[Info-vax] Reimplementing VMS, was: Re: HP adds OpenVMS Mature Product Support beyond the end of Standard Support

JohnF john at please.see.sig.for.email.com
Wed Feb 5 12:25:21 EST 2014


Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
> JohnF said:
>> Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
>>> Why?
>>
>> Why what???
>> You yourself say below, "Demand for that [openvms] is low..."
>> So why would you ask "why" about what we both said?
> 
> That was what is known as a rhetorical question.

Ahh. Is that what it was?

> There is no way you'll find a suite of porting tools or an emulation 
> environment for free, as the folks working on these ports are all 
> commercial entities,

Well, yeah, but that statement is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But I agree that's not likely to ever change. No non-commercial
entities are likely to become interested, especially at this late date.

> and coverage of even a fraction of the OpenVMS 
> APIs is a huge project.  You might only use 5% or less of the APIs, but 
> many of the applications and installations tend to use a different 5% 
> of the APIs.
> 
> You might get some distance with FreeVMS, but I'd expect most folks 
> won't see that as a viable long-term solution for their operations ? 
> the folks I've dealt with here either wanted to be platform-native to 
> the target platform, or they're headed more platform-generic, or they 
> need some commercial tool or product ? like a database ? that just 
> isn't available under FreeVMS.
> 
> If you're just looking to swap out the hardware, then yes, there are 
> free emulators, and there are commercial emulators.

Yeah, given the realities of the landscape, simh, or similar,
may well be the best option. Of course, that's still entirely
vms-dependent.

> Given you have some names of products, go have a chat with those folks 
> and see if they'll work for your needs.
Terrific... and please visit my kickstarter page
and make a contribution towards that.
-- 
John Forkosh  ( mailto:  j at f.com  where j=john and f=forkosh )



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