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

[Dave Froble]

On 11/22/2019 1:29 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2019-11-22, Dave Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>> On 11/22/2019 8:19 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>
>>> Even if David doesn't care about the legal issues, I hope he realises
>>> that comments like this harm the chances of a VSI hobbyist program
>>> ever existing when people look at the above types of comments and
>>> wonder if trying to provide free access to VMS to hobbyists is worth it.
>>>
>>
>> David is TOTALLY legal.  The VAX license was bought and paid for,
>> registered in my company's name.  Alpha developer license is legal.
>>
>
> I said nothing about what you do in your business David. I have assumed
> that you use normal paid for commercial licences in your business.
>
> I was purely referring to your comments about what you feel it is
> acceptable for hobbyists to do in some circumstances.
>
>> I do care about "legal", and the rights of vendors.
>>
>> What I'd rather not see is VAX/VMS becoming unusable by hobbyists.  Why
>> should such a thing happen?
>>
>
> For the same reasons that the legal situation around hobbyist licences
> for the PDP-11 have become unclear.
>
>> As for moral considerations, when something is shared, then later taking
>> away that sharing is, in my mind, very immoral.  When a company develops
>> and makes available an OS, and urges people to use said OS to develop
>> software, then those users have a stake in the software.  What could be
>> more immoral than the vendor then saying "Ok, we got you to invest time
>> and money, and now we're jerking the rug out from under you".  Note that
>> the current customers would have a perpetual license, but, where do they
>> get new people to use or work on their software, if new people cannot
>> get access to the OS.
>>
>
> The new customers move onto the new thing the vendor is selling instead
> of the thing the existing customers are using.
>
> For example, new DEC customers were sold the VAX (and then Alpha) unless
> they _really_ wanted the PDP-11 (and then eventually the PDP-11 was no
> longer in the sales price list at DEC).
>
> Using your arguments above, DEC should have continued selling the PDP-11
> even when there was no longer a viable market for it. However, the market
> changed and so the PDP-11 range was no longer viable for new customers so
> DEC did the right thing and started pushing alternatives to the PDP-11
> (including the VAX) instead.
>
> Simon.
>

I see a difference between HW and software.  Your arguments are all 
about HW.

If a vendor were to jerk the rug out from under me on a product they 
sold me, why would I purchase their new product?  Fool me once, shame on 
you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  You sound like Microsoft.

-- 
David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      E-Mail: davef at tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA  15486