[Info-vax] What is VMS?

[Bob Koehler]

In article <7d941$4ee88cda$82a13c9d$10178 at news1.tudelft.nl>, joukj <joukj at hrem.nano.tudelft.nl> writes:
> Connor Cooper wrote:
>> What is VMS? What is it good for? How come it has the prefix 'Open',
>> yet it is not open source? what are some good guides for using it? I
>> have already registered for a hobbyist VAX license, but I am not sure
>> how I should install it on SIMH. Anyone have anything good to say?

> The name was changed from VMS to OpenVMS when the sourcecode was made 
> available for paying customers.

   Bull.  The fiche shipped with all the early H kits.  Later on
   only customers who paid a token amount for it got it.  Then it
   got converted to CD.  None of this was coincident with the name
   change to OpenVMS.  Last time I heard, it was still pretty damn
   cheap for what you get.

   Open was the popular buzzword for UNIX at a time when UNIX wasn't
   open source, either.  You could only get UNIX source for a big price.
   But all UNIX are different, and one of the attemtps to address this was 
   the POSIX standard.  A few non-UNIX systems, such as VMS, MVS, and
   MPE, also met the POSIX standard, which the POSIX standard writers 
   hadn't expected.

   VMS no longer meets this standard, but the name change never went away.