[Info-vax] VAX VMS going forward

[David Goodwin]

On Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 6:03:52 PM UTC+12, John Dallman wrote:
> In article <b12d3e1a-8a62-4ffa-a866-44cc21a54cdeo at googlegroups.com>,
> (David Goodwin) wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Those discontinued products often contain intellectual property that's
> still meaningful. Showing that they don't is very expensive in code
> review and legal time. 

They may on occasion. For a little while. But that IP becomes worthless
pretty quickly as the industry moves on and the backup tapes get lost,
thrown in the bin or simply fail from old age. At that point the IP,
for all intents and purposes, no longer exists in any usable form.

If the product is known to contain no 3rd party code, its obsolete and
never going to be sold again then nothing is lost by releasing its code.