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

[clairgrant71 at gmail.com]

Open Sourcing VMS

As Steve pointed out, the technical obstacles to overcome are massive. However, the even bigger obstacle is buy-in from a significant percentage of the customer base otherwise it is a non-starter. If you were to seriously pursue an open source strategy you must start the conversation with customers early on and I can tell you that conversation will go nowhere fast.

The traditional notion of "open sourcing VMS" is extremely unlikely to ever happen. But, I think it might be fruitful to pursue a way to incorporate the ideas and code of those who wish to contribute, via a process controlled by VSI. That would maintain a definable governance by a funded organization dedicated to the future of the product. If that means it is proprietary, so be it. It could be a way to reach a workable compromise between the open and proprietary extremes and gain many of the benefits of both.

I'm open to ideas along this line. A clearly-defined process would be needed which we don't have time for right now but over the next year or so maybe we could experiment a little to see what might be possible.

Years ago it seemed like the only way for VMS to have a future was to make it open source and have a community of developers take it forward. Things have changed. Let's figure out the best way to take advantage of the new opportunity.