[Info-vax] Whither VMS?

[Michael Kraemer]

Neil Rieck schrieb:

> 
> You bring up an interesting point that has been in the back of my head
> for months now. HP seems to push Windows, Linux and HPUX more than
> anything else. 

No surprise here. Windoze and Linux are almost inevitable
for a vendor, and HP-UX is their genuine product, while VMS is n.i.h.

> Forgetting about Windows and Linux for a moment, what
> does HP charge for OS and compiler licenses in the HPUX world?
> 
> If HPUX licenses are lower than OpenVMS then wouldn't this be a form
> of unnatural selection against OpenVMS? 

Why? See above. And maybe it costs more to develop/maintain VMS.

> (because bean counters will
> always point you to the cheaper product; that's why our IS/IT people
> keep leaning on us to switch to Windows Server 2003).

 From what?

> The only way to
> get OpenVMS licensing on a level playing field with HPUX (or anything
> else) is to announce to the world that OpenVMS prices will drop a
> certain percent every week for the next 60 months. 

Assuming the world knows or even takes care about VMS.
And why not just lower the price at once?

> The only down side
> to this is guaranteeing that there will still be an OpenVMS market in
> 60 months.
> 
> And while on my soap box, I know that anyone can scrape together money
> each year for a Connect membership then pay/apply for OpenVMS hobbyist
> licenses which will expire after every year. (I'm not sure how you get
> a hobbyist license for HPUX). 

No need for that. If you grab an HP-UX capable workstation,
you have the license. If you manage to grab HP-UX media,
you can install at least the base OS, there are no PAKs.
Native compilers et al are a different story.

> Anyway, at the end of the day this is
> still a bigger pain than just freely downloading Ubuntu, Linux,
> Solaris or SUN Studio. 

Yep.

> Maybe HP should just go the extra mile and
> allow people to freely download OpenVMS for non-commercial use. Why?
> How will the newbies ever get involved with OpenVMS if they don't get
> a free shot at trying it out? This is just food-for-thought.

Put away those silly PAKs
(or at least offer a general, unlimited one, like that for Tru64),
and charge for the original OS media a processing fee, compatible
with the price of a hobbyist's hardware.

> Neil Rieck
> Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge,
> Ontario, Canada.
> http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/