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

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article <52f19069$0$22344$c3e8da3$f6268168 at news.astraweb.com>, JF
Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca> writes: 

> > The goal of the UNIX Portability Initiative, aka OpenVMS Open Source and 
> > UNIX Portability Project, which Bill Pedersen has been very active in, 
> > is the opposite of what it appears you're thinking -- its goal is to 
> > make it easier to port Open Source and UNIX software so it can run on 
> > the proprietary OpenVMS operating system.
> 
> Considering the message "move off VMS ASAP" is pretty loud these days,
> is there a point of continued efforts to bring standard apps to VMS.

Yes.  I don't plan to move off any time soon, and do upgrade various
third-party software packages from time to time.  Why should I move off?
My systems are fast enough for what I do (and for really intense
number-crunching stuff I've always written portable Fortran which I 
could compile and run somewhere else---even back when the fastest 
workstation in the world was on my desk) and I have enough hardware to 
last me until I die.  If at some point I do have to move off VMS, that 
probably won't be more difficult than now, might be easier, and I will 
very probably have more time.  Add to that the fact that if I move now, 
I might have to move again a couple of decades down the road.  (Who can 
predict the future?  Who would have guessed in 1994 that one would have 
to pay for VMS patches but unlimited porn would be free?)

> From the day a company decides it needs to move off VMS, it will not
> want to add new applications to VMS as anything new will be on the
> target platform.

This is certainly not true of all companies, and for hobbyists the 
arguments above apply at least to some.

> And the first things to move from VMS to the new platform will be the
> stuff which already exists on Unixland (such as PHP, Perl, Apache etc)
> sicne those are the easiest to move off VMS.

I have never used PHP, Perl or Apache on VMS.

There was a time when Porsche decided to discontinue the 911, 
essentially replacing it with the 928 as the top-of-the-line model.  
(Consumer pressure did make them reverse these plans, but that is not 
the point here, though it is interesting to note that Porsche is the 
smallest of all German car makers and has the highest-price cars, but is 
also the most profitable---not just per car or per employee, but in 
absolute terms.  But I digress.)  Someone who was driving a 911 which 
was a couple of years old when this decision was made probably didn't 
consider selling it and buying something else.  Rather, his plan was 
probably to continue to drive it, knowing that it would be years, if 
ever, until the competition came up with something even remotely as 
good.