[Info-vax] 2013 OpenVMS Boot Camp

[Paul Sture]

In article <kd0477$oga$1 at reader1.panix.com>,
 JohnF <john at please.see.sig.for.email.com> wrote:

> Bill Gunshannon <billg999 at cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
> > DTL <didier.morandi at gmail.com> writes:
> >> VMS is dead, buried and forgotten. Well, not for the US DOD, 
> > Any use of VMS within DOD is minimal and trivial.
> 
> I know nothing about it, but thought a large part of the
> reason for HP's ongoing VMS support was very long term
> contractual support obligations to DOD inherited from DEC.
> Is that not right? Or, if right, what's the short version
> of those obligations? And how quickly is VMS support likely
> to fade away after they expire?

That was the story a decade or so ago.  There may of course be systems 
in use which are not seen by normal military staff, but are critical for 
the manufacture and testing of military hardware.  Planes tend to have a 
fairly long lifespan, and that can get extended beyond original plans.

>    Actually, HP's support of the VMS hobbyist program seems
> unexpectedly pleasant, so to speak, and I doubt it falls
> under any DOD contract requirement. So it's hard, at least
> for me, to infer HP's exact attitude towards VMS.

There are probably many flavours of attitude within a corporation as 
large as HP.

-- 
Paul Sture