[Info-vax] State of the OpenVMS hobbyist program?

[Phillip Helbig undress to reply]

In article <qquoub$95h$1 at dont-email.me>, Simon Clubley
<clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes: 

> Does anyone at VSI know if there _will_ be a VSI hobbyist program in
> some form or are the discussions at VSI about whether there _should_
> even be a VSI hobbyist program ?

For what it's worth, I asked about a hobbyist programme at the first VSI 
conference call, where the port was announced; the reply was that there 
would be.

> I don't see any prospect of HPE issuing a final set of non-terminating
> hobbyist licences. After all, why should HPE go to the legal effort
> of clearing that and implementing it when they are leaving the VMS
> business ? We don't even know if it's even legally possible for HPE
> to issue those types of hobbyist licences in the first place.

At least at one time, it was possible to transfer a regular license for 
a fee.  Since those have no termination date, this would be an option.

> As such, given how long VSI hobbyist licences have been under discussion
> without anything happening, there's a real risk here that VSI management
> decide not to offer a hobbyist program for various reasons and therefore
> the VMS hobbyist world may very well come to a sudden end in about a year.

That would be sad.  On the other hand, perhaps there will be some sort 
of license reasonably priced for a hobbyist.  I'm sure that most 
hobbyists would gladly pay, say, an appreciable fraction of what they 
otherwise pay for their hobby (mainly electricity) for a license, 
especially if it included access to patches.