[Info-vax] Current VMS Usage Survey

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <529f4e5d$0$2915$426a34cc at news.free.fr>,
	"Gérard Calliet (pia-sofer)"   <gerard.calliet at pia-sofer.fr> writes:
> Le 04/12/2013 10:00, Subcommandante XDelta a écrit :
>> "Gérard Calliet (pia-sofer)":
>>> Le 04/12/2013 05:38, JF Mezei a écrit :
>>>> VMS is an antique OS that has been stagnant for many many years. Along
>>>> the likes of Tru64, MPE, Data General's AOS/VS etc.
>>>
>>> With all the respect I must have with the ancestors, what are you doing
>>> here, in comp.os.VMS, Sir ?
>>> You want to shit VMS ? OK. Do it elsewhere, have a chair with Mister
>>> Bill Gates.
>>
>> Now, now, Gerard, the inveterate grizzled veterans of comp.os.vms have
>> been keeping watch for a decade or more, they've seen it all and
>> discussed it all, over and over, reiterations on the announcement of the
>> next chapter of major disappointment, chapter after chapter after chapter.
>>
>> Rage, anger, frustration, grief, sorrow, fatigue, rage fatigue, anger
>> fatigue, sorrow and grief fatigue, even fatigue fatigue may have been
>> experienced; some survival cynicism air-bages may also have inflated.
>>
>> Some, but not all, (I am not really thinking of anyone in particular)
>> may have enchanted themselves, into a funk of apparent disempowerment,
>> that there is nothing that can be done about the situation. It is just a
>> bad-habit they have got into, if such comp.os.vms collegiates exist,
>> they can talking their way, enchant their way out of that funk of
>> apparent disempowerment, or perhaps they can be talked out of it,
>> patiently and persistently.
>>
>> One thing is for certain, funked up or funked over, comp.os.vms is one
>> of the greatest, if not the greatest concentration of decades of
>> man-years experience of VMS on the Internet; no one lurks here or
>> participates here, if they do not give a damn about VMS.
>>
> I'm just saying bitterness is not cleverness.

iMost don't see it as bitterness, just reality.


> 
> I hear here a lot of "you can't do anything, don't do anything, WE KNOW 
> there is no thing to do". OK. So, all the "greatest man-years 
> experience" is just able to say this sort of thing ? Is it for this sort 
> of thing an usenet comp.os.vms exists ?

Once again, reality.  HP owns VMS.  Lock, stock and barrel.  When they
say its dead, its dead.  I am still waiting for someone to provide a
copy of the "eternal PAK" as I expect it is only eternal until the owner
of VMS says "we withdraw permission".

> 
> I agree about a lot of things said here, I understand bitternes, angry,...
> 
> But there is a sort of thing I cannot agree on. A peremptory way of 
> analysing to conclude that we must not do anything. I hear behind this 
> sort of talk a way of disallowing any sort of critic, and refusing any 
> sort of innovation.

It is certainly not that "we must not do anything" as much as you can
do nothing.  You don't own it.  You don't control it.  If HP is not
willing to keep it going, it will die.  And all this talk of releasing
OS source to the public.  That is downright laughable.  Which of the
OSes that preceded VMS is currently available to the community in source
form?  Only one I know of and the argument there is that it was never
really the property of any of the parties we are dealing with for VMS
and was, in fact, released by its true owners.  And just to make the
picture even bleaker, the sources that were eventually released (actually
rounded up is a better term as DEC/Compaq/HP never provided any of it)
are not even tha last producton version.

> 
> DEC and persons at DEC have been wrong, Compaq has been wrong, HP has 
> been worse...
> 
> An what about us ?

Your also wrong.  You are talking about somehow forcing HP to do something
that they have never shown any interest in and are very unlikely to change
their minds about now.

> 
> There is a very slow acceptance and less than expected sells of Itanium. 
> Yes, and mainly in the OpenVMS base. Who has cried about "Itanic" the 
> most, who were willing to revange OUR Alpha ? WE did.

How did you "revenge ... Alpha"?  It's as dead today as it was last year
and the year before that, etc.

> 
> Unixes, Linuxes are at the top, we are at the bottom. Yes. Who looked 
> down on these Berkeley-with-flowers-in-the-beard OS for dummies ? Who 
> disregarded progression of ip, internet ? We did.

What's your point?  Bragging about backing the wrong horse?

> 
> Oracle and his java trillion of devices is at he top, more than 50% of 
> funny applications are in java, and our "antique OS" is not so simple to 
> use in the context ? Who shited Java the most ? We did.

See comment above!  :-)


> 
> There are big Open Sources communities. If there is here more than 
> hundred of readers, it is a maximum. But we were for a long time 
> thinking about Open Sources communities as the contrary of 
> professionality. We were wrong.

No, actually got that one right.

> 
> Ok, ok, on all that points it is possible to argue. What I am saying is 
> that we, as a community of professionals are able to do mistakes, and 
> perhaps we did. A bitterness only talk is a way of not thinking about 
> our mistakes.
> 
> The biggest, I think, is not being able to do things without mama HP, 
> and crying when she doesn't do the wright things.

"mama HP" owns VMS.  Without "mama HP" you do nothing with VMS and
"mama HP" has said VMS is done.  It really is time to admit that
the writting has been on the wall for quite some time and move on.
VMS is not the first OS to face this end.  Others also had very
loyal followings.  But in the end, we all got over it (yes, I for
one lament not only the demise of RSTS but also Primos which I had
intimate knowledge of as I was an OS maintainer!!)

bill



-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>