That was definitely where they screwed up: universities. They have recent program pushing mainframes to universities more. However, they would've been better off (a) giving them to Universities at physical cost, (b) donating time to their students from a pool IBM themselves use, or (c) supporting the Hercules emulator for use in educational institutions that acquire licenses. This would've gotten more exposure. Each are still good moves today.
Not sure what they're actually doing but closing it off too much holds them back. It can still be proprietary. However, people need to be able to hack on it or a VM of it for best results. Preferably, a way for people to learn it in pieces so they don't have to know all mainframe stuff at once. Think the pre-configured, appliance VM's for various services. Have those for z/OS admins, CICS users, etc.
Not sure what they're actually doing but closing it off too much holds them back. It can still be proprietary. However, people need to be able to hack on it or a VM of it for best results. Preferably, a way for people to learn it in pieces so they don't have to know all mainframe stuff at once. Think the pre-configured, appliance VM's for various services. Have those for z/OS admins, CICS users, etc.