[Info-vax] VMS Software, Inc. Acquires All OpenVMS Support Business from Hewlett Packard Enterprise

[Phillip Helbig undress to reply]

> Ok Jan-Erik, you've already typed the above, but, I can be a bit slow, 
> so, can you be very specific?  Are you saying that by having a support 
> contract, you have the right to use VSI VMS?  That there are no license 
> fees?  Yes, you mentioned Alpha.  I'd hope other architectures would 
> also be the same.
> 
> That would be great, because to survive, I feel that VSI needs to rely 
> on support revenues, and, no up front license fees.
> 
> That still leaves the question of non-commercial use of VMS without 
> support an open issue.

Considering that hobbyists have other costs related to their hobby 
(electricity, time, space, etc), I think that most if not all would be 
happy to pay a reasonable fee for a license and/or maintenance 
(especially if the latter means that one can download patches like in 
the old days).

An interesting game is to imagine that one could travel backward in time 
and think about what would surprise the folks back then about the 
future.  Going back just 15 years, how about "patches will no longer be 
freely available to VMS hobbyists, but the internet will provide 
essentially unlimited high-definition porn to anyone, anywhere in the 
world, for free".  :-)

For German readers: Alice Schwarzer wird für die Bild-Zeitung schreiben.
Das hätten die Schwestern damals nie geglaubt.