[Info-vax] Open source usage, Was Python and various libraries updated

[gérard Calliet]

Le 10/08/2020 à 20:19, Arne Vajhøj a écrit :
> On 8/10/2020 1:12 PM, gérard Calliet wrote:
>> Le 10/08/2020 à 17:25, Arne Vajhøj a écrit :
>>> On 8/10/2020 11:09 AM, gérard Calliet wrote:
>>>> Le 10/08/2020 à 03:50, Simon Clubley a écrit :
>>>>> On 2020-08-08, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>>>> And open source could be used for some of he truly critical
>>>>>> stuff. Linux is becoming very common for SCADA today. And
>>>>>> they could use GNAT for software development.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> That reminded me that VSI hasn't said anything recently about the
>>>>> possibility of Ada support coming to x86-64 VMS.
>>>
>>>> Last meeting (UK users group by zoom). Bret Cameron: we have no 
>>>> plans on Ada.
>>>>
>>>> Since 2015 I had to rebuild Gnat Ada for Itanium OpenVMS, I didn't 
>>>> get any collaboration from VSI (except from individuals).
>>>
>>> VSI has limited resources. They have to prioritize.
> 
>> Agreed. But.
>>
>> It's now for more than five years I'm only saying "help us to help you".
>> Ada cannot be a priority. ok. Some invest in Ada for you. Take your 
>> phone, perhaps for a very low effort something can be done and worth 
>> it for all.
> 
> Maybe. But it is VSI's decision.
> 
>> It's my general opinion on interest of VSI being more fair in the Open 
>> Source realm. Just do a little bit more to gain trust and help from a 
>> large enthousiast (and new) community.
>>
>> The times have changed - it's a pain for us thinking about the huge 
>> success of internet compared to the Digital decline - and business 
>> around Open Source paradigm proved it to be very good.
>>
>> *If* you play the game as it is played by the majority. Is someone 
>> using now MySql? No. MariaDB. Why? Oracle didn't play the game.
> 
> MySQL is still used many places.
> 
>>> People can disagree on how they prioritize, but everybody
>>> should be able to agree that they have to prioritize.
>>>
>>> And I understand why Ada is not a priority. I believe that
>>> the Ada approach to safe programming is good. But the world
>>> chose a different path many years before VSI was founded.
> 
>> Have a look at how Adacore business is good and growing. And  the huge 
>> role of community in their success. They play the game.
> 
> Even AdaCore has prioritized.
> 
> When I look at their CE I see: JVM version dropped in 2014, CLR version
> dropped in 2015, 32 bit Linux dropped in 2015, Raspberry Pi dropped
> in 2017, 32 bit Windows dropped in 2018.
> 
> Arne
> 
Everyone have priorities. And everyone is sometimes right, sometimes 
wrong. Isn't it?

So it seems it is always possible to exprim critics?

My critic however is not about priorities, but about what I understand 
as wrong practics.

VSI uses Open Sources a way which seems purely usefully. This way is in 
contradiction with the major way Open Source is used, and it is not a 
good point for VSI and us, and in general in contradiction with what can 
be the motivations of computer scientists.

Internet succeeded because a lot of reasons. One of them is it joined 
with essential motivations of thousands of computer scientists, the 
scientists who created the Open Source standards.

I'm sure the motivation of an IBM computer scientist or a Linux one, or 
a Apple one or a Digital one are very different. But all of them go on 
with their job when they feel they are doing "the right thing". It is 
very important to respect these motivations, and with the success of 
Internet, Linux proves it is not a naïve thinking to say that.

It will be a very difficult thing, in the long term, to rebuild the VMS 
culture. Because the motivation is a lot more complex than that of the 
others: our blue cousins have a religion of the "service to the 
enterprise", our Unix cousins are idealists, our Aple cousins are 
worshiper of toys. Who are we? Just the gurus of the gurus, the best of 
the bests? The way we'll rebuild our ecosystem, the way we'll interface 
it with the others will determine our new identity. My opinion is our 
value is something like "making things work". They said Digital is an 
ingineer world. So, for everything, understanding how it works.

We have to understand how the open source ecosystem works.

Gérard Calliet