[Info-vax] HP wins Oracle Itanium case

[Michael Kraemer]

David Froble schrieb:

> 
> Not sure how to get my point across.
> 
> Most of what you write isn't about the relative merits of VMS vs Unix, 
> but about Unix being available, low cost or free, sort of portable, and 
> such.

These are merits enough.
Apart from that, Unix is at least as capable as VMS,
so at the bottom line it wins hands down.
What more merits do you need?

> Imagine if in the neighborhood of 1990 DEC produced portable versions of 
> VMS, that ran on (or could be modified to run on) just about every type 
> of hardware, made the sources available for such purpose, and all the 
> other "virtues" you claim for Unix.  Made the price "right" too.

That's a very big "if" with an entirely unrealistic "then" clause.
The "else" clause comprises the difficulties to port VMS to a
hardware other than its native VAX. Even DEC themselves needed
several years to port to Alpha, and the port to Itanic took
about as long. Even if sources were available,
how long do you think a hypothetical licensee would have needed?
Moreover, it would still be a "DEC thing", so no serious IT firm
would license it and thus depend on a competitor.

With so many unrealistic assumptions you can speculate about
just everything.

> With these "virtues" being equal, and DEC continuing to develop and 
> market VMS instead of half or more of the company trying to kill it,

I don't know where you get the notion that DEC didn't market VMS
or that they tried to kill it. They just adapted to customer's needs
who demanded Unix and NT, so VMS had to play the second or third fiddle.
Nevertheless you could buy VMS and related support
all through the 1990s, 2000s and possibly also 2010s.
So what do you complain about?

> it's my biased opinion that the "merits" of VMS would be superior to 
> Unix. 

Maybe if you changed your bias, you would understand better?

> Just wondering if I'm justified in considering the architecture 
> of VMS superior to Unix?

"Architecture" might be important if you buy a house.
For an IT customer, the bottom line counts.