[Info-vax] VMS Hobbyist Program

[Simon Clubley]

On 2020-07-21, David Goodwin <dgsoftnz at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Why did they they issue a two year license at the start of this year when
> they announced they were ending the hobbyist program? Where was the extra
> revenue in that?
>

I suspect that was the result of someone (maybe Hari ?) pushing for the
authorisation to do this. All the required infrastructure and legal
permissions were already in place. It was just a matter of someone
authorising this.

It was a pleasant surprise however.

> For that matter, why were they issuing Hobbyist licenses at all these last
> few years? OpenVMS was a dead operating system they were trying to get out of
> supporting. Where was the revenue in maintaining the hobbyist program?
>

Because the resources and money had been spent setting up the program and
there were no real costs involved in continuing to run it while things
remained unchanged.

> If they were truly focused on nothing more than HPEs bottom line the hobbyist
> program would have been shutdown the day they announced they were killing
> OpenVMS.
>

In recent years, didn't Hari continue to run the hobbyist program as
more of a volunteer effort instead as part of his formal work duties ?

(Or have I remembered that incorrectly ?)

> I'll admit its unlikely anything will change but perhaps the hobbyist program
> survived as long as it did simply because someone with sufficient authority
> liked it and wanted it to continue whether it was making money or not?

And if that person was Hari (or someone else in VMS Engineering), the
chances are that person has either moved jobs within HPE or has been
made redundant.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.