[Info-vax] OpenVMS in the future, Open sourced or Closed? Intent is to keep it...

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <b9bb1df0-bb4c-427e-91b9-ffcf0aecd3ca at googlegroups.com>,
	seasoned_geek <roland at logikalsolutions.com> writes:
> On Sunday, May 3, 2015 at 2:05:22 AM UTC-5, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
>> In article <d190e3c9-4336-4f74-b958-c1df6354c4fb at googlegroups.com>,
>> seasoned_geek  writes: 
>> 
>> > When you are OpenSource, you cannot be trusted. That means you cannot be
>> > used to run critical systems for the NSA and other "alphabet soup"
>> > agencies. They don't have the luxury of loading something as soft as
>> > Windows or Linux 
>> 
>> I Red-Hat guy told me once that their largest customer was the U.S. 
>> department of defense.
> "largest customer" != in use on critical systems

Well, the people being shot at consider it to be pretty critical.

> That is a massive organization with a huge number of non-critical systems, like payroll, accounts payable, etc. Each branch has their own for various reasons.

Ummmm....   Not really.  Payroll for all the services is done by DFAS and
it is all on IBM Mainframes.  Don;t have anything like commercial Accounts
Payable.  Most Logisitics is also done using IBM Mainframes.  (Lots of
COBOL out there!!)

> Has anyone found a link with some kind of real numbers for RedHat? I mean, now that Oracle has issued their own flavor of RH and was claiming to be one of the largest support services providers of RH for years before that...how can anyone reliably determine the actual number of RH "customers"

I'll bet the numbers for RedHat are more accurate then the numbers for
VMS.  Or do you still belive it is 1 Gorham?

> Better question, what constitutes a RH "customer"? Someone that downloads for free and uses once in a while? Only those with a paid support contract?
> If they have 100 paying support contracts and 50 of them are the Department of Defence should anyone be impressed?

Well, the FBCB2 I mentioned is probably hundreds of thousands.  Pretty
much any vehicle today (even if the computer systems sits in storage
becauset he vehicle is not in a deployed status).  And it is also in
use by many of our allies which is at least tens of thousands more.

And there are other uses, too.  No desktos, but lots of servers and RH
is the only Linux approved for DOD use.

bill


-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>