[Info-vax] OT: Elephants Can't Dance

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <13946$49c28a06$cef8af62$15275 at teksavvy.com-free>,
	"John Smith \(not the one @ HP\)" <a at nonymous.com> writes:
> 
> "Neil Rieck" <n.rieck at sympatico.ca> wrote in message 
> news:1f81536c-a5cb-4e39-8512-41e882d591db at d19g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
> 
> According to this link:
> http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/docs/open-source-biology.html (look
> for the yellow text), the amount of money made on Linux is well into
> the multiple billions. 

For who?

>                         I guess it goes without saying that pushing
> OpenVMS into the open source community probably won't put money into
> HP's accounts (at least not initially). It would allow HP to sell more
> hardware 

Unlikely as, assuming the Open Source community took any interest in
VMS at all (and that is a very big assumption!) the first thing they
would be likely to do would be make sure it ran on commodity hardware.

>           -AND- it might enable them to sell other stuff like layered
> software and compilers etc. 

To who?  The Open Source community?  Not very likely.

>                             Then, like IBM is doing, they could sell
> OpenVMS support (after all, isn't that one reasons why they bought
> EDS? So they could get their feet in the door of all businesses).

Except that if the source is available to anyone, other people could
also offer OpenVMS Support and smaller shops would easily undercut HP's
prices.

> That's the kind of thinking & insight that you'd expect from a 2nd year 
> student. HP hasn't made it to that level yet. 

No, actually this is the kind of thinking that people with little if any
real business experience have.  It's why so many businesses fail in their
first year of existence.

The reasons not to Open Source VMS greatly outweight any possible reason
to do it.  The only people who are actually behind this have a lot of
personal reasons why they would like to have a free and Open Source
version of VMS and not those who have an investment in it.

bill
 
-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>