[Info-vax] C99 stuff (Re: The Road to V9.0)

[Craig A. Berry]

On 6/8/19 9:48 AM, Robert A. Brooks wrote:

> While what we write is ours, what we write is useless without what 
> DEC/CPQ/HP(E) has written.

That might be true if the only thing you were writing were core OS code.
Obviously no one can boot VMS with only VSI-produced code.  It's more a
question of what things you are doing that, if published under an open
source license, might stimulate the community to do good things that
would help the overall ecosystem.

If the changes needed to get clang/clang++ running on VMS were open
source, then it would be easier for someone besides VSI to get
Swift/Go/Rust/whatever up and running with a good example of how it's done.

If the GEM-alike compiler interface were open source, then people using
assorted ancient GEM-based compilers might have a chance of bringing
their code forward to OpenVMS x64 (or whatever the marketing name will
be).  PL/I comes to mind, but there may be others.

Good modern, complete examples of device drivers released with friendly
licenses would make staying on VMS a lot more possible for people who
have devices (or device variants) you will never support.