[Info-vax] VMS License Generator

[JF Mezei]

Subcommandante XDelta wrote:

> The VLF are not interested in hacking into anyone's systems, we are
> interested solely in debugging HP management's VMS policy.

Has the departure of Shane Robison helped any ?  Since he was the chief
CTO, I suspect that he would have been the one to write off VMS has
being old and having no future and tus convincing folks like Ann
Livermore not to spend money to re-invigorate VMS.

Or were there others who influenced upper management to dismiss VMS as
having no potential ?

Cnsidering that Meg Whitman has pretty much written off the BCS section
and they'll focus on scaling 8086s to Superdome size for industry
standard operating systems,  is there still hope ?

Those whose pension still depends on honouring an NDA when they left
will adamantly deny there are any plans to port VMS to the 8086.  But
they do so in such a way that it makes one wonder if this ia
preprogrammed automated response or whether it is really legitimate.



>>OK, for non-hobbyists who want to use VMS for commercial purposes 
>>without paying for it?
> 
> That was clarified previously.


Many years ago, some dude named Bill Gates had admitted that while
Microsoft opposed pirating of Windows, it did benefit from it because
eventually, folks who got a pirated copy would buy an upgrade and get
the real mcCoy and/or get Office legally etc.

The thing is that even since Palmer, the VMS software portfolio offered
by the owner of VMS has dwindled significantly.  So a fake PAK generator
will basically give you access to VMS, clustering and shadowing, but the
rest is basically museum stuff from the 1980s and 1990s.

When I see use for a pirate PAK geerator in business is for migration
projects where you would need temporary PAKs while setting up a test
system and then run production in parralell for a couple fo weeks ad
move to the new system where you install the real PAKs (after removing
from the old system).

Or you might need volume shadowing for a couple of weeks for such a project.

Now, HP might or might not be cooperative in such endeavours. If you are
big enough to have an official contact at HP, then P might give you
those temporary PAKs, but if you are a small customer and you only know
the basic 800 number to HP where they ask if you are runing Vista or XP
and have never heard of VMS, then the odds of you getting temporary PAKs
are low.


When a company is on the cusp of abandonning a product, I think
customers can take greater liberties with regards to licensing.