[Info-vax] i4 Possible?

[BillPedersen]

On Tuesday, February 11, 2014 9:32:12 AM UTC-5, fhs... at gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 11, 2014 2:30:53 AM UTC+1, BillPedersen wrote:
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> > On Monday, February 10, 2014 6:59:59 PM UTC-5, Keith Parris wrote: > On 2/10/2014 1:40 AM, fhsjvl wrote: > > it is correct to say that OpenVMS engineering has shut down already. > > No, it would not be correct to say that. Very definitely not the case. I and many in the Open Source on OpenVMS Community work with OpenVMS Engineering on a weekly basis. We have at least two conference calls a month dealing with issue in the CRTL and other portions of OpenVMS as well as review and discussion on enhancements which are currently being developed. I also work with OpenVMS Engineering on a regular basis as a customer or for my customers when it comes to issues I have submitted via HPSC! A current problem being worked for me is an issue with FORTRAN not properly handling 64bit pointers and large arrays on IA64. This involves work on the FORTRAN RTL as well as the FORTRAN compiler to correct properly. So, HP OpenVMS Engineering IS very much alive. NOW, that said, I am not happy with the HP decision to not support I4! I believe it was foolish and made without true understanding of the Community. I applaud any and all efforts to move OpenVMS FORWARD!!!!!!!!!!! Bill.
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> Happy to hear that I am wrong.
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> I understand my message gives to some people the impression that I am only pessimistic and dulled about VMS. This is however not the case. I applaud "any and all efforts to move OpenVMS forward" too. I am not a programmer so there is not much I can do for the OpenVMS Open Source and porting community. But on multiple occasions I have provided hobbyists with Alpha and Itanium HW at no cost. Inside my company I am fighting stubbornly for more than fifteen years for the continued presence of OpenVMS against managers without any IT knowledge who have decided to use "better" things. Succesfully until now, but it has put me in awkward positions from time to time. 
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> This said, my mood could be better understood if I share two rather recent events with you.
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> 1. We had a bug in an OpenVMS I64 Emulex FC driver. We had to wait six months for a patch.
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> 2. When we bought our new rx2800 i2 servers in December 2011, we wanted to do this only when some functionality would be provided that was announced ("coming soon") but not yet ready at that moment. Now, more than 2 years later, that very functionality is still not there. When we ask for a schedule we get no answer. We only hear that apparently at least five other projects have higher priority.
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> PS: We have HW + SW 24x7 support (P/N HA110**) on all our Itanium servers.
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> Does anyone still want me to believe that OpenVMS Engineering is a happy and thriving group?

I agree with your that OpenVMS Engineering Management has no idea how to deliver some very critical aspects of functionality.  I would be happy to discuss your specific issues offline and see if there is any way we can encourage them to change priorities or identify a way to implement what you needed/wanted.

Bill.