[Info-vax] VAX VMS going forward

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2020-07-25 14:57:56 +0000, Jan-Erik Sderholm said:

> Den 2020-07-25 kl. 15:53, skrev Scott Dorsey:
>> But VSI has no rights to any of the Vax distributions.  They did not 
>> purchase that from HP.  HP continues to own it, but has no interest in 
>> it.
> 
> That is not what Robert Brooks wrote some days ago:
> 
> "...we *do* have the rights (and the VAX master pack, including the 
> Emerald builds) to produce a VSI version of OpenVMS VAX. We have chosen 
> not to do that...".
> 
> I read that as that VSI has as much "rights" to the VAX sources as as 
> they have had all then time to the Alpha sources. But on general 
> request that *did* chose to build a "VSI Alpha" kit. I guess there 
> simply is no business case to build a "VSI VAX" kit.

VSI has no rights to any of the existing VAX distributions.

VSI has the rights to create new VAX distributions.

Both of these statements can be true.

Both are true.

Here?

HPE can either decide to issue permanent PAKs for hobbyists for the 
(only!) existing OpenVMS VAX releases, or not.

Or VSI can backtrack and can create a 32-bit distribution for hobbyist 
hardware and license it at minimal or no cost, and contend with the 
associated cost.

Or VSI can purchase the rights to one or more of the existing HPE 
OpenVMS VAX distributions, and offer that at minimal or no cost, and 
contend with support costs.

And if reanimating the corpse, VSI then gets to chase all the other 
issues with OpenVMS VAX, not the least of which involves an 
already-ancient IP stack.

One of these options is slightly more likely than the others, and it's 
not the VSI options.

Not unless some VAX customer surfaces and offers VSI cash 💵💵💵 in 
volumes sufficient to distract VSI from their other priorities.

In the absence of a hobbyist OpenVMS VAX PAK past 2021, OpenVMS VAX 
hobbyists can either buy HPE licenses, or, well, not.

A fair chunk of the current level of interest in hobbyist OpenVMS VAX 
is probably based on the costs and the availability of free emulation 
with SIMH and that seems likely to decline with the availability of the 
x86-64 port, too.

At some point in the next decade or three, VSI may (probably will) 
decide to drop Alpha and Itanium support, too. This probably not until 
after the OpenVMS port to Arm or RISC-V concludes, of course.

And these old-architecture licensing discussions will replay among the 
hobbyists, for those still around then to remember. Among those of us 
whose brains have not then become mush.


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