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

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 7/21/2020 12:54 AM, David Goodwin wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 21, 2020 at 5:25:02 AM UTC+12, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> On 2020-07-20, Dave Froble wrote:
>>> 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.

I am aware of many successful software vendors that do not
supply their stuff free for non-commercial usage, so it is
not that given.

Arne