[Info-vax] Eisner's PAKs, was: Re: Can't get hobbyist licenses from Openvmshobbyist

[seasoned_geek]

On Tuesday, January 20, 2015 at 2:44:17 PM UTC-6, David Froble wrote:
> Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> > In article <m9m2cc$7vh$1 at dont-email.me>,
> > 	David Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> writes:
> >> Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> >>
> >>> Nothing anyone does is going to get VMS back into academia.  That
> >>> ship has sailed.  It would be unwise to base any decision on the
> >>> possiblity of it making a return.  Sorry to rain on your parade.
> >> Well, like the title of the movie, "never say never".
> > 
> > Anything is possible in fiction.
> > 
> >> But, I agree with what you're saying.  If it doesn't happen, well, too 
> >> bad, but not a loss.
> >>
> >> However, in another post I suggested that buildable sources be made 
> >> available, with appropriate restrictions.  Now, if VSI made the 
> >> buildable sources available, and made some pitches to education, such as 
> >> "teach your students on a commercial OS, not some toy", 
> > 
> > What commercial OS?  The only "commercial" oses they know about are
> > Windows and Unix/Linux.  Other than VMS, I have been trying to get
> > this place interested in joining IBM's educational alliance.  Everybody
> > has heard of IBM and yet I have had about the same success I had with VMS.
> > 
> >>                                                          it's not 
> >> impossible that there might be some takers.
> > 
> > Spoken like someone outside of academia.   :-)
> > 
> > Even given your miracle scenario, who is going to pay the Professors
> > to create entirely new curicula using VMS instead of the OS that has
> > been used to teach Computer Science for over 4 decades?  Or did you
> > think they just stand in the front of the room and talk off the cuff?
> > Course development takes a lot of time and effort and there has to be
> > a good reason for doing it.  Pushing something as obscure as VMS is
> > not likely to meet that criteria.  Let's try sticking to reality.  
> > 
> > bill
> > 
> 
> Nit picking, but 4 decades would be 1975, if I can still do math.  VMS 
> did not come out until 1978, and at one time was used in education.
> 
> Now, maybe not at your school, but, there are many schools, and I cannot 
> believe that there might not be a VMS bigot somewhere in education that 
> given a decent chance just might offer a course that is based on VMS.
> 
> For you to say that no where on the planet this could happen is a bit 
> rash, don't you think?

Odd to see this argument so close in time to the comments about AccuWeather.  The main reason they used OpenVMS originally, as told to me by someone calling from the company trying to recruit me years ago, was that it was taught at the local college/university. It was "cost effective" for them due to the supply of cheap labor.

I don't remember when that educational facility phased out VMS sending AccuWeather out into the real world to find employees.