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

[gérard Calliet]

Le 13/08/2020 à 16:17, Arne Vajhøj a écrit :
> On 8/13/2020 5:34 AM, gérard Calliet wrote:
>> Le 13/08/2020 à 00:47, David Goodwin a écrit :
>>> On Thursday, August 13, 2020 at 8:03:34 AM UTC+12, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>> To me the biggest problem with VMS and open source is not VSI
>>>> but the community.
>> It's a big problem, not the biggest. The two problems are mixed.
>>>>
>>>> There are way too few that are willing to spend time
>>>> on VMS open source.
>>>
>>> If open source projects on OpenVMS are important then VSI probably 
>>> needs to actively encourage participation. Perhaps if some of their 
>>> own things were open source and easy to contribute to people in the 
>>> OpenVMS community would get involved.
>> It is my point. I just hope VSI could do the minimum so community 
>> could take the opportunity.
>>>
>>> As far as the wider open-source community goes, unless big changes 
>>> are made that's probably a lost cause. OpenVMS is too obscure and too 
>>> proprietary for most to bother with even if they have heard of it and 
>>> are aware its still maintained.
>>>
>> It is our responsibility to make OpenVMS known and liked. We can 
>> develop a form of curiosity about OpenVMS. Young ingineers are often 
>> inquisitive people. And for-long-time developments, reusability are 
>> becoming hype.
>>
>> I think of this situation as something like a dead lock:
>>
>> VSI doesn't help encouraging collaboration on Open Source, and thinks 
>> there is not sufficient strength outside that can be usefull,
>>
>> The community - little for now - doesn't engage with strength on 
>> collaboration, and is discouraged by the lack of interest on 
>> collaboration by VSI.
>>
>> Something has to be done to unlock this. Community License is a very 
>> good point. Making more standardfully available Open Source 
>> developments will be the next good point.
>>
>> More generaly VSI and the community have to quit the old paradigm of 
>> the marvelous company and the passive users. We have all to rebuild 
>> trusted collaboration, and adopt some ways from the Open Source 
>> paradigm. And we have also to be more conscious of the specific 
>> qualities of OpenVMS which can be "selled" to other people.
> 
> There are some things VSI can do. Some things they can do alone
> and some things they can do together with the VMS community.
> 
> But VSI does not have the size to contribute large number of
> engineers to open source work.
> 
> Google can put 1000 extra engineers to work on open source and
> it will be white noise in their financial result.
> 
> VSI can't.
> 
> What VSI could do and in my opinion should do:
> * make a public pro-open-source statement by senior management
>    to send the right signal
> * have a person spend some time lobbying open source projects to
>    include VMS fixes in main distribution
> * establish some processes for getting VMS fixes for open source
>    done by VSI out to the community and getting VMS fixes for
>    open source done by the community back to VSI (as workaround
>    until everything hopefully eventually will end up in main
>    distribution)
Agreed. Good points.
> 
>  From a practical perspective a lot of this could become much
> easier if VSI created some Github repo's.
Perhaps this task could be done in collaboration with community. And 
perhaps it is already intiated by JFP (gitlab) :)
> 
> But now we start talking about something that requires
> engineering hours that VSI may not be able to allocate
> right now.
> 
> And to repeat myself: in my experience the VMS community
> is not very willing to spend time working on open source.
> I suspect that one can count the number of people that has
> made VMS open source contribution within the last 5 years
> on 2 hands.
We hope time they are a changing :)
(Thanks to these hands)
> 
> So do not expect miracles even if VSI establish some
> framework to assist the community.
> 
> Arne
> 
> 
>