[Info-vax] VAX VMS going forward

[David Goodwin]

On Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 10:03:55 AM UTC+12, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 7/28/20 4:56 PM, David Goodwin wrote:
> > On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 9:23:52 PM UTC+12, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
> >> In article <5400ddbc-dc1f-411a-ba73-82b73cc54e64o at googlegroups.com>,
> >> David Goodwin writes:
> >>
> >>> Problem is CDE these days is under the LGPL. We've been told VSI doesn't
> >>> have the rights to re-license any of the code they've received from HPE. This
> >>> means they can't update to any recent release of CDE. So I guess that means
> >>> that the existing desktop environment stays largely as is with no further
> >>> updates.
> >>
> >> How many people use CDE, Motif, DECwindows etc. on VMS?  Claims here are
> >> that it is (today) a very small minority.  Speaking for myself, I would
> >> have no objection whatsoever if it stays largely as is with no further
> >> updates.
> >>
> >> There are WAY more-important things to do.
> > 
> > If few people are using these things will they remain long term at all? Does VSI
> > plan on porting all this old stuff to x86 for the few people that use it? Simply
> > keeping it as is does still involve some maintenance burden (building & testing
> > it for new releases, fixing any security issues that turn up, etc).
> > 
> > If they do end up removing it entirely then that comes back around to the
> > open-source point. If the source could be released then the few people who do
> > use it could take over maintenance. But we now know that's not a
> > possibility. Like with VAX, anything that drops out of support will just
> > disappear forever.
> > 
> 
> Welcome to the IT world.  More stuff has been saved (and continues
> to be used!) for the TRS-80 than for systems like the VAX and, yes,
> the PDP-11.

Yep, and I really wish that wasn't the case. I very much wish companies would just release the source for discontinued products instead of lock them away where they can benefit no one until the copyrights eventually expire in a century or so.

I'd love to get my hands on a PDP-11 someday (I've got a set of 8" RT-11 disks and a few binders of documentation) but I've never managed to track one down in New Zealand.