[Info-vax] VMS Hobbyist Program

[David Goodwin]

On Thursday, July 30, 2020 at 3:27:28 AM UTC+12, Colin Butcher wrote:
> The contact address for the HPE Office of OpenVMS Programmes is: 
> openvms.programs at hpe.com
> 
> You might be able to get information from them directly.

I've exchanged a few emails with this address now but they're not of any help. When I specifically asked about VAX licenses and stated that only HPE could issue these they just referred me to VSI. They never said why nothing could be done to maintain access to DEC/Compaq OpenVMS releases - I was just referred to VSI again even though I'd thought I'd said pretty clearly why it this particular problem could only be resolved by HPE and it VSI had no ability to offer what I was after.

I suspect they might not even know what VAX is or know any details about the ending of the hobbyist program. So not going to get anything from there.

Preserving access to the old DEC/Compaq/HP stuff will require someone with good contacts within HPE. Or VSI buying out the copyrights for everything and deciding to make the old stuff available again. Or maybe its simply too late to try and preserve this stuff and nothing can stop it from ending up in the same licensing situation as Ultrix, Tru64 and the PDP-11 operating systems.

I guess running NetBSD on my VAXen isn't *so* bad. BSD did start out on VAX after all. Its just not nearly as interesting as VMS.