[Info-vax] Creating an open source version of VMS, was: Re: OpenVMS Hobbyist Notification

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 3/10/2020 9:05 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 3/10/20 8:57 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 3/10/2020 6:50 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 3/10/2020 5:41 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>> On 3/10/2020 9:57 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>>> On 3/10/20 9:21 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>>> Something that did occur to me:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I wonder, if someone tried to create an open source version of VMS
>>>>>> from public documentation only, if VSI would somehow try to suppress
>>>>>> development of it.
>>>
>>>>> It was tried more than a decade ago.  How far it got and how
>>>>> successful it was should be obvious by this point.  I have
>>>>> often thought about a clones for the PDP-11 OSes which are
>>>>> much simpler and have never gotten anywhere on that either.
>>>>
>>>> First you'd need a design, then it's simply a matter of coding.
>>>>
>>>> Maybe I don't have the "right attitude".  At this point in my life I
>>>> can use VMS for "real work" and WEENDOZE for email and browsing.  I
>>>> don't have the drive for more.  Aviation is much more fun.
>>>
>>> Yes. Design + coding.
>>>
>>> 20 million lines of code => more than 20000 man months of effort
>>
>> For RSTS?  I doubt it.
> 
> I think the 20 million lines of code referred to VMS.

Yes.

>> The real question.  What language?
> 
> Why would the language used matter?

Lines of code per functionality (function point or however
you want to measure it) varies across languages.

It requires more lines in Macro-32 than in C.

It requires more lines in C than in some newer languages.

There are statistics out there for such stuff.

Arne