[Info-vax] Beyond Open Source

[seasoned_geek]

On Sunday, May 10, 2015 at 8:31:56 AM UTC-5, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> 
> On OpenVMS?  It's unfortunately still pretty common.  Various of the 
> existing OpenVMS sites have their own frameworks.

In the embedded world I pretty much use the Qt IDE exclusively. Under VMS the closest to an IDE or "framework" has been LSE with MMS and CMS. Most shops I encounter still using FMS for screen handling.

>>IAN actually said this, but the quoting is hosed up

> 
> 
> > I'm often getting requests for statistics like 'How many of xyz 
> > occurred over the past 3 months' in this application. To mine that 
> > simple information is painful. Log files dumping data in blurb fashion 
> > with little or no structure have to have scripts specifically written 
> > to deal with that particular log file - drives me crazy. Linux folk 
> > whip up quick scripts and often have the data ready in less time. Maybe 
> > my DCL sucks but I'm not that bad at it!
> > When 500 linux systems can spit out consolidated statistics versus 1 
> > VMS system that seems to require a different script for each log file, 
> > it makes VMS look pretty shabby by comparison

Or it is the APP design. We as VMS developers tend to be lazy and dump things in log files sometimes in a completely random manner. I did work on one system where every one of those "events" got assigned a code, I believe an actual VMS style code for use with F$MESSAGE(). Instead of just dumping to the log we logged to an RDB table. The type of query you speak of was just a couple lines of Cognos PowerHouse.

On Sunday, May 10, 2015 at 8:31:56 AM UTC-5, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> 
> As for your (intended) reference to a single distribution and to 
> tailored and customized distributions, that can save hassles or can 
> increase hassles, as it reduces or increases the number of permutations 
> that vendors have to build for.   With Linux, it's why more than a few 
> folks target RHEL or other specific distributions, and not "everything".
> 

The targeted distros remind me a lot of forth. For those who don't remember forth it was dictionary based. Every shop could define their own dictionary, thus, the exact same forth program would either not run or run completely differently when moved between shops. Forth programmers had the same difficulty. I saw that first hand when working as a computer operator while going to school. Opted not to go down the fort road.

Now I see the same thing with distros. While people claim "it's the same kernel", it's not easy to move between targeted distros. (I just learned of tails recently and may give it a try soon. Very interesting take on privacy and security.) We have gotten well beyond the simple annoyances of having to use YAST with SuSE and something else on every other distro. Now we have Ubuntu pushing that worthless Unity interface, each distro choosing different "best of breed" tools for their standard "packages".

Until recently, I didn't realize just how little KDE was actually in Mint 17 KDE until I tried Chakra (sp?) which is a pure KDE distro.

While you can kind of - sort of function 


> 
> > The point of open source to me is to get as many people interested in a 
> > project as possible (as mentioned before, some programmers will not 
> > touch closed source systems due to philosophical beliefs, so why limit 
> > the number of potential people possibly working on a system).

Because a large number of applications need a closed source, vendor tested and supported secure OS. This is true even in the embedded world. While there are a massive number of embedded shops jumping onto Linux because it is "free," it has a really high cost in the "proven and sealed" world. Using Linux in the medical device world incurs a massive amount of testing and hardening and documenting for regulator agencies that the version you built won't cause adverse outcomes or fall victim to hacks from North Korea, etc. The closed source OS had a vendor which had to prove all of that on a specific target. All you, the manufacturer, had to prove was the app and devices you connected.

Large enterprise actually needs closed source secure systems, they are currently too cheap to return to them. Identity theft hacks at major banks are so common they almost don't make the news:

http://www.nextadvisor.com/blog/2013/12/05/jp-morgan-chase-hacked-warns-465000-customers/

Laws will change soon, sometime after next election. Privacy and Internet security have become the planks most voters seem interested in. Eventually many will wake up and smell the fresh brewed tea.

The bulk of your major banks run Linux and Windows and get hacked. The bulk of your credit unions run DIBOL applications on VMS and they don't get hacked. At least no stories of them getting hacked manages to make the news.