memory access testing software like Valgrind and/or PurifyPlus. Preferrably both during unit testing and system testing.
• Be paranoid. Check for 'null' results and do detailed try/catch blocks instead of a try/catch over a large block. Using detailed checks allows you to take appropriate action on detail errors.
• Instaciate an extensive beta-testing program.
• Inline-declare function/methods that are broken out if they should be inline with the code for performance reasons.

For code written in C you can use Splint

While your point about older laptops is well made..you REALLY cannot compare a toughbook to the other two you mentioned, certainly not to a dell..not as far as physical toughness goes.

Toughbook: http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/im ages/models/cf-29ctkgzzm.jpg

Thinkpad: http://www.ibm.com/pc/us/thinkpad/images/hero_x.jp g

Which one of them would you guess can be run over, dropped, put in very humid environements, and still keep working fine? I take my old CF-27 everywhere. From work to dirtbiking (used for mapping etc)..

So who's next for a share price tumble? Those Oracle shares are looking a bit pricey in light of recent free DB2 from IBM?

I dealt with this frustration by quitting http://www.ibm.com/, the source of it all (for me anyway). Believe me, I'm not alone in my "exit strategy".

FLs like APL2 and J Jsoftware are the best for real computer scientists. You can do some really kewl thangs that I would never attempt in traditional languages. APL and J let you focus on the real problem.

Storage drops. It always drops. We get it. http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/422/grochow ski.html
http://hermeticlogistics.blogspot.com/ How does this affect my financial future?

I mean, instead of releasing a hard drive 2x the size of last year, why can't they skip a generation and release one 10x the last year?

Actually, the recently-released IBM Informix DS v.10 now is IBM's FLAGSHIP database software for pure OLTP applications. We have been an Informix shop for nearly six years now and as many others we were pretty concerned about IBM's plans for IDS, the day after the acquisition. Fortunately, I can assure you that it is quite alive and kicking, and only gets better and better. Fine, fine system.

The Express-C product has a forum already set up through developerWorks

I once worked for a company, we were using DB2 EEE. We were developing an application for proof of concept, and... Installing DB2 (across multiple machines for paralell processing) was a little bit like having my teeth pulled (i'd say "compared to MySQL" but, i've never used mysql in paralell -- if you can [i'm not sure]). But when that was done, I was quite impressed with DB2. We were though, working with very large databases. I really became quite a fan of it, and my eyes opened wide when i saw this topic headline.

Since then I've stopped "working for the man" and am a self employed developer. What's my database of choice? MySQL. I wasn't involved in paying for DB2 EEE, but, I did hear a rumor around the water cooler that it costed $20k / Year / Processor. Which, as a small business person is quite a bit out of reach. After my good experiences with DB2, I would consider giving this a whirl. In fact when i first saw this topic I thought "Yes! I get DB2 for free!" then I started thinking "Holy guacamole... reworking code for days/weeks on end to interface with a different DB system". Plus... I don't work with really huge databases anymore.

I once heard an urban legend that MySQL is faster than DB2 with queries on tables that are less than 250k rows. If that's the case... It's really a rare table for me these days that has 250k+ rows (and when I do have that many records in a table, it's usually not data that i need access to quickly, but for historical puposes).

I will however, give it a try with some small (more-or-less-for-fun) projects. Being self employed, I'm not so worried about having the specific "resume points" from using it, but... More or less curious to give it another try.

One of the most impressive additions to DB2 that I know of is the DB2 Spatial Extender, which "[adds to DB2] a set of advanced spatial data types that represent geometries such as points, lines, and polygons and many functions and features that interoperate with those new data types." I believe it's marketed towards and tailored to GIS people, but I had fun experimenting with it while developing a project that needed to store 3d cartesian coordinates.

I once worked for a company, we were using DB2 EEE. We were developing an application for proof of concept, and... Installing DB2 (across multiple machines for paralell processing) was a little bit like having my teeth pulled (i'd say "compared to MySQL" but, i've never used mysql in paralell -- if you can [i'm not sure]). But when that was done, I was quite impressed with DB2. We were though, working with very large databases. I really became quite a fan of it, and my eyes opened wide when i saw this topic headline.

Since then I've stopped "working for the man" and am a self employed developer. What's my database of choice? MySQL. I wasn't involved in paying for DB2 EEE, but, I did hear a rumor around the water cooler that it costed $20k / Year / Processor. Which, as a small business person is quite a bit out of reach. After my good experiences with DB2, I would consider giving this a whirl. In fact when i first saw this topic I thought "Yes! I get DB2 for free!" then I started thinking "Holy guacamole... reworking code for days/weeks on end to interface with a different DB system". Plus... I don't work with really huge databases anymore.

I once heard an urban legend that MySQL is faster than DB2 with queries on tables that are less than 250k rows. If that's the case... It's really a rare table for me these days that has 250k+ rows (and when I do have that many records in a table, it's usually not data that i need access to quickly, but for historical puposes).

I will however, give it a try with some small (more-or-less-for-fun) projects. Being self employed, I'm not so worried about having the specific "resume points" from using it, but... More or less curious to give it another try.

One of the most impressive additions to DB2 that I know of is the DB2 Spatial Extender, which "[adds to DB2] a set of advanced spatial data types that represent geometries such as points, lines, and polygons and many functions and features that interoperate with those new data types." I believe it's marketed towards and tailored to GIS people, but I had fun experimenting with it while developing a project that needed to store 3d cartesian coordinates.

My guess is that there's a bug in the timelock. I don't recall seeing the trial version available for a while, so my guess is that it got pulled, but I couldn't swear to that.

Nope, I'm talking about the Personal Development Edition. (I looked it up. ;-)) The PDE is absolutely free for development use, and contains all the major functionality. IIRC, it has similar hardware limitations, but that's not something you really notice during development.

Well, you can order IBM's servers with either SuSE Linux Enterprise Server or RHEL. Their workstations can be ordered with RHEL.

For ThinkPad you'd need to visit Lenovo, and sadly it seems you're right: So far Microcrud only. They've even sold their soul Dell-like to the extent of "recommending" it on the home page. Send them a complaint! :)

Well, you can order IBM's servers with either SuSE Linux Enterprise Server or RHEL. Their workstations can be ordered with RHEL.

For ThinkPad you'd need to visit Lenovo, and sadly it seems you're right: So far Microcrud only. They've even sold their soul Dell-like to the extent of "recommending" it on the home page. Send them a complaint! :)

DB2 Express-C for Linux and Windows

Because I don't know. I'm just guessing. I was hoping that someone who followed DB2 a little closer could fill in the details.

BTW, I looked it up. It used to be called "DB2 Personal Developers Edition". The homepage is here, and seems to include version 8.2. So really, I'm back to square one. How about you? :-)

OK, DB/2 is fine and all, but how about a free (no 90-day limit) edition of Informix Dynamic Server?

Something I once heard from a contractor: IBM bought Informix in hopes of merging the Informix technology into DB/2... but found that Informix was so far ahead of them that there was no way they could do it without a full rewrite.

A quick search of IBM's site reveals the links to download DB Express-C. (Registration is required.)

Since no one /. ever, ever, ever runs Windows, here is the link to the X86 Linux, 2.6 kernel version. :-)

A quick search of IBM's site reveals the links to download DB Express-C. (Registration is required.)

Since no one /. ever, ever, ever runs Windows, here is the link to the X86 Linux, 2.6 kernel version. :-)

"Migrate Now! for DB2 Universal Database (UDB) facilitates the migration from Oracle, Sybase, Microsoft SQL server, and additional database platforms to DB2 UDB at a special price. Migrate Now! is an end-to-end offering that includes migration tool kits, no-charge online education, sales teams and resources to assist you in planning and implementing your migration based on IBM's proven methodology."

I think it falls directly in step with IBM's shift in strategy - lower the software cost and generate service based revenues. I don't think I'll be moving my stuff over anytime soon. Oracle on the data warehouse (the app was built before mysql could do cross table updates), mysql on the select only local repository.
IBM may be too late for the vast majority of developers. The ones that offered their products to develop and learn on are the ones that will find some sort of loyalty.

does mysql do this:

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/db2/library/ techarticle/dm-0511singh/

the Cell isn't necessarily going to perform well for crypto

Yes it will. Cryptography is an area where Cell designers especially expect the processor to perform well. See this.

Your link to an IBM Cell-based blade server means nothing as far as the Cell's suitability for general purpose computing.

Well we can't really say anything until IBM actually announces those Cell-based server. So, wait and see.

...the point of our multimodal work is that you can have a two way dialog with the device, as well as have visual feedback to the interaction. See http://ibm.com/pvc/multimodal for some examples.

"Why do criminals rob banks? Because that's where the money is.

Not any more, ever see that IBM commercial?

Sure there are some winners and losers on DevWorks, like anyplace else. This article is clearly aimed at beginners, in fact it says so. No doubt these are some IBMers at the labs, getting a few extra points for writing an article. But there are excellent articles too, here's on one performance. If you think you can do a better job, by all means submit your article, to DevWorks, LinuxJournal, wherever. Put up or shut up.

...only 9 years until I have 68GB of solid-state storage! Finally, now I know when I can build my no-moving-parts, silent jukebox for my soundsystem! I wonder how much storage I'll need by then if I need 40GB now, especially if DVD-A becomes popular, let alone once we move to holographic storage takes off in September of this year, although that date seems to make me wonder why the hell we're arguing about HD-DVD and BluRay....

I just love the example[1] the IBM marketroids chose for this: "For example, when asking for 'Radio 104.3 FM,' the new IBM-pioneered technology allows drivers to simply say, 'Tune to 104.3,' or 'Set the radio station to 104.3,' or 'Change the radio station to 104.3.'" Of all the amazing applications one could dream up, saving a driver from having to punch a radio preset is what they came up with.

I rather like "Open the pod bay door, Hal" myself.

--
1. http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/191 50.wss

Their 340 page user manual (just under 4MB) is actually quite readable. Chapter 2 gives you a conceptual summary, and the rest of it is focused on actually using it.

What is it in a nutshell? Unstructured data -> UIMA -> Structured Data. It's a means of converting unstructured, or more likely semi-structured data into what appears to be relational tables (with indices).

UIMA is really a collection of analysis engines, which you can write, and tends to specialize in some kind of knowledge extraction, such as for example identifying people and their phone numbers. Another analysis engine could look for persons and where they live. What makes UIMA special is that it has unified the meaning of its analysis output, so all the results from different engines can be aggregated - now we know where this person lives AND their phone number.

Unstructured information management (UIM) applications are software systems that analyze unstructured information (text, audio, video, images, etc.) to discover, organize, and deliver relevant knowledge to the user. In analyzing unstructured information, UIM applications make use of a variety of analysis technologies, including statistical and rule-based Natural Language Processing (NLP), Information Retrieval (IR), machine learning, and ontologies. IBM's UIMA is an architectural and software framework that supports creation, discovery, composition, and deployment of a broad range of analysis capabilities and the linking of them to structured information services, such as databases or search engines. The UIMA framework provides a run-time environment in which developers can plug in and run their UIMA component implementations, along with other independently-developed components, and with which they can build and deploy UIM applications. The framework is not specific to any IDE or platform.

In my opinion traditional NFS is not that secure, either against reading things "on the wire" or spoofing.

As another poster has mentioned you can export the filesystem on a client by client basis. As a "bad guy" you have to take over the identity of one of those trusted clients (steal the IP address). Tricky but not impossible.

The basic problem here is authenticating that the client really is the right client. IP addresses are not sufficient in this regard. For those that deem this necessary Secure NFS is key. (excuse the DES pun).

For the extra paranoid you can even tunnel the connection with SSH.

-ed

...our speech-enabled Web browsers for mobile devices and set top boxes. More info on them here: http://ibm.com/pvc/multimodal

Not only do they allow you to navigate by voice, but using X+V (a blend of XHTML and VoiceXML), you could have fully speech-enabled Web apps. Example: "show me nearby sushi restaurants" or "movie schedules in my area".

We also released our Multimodal Tools Project for Eclipse a couple weeks ago: http://alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/mmtp

Go ahead and play. ;-)

...our speech-enabled Web browsers for mobile devices and set top boxes. More info on them here: http://ibm.com/pvc/multimodal

Not only do they allow you to navigate by voice, but using X+V (a blend of XHTML and VoiceXML), you could have fully speech-enabled Web apps. Example: "show me nearby sushi restaurants" or "movie schedules in my area".

We also released our Multimodal Tools Project for Eclipse a couple weeks ago: http://alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/mmtp

Go ahead and play. ;-)

Every chip has an errata sheet. The number of elements on the errata sheet is proportional to the complexity of the chip in question and the age of the process it is fabricated with. The Core Duo by Intel has complexity comparable to 2 PowerPC 970FX Series which its replacing and is fabricated using 65 nm technology. The PowerPC 970FX is fabricated using a 90 nm process. It has 24 items on its errata sheet (http://www-306.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/ techdocs/79B6E24422AA101287256E93006C957E/$file/97 0fx_errata_dd3.x_v1.6.pdf). Therefore its expected that a chip fabricated on a substrate whose minimum feature sizes are half those of the other chip and whose complexity is double the other chip would have 4x the errata items of the other chip.

I think that G5 processors are from the Power970 line (wikipedia tells me that PowerPC 970, PowerPC 970FX and PowerPC 970 MP are all G5), so here's the page for the 970 and 970FX and Errata Notice version 1.6 for design revision levels DD3.0 and DD3.1 which shows 24 errors, all of them marked as WONTFIX.

I think that G5 processors are from the Power970 line (wikipedia tells me that PowerPC 970, PowerPC 970FX and PowerPC 970 MP are all G5), so here's the page for the 970 and 970FX and Errata Notice version 1.6 for design revision levels DD3.0 and DD3.1 which shows 24 errors, all of them marked as WONTFIX.

Not sure I understand the point of this new article... all chips have errata. This is like reporting that the sun set again or that slashdotters have no love life.

For eample...

The MPC7410 family of chips (aka G4) from Freescale (formally part of Motorola) has 21 errata currently listed: MPC7410CE.pdf

The MPC7447 family of chips (aka G4) from Freescale has 36 errata currently listed: MPC7457CE.pdf

The PPC 970FX (aka G5) from IBM has 24 errata currently listed: 970fx_errata_dd3.x_v1.6.pdf

That's a very good question. I think it should even be possible to combine a PPC binary built with IBM's XLC PowerPC compiler for Mac OS X and Intel's x86 compiler using lipo! As long as they're Mach-O binaries I don't think there should be a problem.

That's one thing that drove our decision to stick to IBM hardware: Linux support. http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/documen t.do?sitestyle=ibm&lndocid=MIGR-48NT8D

Looks like it could be a combination of the best of ICT and Notes Buddy. Notes Buddy gives the "breakthroughs ... include bouncing GIFs and smiley faces". But ICT does give something different to standard IM even if it is a resource hog. Hopefully Sametime will be able to do ICT stuff while still having a smallish impact on system resources.

Looks like it could be a combination of the best of ICT and Notes Buddy. Notes Buddy gives the "breakthroughs ... include bouncing GIFs and smiley faces". But ICT does give something different to standard IM even if it is a resource hog. Hopefully Sametime will be able to do ICT stuff while still having a smallish impact on system resources.

I don't think your concerns about the Cell are really applicable.

The Cell is a combination of an ordinary PowerPC (called the PPE) and eight floating-point vector processors (called the SPEs), interconnect and peripheral logic, on a single die.

The PPE (Power Processing Element) will have the standard 970 instruction set including the powerpc-gpopt and powerpc-gfxopt operands. It's a two-thread dual-issue 64-bit general purpose processor that will work pretty much exactly like the 970s in Apple's G5 systems. It has a shortened pipeline which favours well-optimized code (you could think of this as penalizing poorly-optimized code, too). It has a small 16kB L1 cache and a 512kB L2 cache, but can use the high-speed interconnect (EIB) to talk to other local memories. Moreover, it has a standard VMX vector engine (which Apple calls the Velocity Engine and most people call Altivec).

The PPE on its own would be a decent G5 system for running code built with the "-fast" flag in Apple's XCode-bundled gcc 4.0.1 and with standard Velocity Engine acceleration code. Most of the computation workhorse frameworks (QuickTime et al) ought to work well when compiled for this particular target. Fat (er, Universal) binary support could do this trivially.

On its own the PPE should be competitive with a single-core PPC 970 (Apple G5) for most of the uses one would make of a single-processor Mac. There is no reason why one could not use multiple Cell packages in a system, along the lines of the dual G5 systems. However, the dual-G5 packages (especially the quad G5 systems) ought to outperform PPE on code that is principally unvectorized G5 and VMX tasks.

That said, the 8 SPEs one gets on top of the VMX open up a new world.

The Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs) could be looked at and programmed as if they were additional VMX units requiring a preamble and postamble when invoking a vectorized subroutine. Because of the overhead of uploading code to the SPE and syn chronizing between the SPE and PPE, the SPEs are more suited to processing large data blocks. This model would let the PPE (and VMX) focus on other tasks while a large data set mutation was being processed by an SPE.

Another approach would be to stream data through an SPE: the preamble would upload a small program (like a tiny operating system) into an SPE, which would then iterate over datasets as they became available. The PPE would notify the SPE when new data becomes available, and the SPE would notify the PPE when its processing finishes.

SPEs can also notify each other, so one could mix both of the above models, with some SPEs being notified by others (in a chain, most likely), and some being notified by the PPE.

IBM has an online overview of the SPE programming models (see towards the middle of the article).

In a Mac OS X environment, substituting SPE programs for Velocity Engine subroutines would be a SMOP for developers used to Velocity Engine programming. If anything, this is already becoming easier with the migration support for Intel's SSE3.

The Cell would be a good fit for an Apple workstation used for media processing tasks, especially processing video (NLE, rendering, transcoding, compressing). Chaining together several image mutating SPE-based programs in a large multi-SSE model would be a much higher throughput approach than current unvectorized-G5+VMX threads.

The Cell would also be a good fit for scientific programming that leans heavily on double-precision floating point. There is a large hit for using doubles instead of single precision in the SPEs, however they are both fast and numerous, and would work well for parallelizable tasks.

In single precision and in parallel the SPEs look a little like shader engines on modern 3D graphics cards.

The question you raise is whether general purpose computation-intensive code that was not opt

Well, it appears to me (very quick search) that the last support assistance was posted on Jan 11, 2006, and the last fix pack (like a service pack) was released on August 3, 2005. I don't have a service account since I don't use OS/2 anymore, but it appears that there were a number of driver updates made on Jan 13, 2006 as well.

IBM (and OS/2) may have their fair share of problems, but long-term product support isn't one of them.

Well, it appears to me (very quick search) that the last support assistance was posted on Jan 11, 2006, and the last fix pack (like a service pack) was released on August 3, 2005. I don't have a service account since I don't use OS/2 anymore, but it appears that there were a number of driver updates made on Jan 13, 2006 as well.

IBM (and OS/2) may have their fair share of problems, but long-term product support isn't one of them.

We've fixed this in the article... thanks for pointing it out.

Boost socket performance on Linux

Tom Young
dW Linux editor

...on developerWorks, not the least of which, if I may say so, is the GLib tutorial I wrote for them this past summer. If you wanted how to use various GLib collections and utilities - lists, tables, trees, quarks, relations, and all that - check it out. You can even download a nice PDF file for offline perusing.

Folks who are thinking about writing something technical - give dW a shot. The editors are savvy folks and there's lots of good stuff up there already.

Oh, and book plug!

Description

Your Environment:

The IBM Toronto Laboratory is one of the largest software development sites in IBM and the fourth largest R&D facility in Canada. A dynamic team of 2,500 highly skilled professionals, who develop, test, service and market our software products, are among the most talented in the industry. The Toronto Lab has worldwide missions within IBM for database management, application development tools, electronic commerce, and business components. These software products run on all IBM systems (xSeries, iSeries, pSeries, and zSeries) using a wide variety of operating systems, including AIX, Linux, HP-UX, Sun Solaris, Microsoft Windows and z/OS.

Your Team:

Compilation Technology Development develops and maintains leading edge C, C++ and Fortran compilers that enable businesses to develop their mission critical applications or products. These compilers are available on AIX and Linux on POWER. In addition, the C and C++ compilers are available on OS/400 and z/OS.

The C, C++ and Fortran Information Development team delivers documentation for IBM's XL C++ products and for XL Fortran products. Examples of the documentation written by the team can be found at http://www.ibm.com/software/awdtools/xlcpp/library /

Your Role:

This Information Developer position offers an opportunity to collaborate with developers, testers, service analysts and other technical writers at IBM's new software development facility in Markham, Ontario.
Using skills in writing and organization and applying your technical aptitude to a product under development, you'll contribute to a future release of IBM application development tools and compilers; products that provide the foundation for e-business.
The work will allow you to gain exposure to object-oriented languages and compiler technology. You will also be using leading-edge technologies and tools to produce your information deliverables.
This position requires strong English writing skills and a proven ability to understand and explain highly technical information from design documents,architecture documents and product drivers in progress. Knowledge of one of C, C++ or Fortran languages; Unix, z/OS, USS or Linux operating systems is required. To be successful, you must possess strong writing skills and a proven technical aptitude. It is essential that you have the ability to take initiative, and always work in a pro-active manner with colleagues at all levels.

Not necesarily

The way I see it, Windows is under constant security siege, and I was posing the question that if Linux's security were under that same siege,

It is already. What internet do you use ?

so that monthly kernel updates were necessary for safe operation, would it not then need reboots that frequently as well?

See above, Or one of the million other times your lame ass question's been posted.

No

Out of curiosity, when will the wintendo crowd realize that there's plenty of people attacking Linux every day. Don't be upset just because Windows yields better results for their effort.

"That would be the friendly way in which one avoids looking at easily and publically available court documents "

I went down to the court house and they said they didn't have them.

Anyway, I can't find any internet reference to ISA bus licensing.

This link:
    http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~dranch/HARDWARE/pc-b uses.txt

Suggests that IBM developed the MCA bus because nobody paid licensing fees for ISA.

This link:
    http://www.aaxnet.com/info/glocomp.html

Matches my recollection with this quote:

"Not only did IBM demand stiff royalties for its use [MCA], they also demanded back royalties for all computers built using the ISA bus before they would license it. NCR suckered for this deal but nobody else did."

This link from IBM:
    http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-s pec5.html

Makes no mention of ISA licensing. Maybe IBM was ashamed.

Now seriously, you might be right. But I can't find a reference on the Internet, which suggests it's not so easily available. Perhaps you could send a link?