[Info-vax] Where is the central home for ALL things OpenVMS and should there be one?

[Dirk Munk]

clairgrant71 at gmail.com wrote:
> On Thursday, July 30, 2015 at 5:46:36 PM UTC-4, IanD wrote:
>
>> Is it VSI's intention going forward to consolidate things under their own website where all things VMS can be referenced and if so, when will we start seeing this happen? (obviously only VSI can answer this question)
>>
>
> The answer to your question is 'yes'. It should all start at our website and your observations and frustrations are completely justified. In fact, I share them. It has been a sore point from the very beginning. We are just not doing the job everyone should expect in this area. It's our problem and we need to fix it. I thought the new roadmap I edited this week would be up yesterday. It's not. We should have had the complete documentation set up months ago. It's not.
>
> OK, you can see how I feel. I'm going to fix this soon and I don't care how much of my time it takes. If you want to know how I REALLY feel, you can ask me privately!!!
>

A good website is the signboard of a company. Potential customers judge 
a company by its website, I certainly do. This may certainly apply to 
VSI, for more then a decade there has been nothing else then negative 
news about VMS, and now VSI is shouting "happy days are here again".

A sceptical manager, or even IT professional, will look at the VSI web 
site to get information that supports this claim. At the moment they 
will find a bit of information, but the website doesn't really give that 
much information. VSI should ask itself if a customer who his planning 
to *leave* VMS would reconsider his plans after reading the information 
on the VSI web site. To be honest, I doubt it.

There is hardly any current information, I can see some milestones from 
this past year, but that's about it. I can't even find any information 
about the Bolton release. I would have expected release notes, stating 
exactly what has been changed.

VSI has to be far more explicit about what it is planning to do, even if 
it is only a direction. Take TCPIP for instance. The fact that there are 
three alternative TCPIP stacks in a way proofs that the DEC/Compaq/HP 
TCPIP stack has never been satisfactory, and we all know how it is 
looking today. VSI is planning a new / vastly improved TCPIP stack, but 
what kind of improvements are planned? The same applies to other layered 
products. Write it down as intentions, not as definitive plans.

Downloads for manuals etc, is obvious, it should be there.

But perhaps the most important thing would be a web replacement of the 
software bible DEC once provided. It contained descriptions of all kind 
of third party software that was available on VMS. Who knows what kind 
of third party VMS applications are (still) available? A well structured 
standardized software catalogue would certainly help VMS. VSI could ask 
for a reasonable fee to mention these products on their web site.

VSI has to take their website far more seriously, otherwise it will 
loose potential customers.