[Info-vax] Where to locate software

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2016-06-08 23:18:47 +0000, Paul Richards said:

> I'm running OpenVMS 8.4 on FreeAXP and am a comparative newbie. So, a 
> noob question: I am planning to install some of the HP Open-source 
> software and Freeware.
> 
> For those applications which don't automatically install where should I 
> locate them such that I can run them from any directory?

Welcome!

I'm one of the resident curmudgeons, and deal with more than few 
packages and tools, and have worked with more than a few open source 
packages on OpenVMS.  And I use a mix of operating systems beyond 
OpenVMS and Windows.

This is an excellent question!   That's something most folks arriving 
from competently-designed systems might wonder, too.

Alas...

That you even have to ask this question points to a hole in the 
available documentation and resources.

Worse, OpenVMS itself has no idea how to do this and provides 
absolutely no guidance, and neither HPE nor VSI has stated any plans 
around draining this particular swamp.   VSI has come the closest here, 
with some very general discussions about maybe adding some support for 
containers in some future release.

In short...  Have at.  It's a free-for-all.

Stick it everywhere, stick it anywhere, however you want, in the system 
directories or in private directories, it's completely and utterly up 
to the administrator and to the folks that created the installation 
kits — even the kits and kitting software lacks any a particular 
recommended organization for the installed software — which means that 
you'll have a zillion opinions and absolutely no consistency, even with 
the vendor products.  Upgrades can be well handled and clear, or they 
can be a complete train-wreck.   There's no standard way to remove more 
than a little of the installed software, no auditing of what's 
installed, and removing installed software — PCSI does better than most 
here — is completely manually implemented by whoever created the kit or 
the install.   If they even provide a way to remove the software.   
There's a little modular programming documentation that recommends 
using prefixes on file names and logical names and such — and facility 
prefixes registered with HPE and VSI, but I'm not sure there's any way 
to even get those registered these days — but OpenVMS itself 
*routinely* violates that recommendation, as do more than a few of the 
open source and commercial packages.

TL;DR: Vendor app design recommendations?  Doesn't exist.  Application 
bundles or packages?  Doesn't exist.  App stacking or containers or 
such?  Doesn't exist.  Sandboxes or jails or BSD pledge() or other 
forms of application security and isolation?  Doesn't exist.   
Recommendations for embedded libraries or frameworks?  Doesn't exist.

Integrating open source packages?  Always fun.   They all work 
differently.    Alas.   The (many) other replies here in the 
comp.os.vms newsgroup will have some examples of the various user 
recommendations.


-- 
Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC