[Info-vax] universal software, one size fits all.

[John Wallace]

On Aug 8, 9:58 pm, Neil Rieck <n.ri... at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> On Aug 8, 8:41 am, Neil Rieck <n.ri... at sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>
>
> > > Although a new CEO at HP might make changes, one should not have any
> > > hopes or expectations this will happen.
>
> > You are correct. We have all been here before and a new CEO won't make
> > any difference as far as OpenVMS is concerned (remember when Sue got
> > Carly to put on a VMS T-shirt for a photo-op? We can never expect
> > anymore action than this)
>
> > > VMS is an orphaned child that HP has been forced to have custody of. It
> > > gives it enough food to survive and that is it. HP has upheld its
> > > promise to continue to support the existing customer base. Alpha was
> > > murdered 9 years ago, and HP is still supporting it, and 8.4 is being
> > > released on Alpha and that Itanic thing.
>
> > North America has been under the influence of uber-capitalism for more
> > than a decade now. Just like Star Trek's Ferengi, all that matters is
> > profit (or gold-pressed latinum whatever that is). So upper-management
> > will only pay attention to OpenVMS if it brings them profit.
>
> > I recently attended a webinar which stated: before 1990, approximately
> > 30% of any product's budget was placed into manufacturing a product
> > while 70% was going into marketing (this was definitely true of the
> > automobile business). This meant that any piece of crap could be
> > marketed to general public. (my mind also falls back to a time of
> > glossy color publications from a company called DEC :-) But everything
> > changed with the internet. Now word spreads very quickly about whether
> > a product is good, or more importantly, bad so companies began to flip
> > things around with 70% of a budget going into manufacturing with 30%
> > going into marketing.
>
> > The software business was handled a bit differently. Companies didn't
> > increase the manufacturing portion so much as they just slashed the
> > marketing portion. Hey, 99% of the people writing/using software were
> > already on the internet so the only software marketing campaigns
> > involved "sell software to retail consumers (Windows)" or "writing
> > chess programs to beat grand masters (IBM)".
>
> > From what I can tell, OpenVMS got a triple dose of this treatment by
> > having the proverbial "red-headed step child" transferred to two
> > foster parents (Compaq then HP) while the marketing/manufacturing
> > budgets were interchanged. But HPQ was able to go one step further by
> > cutting the OpenVMS marketing budget much lower than 30%.
>
> > In fact, it was already close to zero when people like Sue Skonetski
> > and Terry Shannon had their HP-sponsored road-shows. But annual
> > corporate bonuses are based on annual measurable "increases of gross
> > income" or "decreases of support costs". Since people weren't auto-
> > magically buying more OpenVMS licenses or OpenVMS support contracts,
> > HP went the second route by off shoring support to Asia. Hey, why pay
> > someone $1k per week in North America when you can get someone in Asia
> > to happily accept $200 to do the same thing? And since the internet is
> > also used to support this kind of business, there are no increases in
> > shipping costs.
>
> > The one thing wrong with uber-capitalism is this: the only thing on
> > the planet demanding a guaranteed amount of annual growth is "cancer".
> > Yes, we have modeled our economy upon a disease and things won't go
> > well for North America until we stop this madness.
>
> > Back to the reason why you hang out at this news group: you will never
> > ever see OpenVMS marketed like VMS once was (or even ever). If you
> > want to contribute to HPQ's measurable stats, then convince people to
> > buy a new Integrity box with licensed OpenVMS software (and perhaps a
> > support contract). As far as HP is concerned, OpenVMS is just one way
> > to facilitate the sale of new hardware.
>
> > If you don't believe me, take a look at what is going on at the Apache
> > website. This is an example of very high quality software with no
> > advertising budget.
>
> > Neil Rieck
> > Kitchener / Waterloo / Cambridge,
> > Ontario, Canada.http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/
>
> Sorry for replying to my own post but I forgot a few related thoughts:
>
> In most instances computers are appliances and software is pretty much
> invisible. For example, do Macintosh owners even care that they are
> using a UNIX variant? Nope, they only care that their computers work
> the way they expect. Do we know anything about the embedded software
> controlling various parts of our automobiles, home entertainment
> equipment, etc.? Nope but maybe we should. Most people don't think
> about anything other than inserting the key and driving away.
>
> On top of this, freely available open source software has improved to
> the point where it is even giving Microsoft and IBM some real
> competition. In the case of IBM, they are now making much more money
> selling software services to companies than they ever did by selling
> software. It is for these reasons that I don't think computer
> manufacturers will ever return to marketing operating systems and
> language products the way they once did. Only technical people are
> even interested in such things anyway.
>
> Question: So just how will "the OpenVMS community" keep OpenVMS live?
> Answer: The same way the Open Source Community keeps their stuff
> alive. We will use the internet to support OpenVMS products as well as
> each other. On top of this, we will encourage people like John and
> Brett (and many others) in their efforts to port open source software
> to OpenVMS. If we don't do it nobody will.
>
> Yesterday I watched my Alpha Server system do things that the original
> designers of OpenVMS never intended even though gSOAP is just
> middleware. In some ways it was similar to watching Apache HTTPd
> running on OpenVMS for the first time. Very cool.
>
> Neil Rieck
> Kitchener / Waterloo / Cambridge,
> Ontario, Canada.http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/

"Do we know anything about the embedded software controlling various
parts of our automobiles, home entertainment equipment, etc.? Nope but
maybe we should."

Haven't Toyota recently been giving public lessons in how to apply
Microsoft-class system testing strategy to critical automotive
software? Or has everybody forgotten that one already, especially
since some US organisation said "we tested it for eight hours and
couldn't find a fault so it must be OK" (or words to that effect).

"Most people don't think about anything other than inserting the key
and driving away."

Probably not. Maybe they should, especially if there is no real
clutch, no real fuel cutoff, and everything is controlled by multiple
communicating real-time computer systems, which may or may not have
had realistic testing. Why did Toyota send a *Sales* director to
testify to Congress, rather than a technical director or someone
equivalent to a Director of Regulatory Compliance? Maybe the Sales
director was the one putting on the pressure to keep the costs down
and the timescales short, and the Engineering folks would have told a
different story?

With few exceptions, people are not yet taking software seriously
enough. Even in some areas where strict industry standards apply, I am
not convinced the regulators fully understand what they are
regulating. It will be interesting to see what happens at Olkiluoto,
the much-delayed massively overbudget nuclear power station being
built in Finland. Long-standing European regulatory practice requires
two entirely independent computer systems for routine operation and
safety shutdown. The suppliers, despite being well aware of this
requirement, have proposed a single, integrated, control and shutdown
system (presumably because it's cheaper, I can't see them suggesting
it if it's more expensive, as it's a "fixed price" contract). Maybe
that's sensible, maybe it's not, we have to wait and see.

How many "critical" patches for Windows will come out next Tuesday? Is
it good or bad that this single OS is now controlling everything from
hospital scanners to electricity distribution to supermarket tills to
warships?

No sensible person would suggest there is one OS which is appropriate
for absolutely every software system. So it is clearly already
accepted that there is room for the software world to support more
than one OS. The question then arises, what are the boundaries for
suitability of the various OSes, and who should be making those
decisions re suitability? Should it be experienced engineers or
clueless idiots?

Have readers been following the coverage of the recently-discovered
Windows vulnerability which was first reported in Siemens WinCC Scada
package, which is reportedly widely used in power generation and
distribution? Plenty of coverage and comment on The Register].

"Only technical people are even interested in such things anyway."

"Only technical people" understand the engineering issues properly.
Technical people are of course the kind of people who were overridden
in the Shuttle disaster(s), and who were overridden in the Nimrod
airworthiness story where a "Powerpoint culture" (not my words, they
come straight from the government inquiry report, see [1]) led to the
avoidable deaths of fourteen airmen in an air tanker crash in
Afghanistan in 2006. And before that in the Ford Pinto, and and...

Have a safe week.

[1] Nimrod inquiry report, summarised at, and linked from,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/29/nimrod-crash-inquiry-raf-afghanistan