[Info-vax] "VSI OpenVMS VAX"

[Alexander Schreiber]

Dave Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
> On 11/21/2019 11:32 AM, dgordonatvsi at gmail.com wrote:
>> On Wednesday, November 20, 2019 at 5:51:35 PM UTC-5, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>>
>>> But then on a sunny day, VSI loded the kit, changed a few things
>>> and presssed the "build" button, and voila, there we had an
>>> "VSI OpenVMS Alpha" distribution.
>>
>> If you believe it was that simple, I've got some great swamp land in Florida to sell you.
>>
>
>  From a few things I've heard thru the years, it's my understanding that 
> it is not a simple operation.  But I'm curious, can you explain what the 
> steps are, in a general manner, in 10 to 20 lines of text?

I have no actual insight how it is really done, but here are my
speculations:

Well, first you've got to obtain suitable VAX machines for building the
binary distribution set. And I've got a sneaking suspicion that the build
process is far from the usual "./configure ; make ; make install clean"
process one is used to from many OpenSource projects and far more involved.

That's the first chunk of engineering time - can't really fob this off on
a cheap intern that just came through the door.

Next one is doing whatever set of machine verification tests are available,
e.g. run the appropriate test suites on all machines and (to a reasonable
degree) hardware configurations still claimed as supported. This can
easily burn significant amounts of engineering time.

So I imagine doing an actual release to be a bit of a costly affair that
is not done on a lark.

> I'd also ask, could the process be simpler?  And if so, will proposed 
> simplification be implemented as part of the x86 builds?

For x86 I can image a much newer and more streamlined build system to
possibly exist, since this platform is still in very active development.

Backporting the build system from x86 to e.g. VAX would only make business
sense if there were regular VAX builds expected to happen in the future and
I don't expect that to happen.

This is not an Open Source product where people to things like that because
they want to - last time I checked, VSI was not a charity, so if they invest
non-trivial engineering effort in something, they justifiably expect a return
on that investment.

Kind regards,
           Alex.
-- 
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
 looks like work."                                      -- Thomas A. Edison