[Info-vax] 2013 OpenVMS Boot Camp

[JohnF]

Bill Gunshannon <billg999 at cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
> JohnF <john at please.see.sig.for.email.com> writes:
>> Paul Sture <nospam at sture.ch> wrote:
>>> 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.
>> 
>> Okay, so is/was that story correct, or not?
> 
> I have heard many times, here, about these long term contracts but having
> worked both sides of the government contracting game I know that there is
> no such thing as a contract that extends beyond the end of a Fiscal Year.
> One cannot commit funds they don't have so contracts tend to be one year
> long with options to renew inthe future.  In most cases both sides have
> an out.  I seriously doubt there are any contracts made with DEC that have
> not expired many years ago.  The only truly serious VMS contract in DOD
> I have ever been aware of (and that includes not only my DA experience,
> but also my time with DISA) was JStars and as should have been seen by
> my other recent posting, after years of trying to get rid of it, this
> year they finally will.  The fact that DISA, who is responsible for the
> certification and security of all DOD IS, stopped caring about VMS should
> have put this to rest years ago.  The last Versions of VMS DISA even
> looked at were 7.3 for VAX and Alpha and there has never been a Security
> Checklist for an Itanium System (I know that 7.3 is 7.3 no matter what
> it runs on, but DISA doesn't look at things that way.)  And these are from
> 2006.  I even went so far as to ask if they were interested in making a
> more up-to-date version when I was there in 2009 and was told they had no
> interest and were planning on dropping VMS completely anyway.  One would
> think this spoke volumes, but apparently, not here.
> bill

Thanks for the info, Bill. I guess that puts that story to rest.
So I gather HP's ongoing VMS support is based on its own assessments.
And I suppose that's reassuring, but it's hard to fathom: after all,
Palmer's assessment, decades ago, was to split DEC up, sell off the
pieces (like rdb), and then sell the company. That wasn't too
reassuring, to say the least.
-- 
John Forkosh  ( mailto:  j at f.com  where j=john and f=forkosh )