[Info-vax] Message from HP.

[Subcommandante XDelta]

David Froble:
> gce at gce.com wrote:
>> It seems unlikely that there is sufficient expertise at HP to do a
>> port of VMS again without significant growth to its VMS engineering
>> group. The codebase has been ported twice now, so it's a bit easier
>> to do than the first 2 times, but since the path has been in part to
>> compile macro2 and Bliss (and there was a lot more of the former) a
>> new compiler backend would be needed. The old work on x86 did not get
>> far, and would need heavy rework even if its code can be located any
>> more, since it would make sense only to target x86-64. More
>> importantly, though, even if you could get the whole VMS function
>> base to work on x64 iron, it would remain a niche sized system.
> 
> Yes it would, but it might just be very valuable to those still using
> VMS.  In my opinion, it isn't something that should compete with desktop
> PCs, tablets, and smart phones.

Cast your mind back to VMS 1.0 and the power and capacity of the
machines that they ran on, I still recall the multi-user, time-sharing
miracles that were achieved.

>From the mainframe to the smart-phone and all computing tiers inbetween,
VMS can run on anything, and do anything.

Let us not anyone keep drinking the soporific, amnesic, HP kool-aid,
with its deliberate, dishonest, defamation of the VMS that it is a
"server-only" operating system, best locked away forever in it's Itanic
sarcophagus at the bottom of the Mariana trench of enterprise computing.

VMS in and of itself is a "Champion Swiss Army knife":

http://www.victorinox.com/ch/product/Swiss-Army-Knives/Category/The-Original-Swiss-Army-Knives/The-Original-Swiss-Army-Knives-large-size-91-mm/SwissChamp-(33/1.6795

Or indeed a supreme cyber-tool:

http://www.victorinox.com/ch/product/Swiss-Army-Knives/Category/The-Original-Swiss-Army-Knives/The-Original-Swiss-Army-Knives-large-size-91-mm/CyberTool-41/1.7775.T

And VMS with all its layered products, layered on is:

http://www.wenger.ch/giant-knife-wenger-swiss-army-knife

Lest we forget, lest we forget.

The VLF are certainly not going to let anyone...

/*snip*/

>> (If HP gives up on VMS, it would be most decent of them to open
>> source the VMS sources, as much as they can, but any third party
>> would have to figure out answers to the above anyway, and I suspect
>> what might be needed can be done currently by third parties if they
>> had justification to do it.)
>>
>> Glenn Everhart
> 
> Yes, everything would depend upon HP making as much of VMS as possible
> open source.  For some of the stuff they cannot, well, lots is obsolete,
> and could be replaced, if needed.
> 
> I've pondered the idea of some remaining users with deep pockets
> threatening HP to open source the OS, or face a class action lawsuit.
> Yeah, most of us probably don't like lawyers.  If such should happen, HP
> would look at the cost of defending, regardless of the merits of the
> case, vs the cost of releasing the code.

Ah, music to the ears of the VLF, COV talking turkey again.

After the terminal exsanguination and evisceration of VMS Engineering,
(replaced with a cow hide propped up on four sticks, with a tin-box that
goes "moo", if you recall), is there anyone left at HP who knows where
the source codes to VMS and the DEC layered products are, let alone
knows how to access it, pending comprehension.

What of the VMS systems that generate VMS Kernel images, (or however VMS
Engineering termed it) from the source code integrated into DECset (or
however VMS organised it) for compilation with the relevant tool-chains
for system generation.

Are such VMS Genesis systems still running and operational?

If not, do full image backups of such VMS Genesis systems still exist in
the archival data stores of HP?

Such questions should be of vital interest to the "VMS 2000", akin to
the "Spartan 300", in terms of their dire circumstances.

Hopefully the "VMS 2000" will wake up to themselves, very much sooner
than later, and get in contact with their own, mutual "Inner Spartan 300".

And send the "HP" (Hubristic Persians, of course) packing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_300_Spartans