[Info-vax] Thoughts on VSI Community License Program

[John H. Reinhardt]

On 8/12/2020 6:01 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> I see a lot of posts about problems or potential problems.
> 
> But I think we should look at the big picture.
> 
> HPE killed the hobbyist program with very short notice.
> 
> VSI announced and started the new Community License Program pretty quickly.
> 
> Considering how many very important tasks VSI has at the moment,
> then I consider that pretty impressive.
> 
> So VSI has proven their good will.
> 
> Maybe the license mix is not optimal.
> 
> But based on the past then I would expect VSI to listen to
> suggestions when they do an evaluation in 1 or 3 or 6 months.
> 
> (excluding VAX licenses which seems to be a non-starter)
> 
> Arne


I hope my post today doesn't sound like whining, but I suppose it can be seen that way.  I fully expect the VSI Community License program to evolve the way HP's Hobbyist program did over the years.  My purpose was to document what was available.  I know VSI did this in somewhat of a hurry, I think they expected up to another year before needing to roll this out.  I'm hoping that the lack of compiler PAKs on the Integrity side is just an "oh, crap, we forgot those" thing since the install files are in the downloads.  Perhaps the OpenVMS-BOE includes them, I have not worked with the VSI side before. I know HP's BOE did not.

If nobody says they want Integrity licenses for Clustering and Disk Shadowing, then VSI will never know that we want it.  I assume a good percentage of "serious" hobbyist will want them.  After all, Clustering and even HBVS are two of the main pillars of what VAX/VMS - VMS - OpenVMS are all about.  Looking at the VSI SPD for OpenVMS it seems that the HAOE gets you clustering, disk shadowing and RMS Journaling.  All of these were available previously so hopefully whatever reason it was behind not including it can be reversed.

I also know that talking about it here isn't the best channel in getting back to VSI.  True many VSI people frequent here but I imagine emails to training at vmssofware.com would be very helpful as well.

-- 
John H. Reinhardt