[Info-vax] The dangers of being too emotionally involved, was: Re: How about RdB for x86 VMS?

[Kerry Main]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Info-vax [mailto:info-vax-bounces at info-vax.com] On Behalf Of
> Simon Clubley
> Sent: 03-Sep-14 8:37 PM
> To: info-vax at info-vax.com
> Subject: [New Info-vax] The dangers of being too emotionally involved,
> was: Re: How about RdB for x86 VMS?
> 
> On 2014-09-03, Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid>
> wrote:
> >
> > What is going on here, folks?
> >
> > VMS is looking pretty good right now.  This for the first time in a
> > long time, too.
> >
> 
> What's caused you to suddenly change your tune from your previous
> (accurate) comments about how much work is required to make VMS
> viable
> to newcomers in today's world ?
> 
> > Some folks posting here in comp.os.vms still need to find some
> problems
> > with this, or some reason to panic.
> >
> 
> Some people might be asking questions which don't seem important to
> you but are clearly important to them.
> 
> When you are heavily emotionally involved in something, it's all too
> easy to convince yourself of an altered reality in which "everything
> is all ok and if we make something available everyone is going to
> buy it because, well, because _we_ think it's great.".
> 
> The people at the core of VSI are clearly _heavily_ emotionally
> involved in VMS. That's good because it gives them motivation. It's
> also potentially bad because it can easily cloud your judgement if
> you are not careful.
> 
> The people asking questions may care about VMS but not be so
> emotionally
> involved and are looking at VMS in the context of the marketplace as a
> whole. This means those questions are a good indicator of the things the
> future customers are going to be asking and if you can't answer them,
> you've got a problem.
> 
> Simon.
> 

As Steve indicated, the announcement was great news for anyone 
who cares about OpenVMS. It removed some huge anchors and now 
the sails are up and some motion forward for this ship has begun.

Now .. will there be challenges and issues that need to be addressed?

Of course - not just from a technology perspective, but also from a 
futures marketing, pricing, licensing and support view as well. The big
difference now is that these challenges are now being addressed by
a company 100% focussed on OpenVMS.

The folks at VSI have extensive experience dealing with OpenVMS 
Customers for many decades.. the main architect leading the X86-64 
port is the same resource who led the Alpha to Itanium port. 

It's good to ask questions as it shows passion and interest, but if there 
are no answers for the next while, (boot camp?)  just remember that 
this is to be expected as this new company has only just begun and it 
needs to get settled first.

At some point one has to trust VSI will make the right decisions based 
on their collective knowledge, their experience and their consultations 
with customers, partners and ISV's and yes, c.o.v. participants. I know 
they will also have the support and feedback from the HP WW 
OpenVMS Ambassadors .. many who represent some of the biggest 
WW Cust's and who are more passionate about OpenVMS than the 
readers here on c.o.v. 

Regards,

Kerry Main
Back to the Future IT Inc.
 .. Learning from the past to plan the future

Kerry dot main at backtothefutureit dot com