Should we add ibm z/OS mainframe host info to the Ansible docs?

TL;DR: I’m -1 for this. IMO new technology-specific docs belong with their technology support collections. If there are changes needed to expand the capability of non-plugin docs in collections, that’s probably where the short-term focus should be.

Longer answer: Since collections became a thing, the Ansible Core team’s long-term goal has always been to shift most (possibly all) technology- and platform-specific code and docs out to collections via exec subsystem plugins. With that goal in mind, we’ve resisted most asks to include new technology-specific bits in core itself. Exec subsystems shouldn’t be nearly the size of the internals overhaul we’re wrapping up from the Data Tagging project, but to properly work with things like Windows, z/OS, and networking devices (without all the nasty hacks and band-aids each of those have required), it’ll be a bigger project that will redraw some of the lines and interactions between core plugin types

It may take a bit to get there, but collections are the future for this stuff, and if I’ve learned anything from the overhaul we’re just finishing, it’s that the bigger we make the core surface area we have to support, the harder it is to maintain or change anything. I have no issue with (at least temporarily) including some basic pointers to technology-specific collections in core docs, but anything beyond that seems like it’s working against direction we’re headed.

(all this said, it’s also unclear to me exactly what’s being asked for here- if it’s purely about the unversioned ecosystem docs, and that works for the direction those are headed, go for it)

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