Free and Open Source COBOL - Opening FOSS to Finance and Admin (the old DP shops)
CEME 1212 | Fri 07 Aug 4:30 p.m.–5:15 p.m.
Presented by
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Marty Heyman
@Marty@cobolworx.social
@MartyH
https://cobolworx.oom
Marty broke into computers as a punched card loading 1401 operator waiting for the next programmer's class at IBM in 1967. He got into Unix and the Internet in 1989 and crosses the boundary between old-school DP and today's distributed IT world. He co-founded Symas Corp. in 1999. Symas is an Open Source Software Tech Support company and sponsor of OpenLDAP. We are also a COBO center of professional skills supporting GnuCOBOL and developers of GCC COBOL.
Marty Heyman
@Marty@cobolworx.social
@MartyH
https://cobolworx.oom
Marty broke into computers as a punched card loading 1401 operator waiting for the next programmer's class at IBM in 1967. He got into Unix and the Internet in 1989 and crosses the boundary between old-school DP and today's distributed IT world. He co-founded Symas Corp. in 1999. Symas is an Open Source Software Tech Support company and sponsor of OpenLDAP. We are also a COBO center of professional skills supporting GnuCOBOL and developers of GCC COBOL.
Abstract
COBOL is considered a dead language. The current ISO-IEC Cobol Language Standard was published at the very end of 2023 and describes a very "modern" language. But the vast majority of the COBOL code behind the Finance and Administrative applications in the back room was written by the mid-1980s and the bigger enhancements were done by Y2K. Why COBOL on Linux/BSD/WSL/LinuxOne®
Well, there are hundreds of billions, yes BILLIONS, of lines of cobol code wout there. Mostly on IBM mainframes. Some on Windows (Microfocus® now Rocket Software). And some on Linux already (GnuCOBOL, COBOL to C to gcc to native, works well). The owneers of some of that COBOL code want to migrate those apps to Open Systems. The Microfocus users want an alternative too. So, after experiece with GnuCOBOL, COBOLworx®, a branded unit of Symas® Corp, built a COBOL compiler (front-end) for the Gnu Compiler Collectiion, gcobol, and contributed it in 2025 (GCC 15) and has enhanced it in the recent GCC 16.
The history of COBOL starts from Hollerith, IBM and punched cards. It revolutionized the back office! Maybe the biggest productivity activity every. I'd like to share some of what that felt like, what it meant, and what it means today
COBOL is considered a dead language. The current ISO-IEC Cobol Language Standard was published at the very end of 2023 and describes a very "modern" language. But the vast majority of the COBOL code behind the Finance and Administrative applications in the back room was written by the mid-1980s and the bigger enhancements were done by Y2K. Why COBOL on Linux/BSD/WSL/LinuxOne®
Well, there are hundreds of billions, yes BILLIONS, of lines of cobol code wout there. Mostly on IBM mainframes. Some on Windows (Microfocus® now Rocket Software). And some on Linux already (GnuCOBOL, COBOL to C to gcc to native, works well). The owneers of some of that COBOL code want to migrate those apps to Open Systems. The Microfocus users want an alternative too. So, after experiece with GnuCOBOL, COBOLworx®, a branded unit of Symas® Corp, built a COBOL compiler (front-end) for the Gnu Compiler Collectiion, gcobol, and contributed it in 2025 (GCC 15) and has enhanced it in the recent GCC 16.
The history of COBOL starts from Hollerith, IBM and punched cards. It revolutionized the back office! Maybe the biggest productivity activity every. I'd like to share some of what that felt like, what it meant, and what it means today