[Info-vax] HDF5 going going, perhaps soon gone from VMS?

[IanD]

The point of my original post was to give a heads up that VMS was going to loose significance in yet another area

I personally think investment in the scientific arena pays huge dividends

HPC / scientific pushes the boundaries of computing and what gets nutted out in this area eventually filters down and becomes common places in the rest of the world

Look at CERN and how it gave us the internet for example. It took a central vision pushing boundaries and collaboration to pull off that incredible achievement

I don't use HDF. I didn't know it existed until I was searching around and came across it and I felt it was important enough to say something when I saw the desire to rid VMS from it's build processes

At least this post has generated the necessary discussion and brought good folk out of the woodwork who can and are willing to do something towards at least keeping VMS with a potential foot in the door (thanks all)

Part of what I wanted to also post but didn't because it belongs really in a separate thread all of it's own is to ask the bigger question, just what/how is VMS going to be targeting as an OS industry segment anyhow going forward? How is VMS going to sell it's relevance to the wider world?

The advertising blurb states 'it's a general purpose OS'...that get's me worried a bit, without a specific focus to drive research usually means not pushing boundaries or not investing in technology segments and means playing safe which eventually results in being picked off by up and coming endeavors hungry for relevance in an increasing commoditized world. 
Windows captured the desktop, linux the server market (and a whole lot of other markets too). 

VMS needs a clear vision about where it wants to position itself or other OS's are going to continue to eat it's lunch. Linux rose to power IMO not just because of it's free price but because it got a lot of people backing it on a quest to provide an alternative to expensive and monopolized OS's. 

How is VMS going to attract people? What vision is it going to sell to people for them to get behind it? I did have hopes that HP would open source it but alas, that never happened, we got the next best thing I guess (no disrespect intended towards VSI here)

Anyhow - this requires a separate thread so as to not taint this one further...

Thanks to all who have responded and are keeping HDF relevant on VMS