[Info-vax] The Doom of VAX VMS Hobbyist Licenses?

[David Goodwin]

On Tuesday, July 21, 2020 at 5:25:02 AM UTC+12, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2020-07-20, Dave Froble wrote:
> >
> > Ethical?  Come now Simon, what ethical questions?  VAX/VMS is not a 
> > commodity with any value to the IP owner.  Hasn't been for some time now.
> >
> 
> VAX/VMS is still the property of HPE. They are the ones who get to decide
> what can and what cannot be done with it.
> 
> >
> > The VSI CL is basically granting such capabilities to people, so, how 
> > could anything similar (remember, they will not be doing VAX, so it's 
> > not the same thing) concern them?
> >
> 
> You really don't get it, do you David ?
> 
> If hobbyists cannot be trusted to respect HPE's terms and conditions when
> HPE choose to grant them temporary free access to HPE's products, then why
> should VSI trust anything that those same hobbyists will do when VSI is
> considering granting those same hobbyists access to VSI's own products ?

If VSI actually cares about selling OpenVMS none of this will bother them. Its better for them that people run pirated OpenVMS on their VAXen than NetBSD. One increases the number of people with OpenVMS experience, the other doesn't.

If VSI wants to succeed they *have* to make it freely available for non-commercial use. No time-limited license PAKs. No registration forms. No Special FTP servers with regularly changing passwords. These are all just spending money on raising barriers to entry. Just put a link to the installation media on the website with a disclaimer saying "For non-commercial use only".

Piracy is not a risk to VSI - people choosing Linux instead is.