[Info-vax] OpenVMS Hobbyist Notification

[Phillip Helbig undress to reply]

In article <7a11f12c-3984-46e1-bc55-46f300e4de79 at googlegroups.com>,
David Moylan <wizdude at gmail.com> writes: 

> i did my renewal and received the new licensing. i would encourage everyone
> who requires licensing to do the same. the openvms team was keen to know 
> how many people out there still required hobbyist licensing.

Good idea.

> although december 2021 is still a while away, we will have another struggle
> at this time and i'm wondering what will be the best solution at this time
> ..

For what it's worth, at the initial conference call when VSI announced 
the port to x86, it was stated, rather definitively, that a hobbyist 
programme essentially similar to previous hobbyist programmes would 
exist by the time VMS was available on x86.

A different question is hobbyist licenses for Alpha, Vax, and Itanium.  
It would be nice for VSI to offer them, at least for Alpha and Itanium, 
perhaps requiring that one run VSI VMS on them.  (And, yes, it was also 
stated at the conference call that it would be possible to cluster Alpha 
and x86, and was subsequently stated that this would very probably 
require a VSI version of VMS on Alpha.)

As far as image is concerned, if VSI doesn't keep its word here, where 
little effort and no revenue is involved, people might wonder whether 
other promises will be kept.  It's just good PR.  And if hobbyists had 
access to patches, like in the old days, VSI would have an army of 
testers at no additional cost.

On the other hand, I think that most hobbyists would be willing to pay 
for a non-hobbyist license if it were reasonably priced.  This doesn't 
have to be the same as a commercial license for a big company.