[Info-vax] Where to locate software

[David Froble]

Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2016-06-09, Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
>> 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.
>>
> 
> Sorry Stephen, but I think you have gone a bit too far there. VMS _is_
> a competently and well designed system and is damned good with it's
> traditional workloads.
> 
> However, that design originated in another era and it's owners, instead
> of investing the resources to keep it up to date with current trends,
> have instead chosen to take the profits from the existing users only and
> have allowed VMS to fall into irrelevance.
> 
> This is no different from how Linux in the late 1990s was compared to the
> Linux of today. Linux is still the same basic operating system underneath
> but it's had major investment to make it still relevant to today's needs.
> How dominant do you think Linux would be today if people were still
> having to do things like run XF86Setup and friends and edit modelines as
> well as all the other stuff you had to do manually in the old days ?
> 
> BTW, it's only now that some vendors are starting to catch up with VMS
> when it comes to clusters. Kerry posted a link the other day and I
> noticed that one of the amazing new features of Microsoft's 2016 version
> of clusters is that you can now do rolling OS upgrades of your cluster
> without having to take the whole cluster down for an upgrade. I've
> never heard of anyone being able to do that before.
> 
> I also noticed that Microsoft relies on VMs to implement quite a bit of
> it's clustering functionality instead of doing it down within the
> operating system itself. For example, if I understand the referenced
> material correctly, Microsoft's response to what on VMS would be a
> mount verification appears to be to suspend the VM itself instead of
> just stalling I/Os to the malfunctioning device.
> 
> What I am trying to say Stephen is please don't assume an elegant
> design from another era was not competently designed simply due to
> it's inability to meet current standards because it's owners failed
> to invest in that operating system.
> 
> Simon.
> 

I do believe that what he's saying is "it's owners failed to invest in that 
operating system".