[Info-vax] HP wins Oracle Itanium case

[Simon Clubley]

On 2012-08-20, David Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>
> 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.
>

Those _are_ merits and the portability merit is a technical, not marketing
merit as the current Unix/Linux kernels were designed to be portable.

> 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.
>

The above sounds to me a bit like you want a "do over" based on the way the
market has evolved and based on the attributes of what has turned out to be
successful in the market place. :-)

However, let's take the above as it stands and without analyzing whether it
would have been realistic.

The above would have been a good start, but it would only have been a start.

Who would have control of this rewritten VMS ? Would variants be allowed in
the market place so that new ideas could be tried and the best ideas
integrated back into the other variants ?

IE: would this be seen as something DEC controlled, or would it be seen as
a open standard ?

Even with freely available source code, there is a real possibility NewVMS
would have stagnated unless it embraced the freely available to use and
modify mindset that Unix has.

One simple example for you to consider. DCL's UI is cumbersome when compared
to other options. In your new setup, how would enhancements to DCL be
developed and compared and how would the best of those developments make it
back into the code base ?

> 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, it's my biased opinion 
> that the "merits" of VMS would be superior to Unix.  Just wondering if I'm 
> justified in considering the architecture of VMS superior to Unix?

VMS certainly does have significant advantages when compared to Unix, but
those advantages are not enough to overcome the disadvantages when compared
to currently available options. This would be equally true in a NewVMS
unless it had a sufficiently flexible development model.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world