[Info-vax] OpenVMS V9.0-C Released July 29th

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 8/4/2020 10:53 AM, Dave Froble wrote:
> As Clair mentioned, all required parts of VMS are being ported, and it's 
> likely that some users collectively will require every existing part of 
> VMS.
> 
> One thing I've known for many years, usage of VMS is very diversified, 
> someone somewhere doing things I'd not imagine.

That is certainly true.

> So VSI is doing the right thing, if they want to attract customers.

Yup.

> The problem, as I see it, and others may not have the same opinion, is 
> the "free software".  Not only is some of it "free", but also it's 
> piggy-backed with other downloads, and one must look for such happening.
> 
> So, it's free, what's wrong with that?
> 
> The developers have no commercial pressure to do what users want.  They 
> do what they wish to do.  If they decide to omit some things some users 
> need, too bad for those users.  It's gotten so that this is an 
> acceptable practice, and the users who don't get what they need are 
> chastised for not "keeping up with standards".  What standards?  There 
> are no standards for such developers, it's just what they choose to do.

I am not sure what your point is.

Commercial vendors does not always give users what they want.
They only do that if the users are willing to pay more than
what it cost.

Even though some open source is done because someone think
it is fun, then the majority of work on the big important open
source projects are done by commercial companies because
they need it for their business. IBM, Oracle, Intel,
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter etc..

Both commercial software and open source software typical
use lots of open source as foundation. If you buy some new
product from IBM, Oracle etc. you may find that the majority
of the code is actually open source code.

Standards are independent of commercial vs voluntary and
closed source vs open source. Some standards evolve:
C++ 98 -> 11 -> 14 -> 17, TLS 1.0 -> 1.1 -> 1.2 -> 1.3.
Products no matter what status try to move to newer standards.
If C++ compiler do not support newer standards then code
requiring that will not compile. If a browser do not upgrade
TLS standard it becomes a security risk for its users.
Commercial closed source or free open source does not
make a difference.

Arne