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

[Jan-Erik Söderholm]

Den 2019-11-21 kl. 19:40, skrev Dave Froble:
> On 11/21/2019 12:58 PM, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
>> In article <qr6be1$68t$1 at dont-email.me>, Dave Froble
>> <davef at tsoft-inc.com> writes:
>>
>>> On 11/21/2019 2:46 AM, Alexander Schreiber wrote:
>>>> Robert A. Brooks <FIRST.LAST at vmssoftware.com> wrote:
>>>>> On 11/20/2019 9:31 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Perhaps HPe will turn over to VSI all VMS stuff they have, including 
>>>>>> the HP
>>>>>> versions, which would include VAX and the hobbyist program.
>>>>>
>>>>> We have the VAX sources, and could, if we wanted to, build
>>>>> a VSI version of OpenVMS VAX.
>>>>
>>>> There is no expectation of that ever happening, because why would a 
>>>> company
>>>> invest what I'm sure is by now a significant amount of engineering effort
>>>> for no gain whatsoever?
>>>>
>>>>> We are not going to do that.
>>>>>
>>>>> Period.  End of discussion.
>>>>
>>>> And nobody in this thread is expecting that in my opinion. The discussion
>>>> was around if there was a chance of either a continuing of the OpenVMS
>>>> hobbyist program (for which the effort is limited to the issuance of
>>>> licenses, a few orders of magnitude lower than a new VMS release) or an
>>>> open end by issuing of non-expiring OpenVMS hobbyist licenses - both
>>>> for VAX and Alpha, in order for hobbyist use of OpenVMS to be able to
>>>> continue.
>>>>
>>>> Kind regards,
>>>>           Alex.
>>>>
>>>
>>> The problem is, VSI can only issue licenses, or whatever, for releases
>>> that VSI has offered.  They cannot issue licenses for any releases of
>>> VMS they did not offer.  Not "will not", but "can not".
>>
>> Probably "may not".
>>
>>
> 
> Perhaps this is a language issue?
> 
>  From what VSI has said about the HP agreement, they "CAN NOT" issue 
> licenses, patches, and such to any older version of VMS that they did not 
> themselves release.

Note that the first "VSI OpenVMS Alpha" was more or less just a recompile
of the then current "HP OpenVMS Alpha". Then came an optimized version
for later Alpha processors...


> 
> I understand "may not" as something that is optional.
>