[Info-vax] History of DECSET / CMS

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 3/30/2020 9:05 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 3/30/2020 4:28 PM, Andrew Shaw wrote:
>> On Tuesday, March 31, 2020 at 3:25:57 AM UTC+11, Phillip Helbig 
>> (undress to reply) wrote:
>>> In article <r5rc5m$9s6$1 at dont-email.me>, "Robert A. Brooks"
>>> <FIRST.LAST at vmssoftware.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> CMS (along with the rest of DECset) is still maintained by VSI, 
>>>> although we are
>>>> primarily doing bug fixes (and the occassional enhancement).
>>>>
>>>> I am the primary DECset maintainer at VSI.
>>>
>>> Good to know that it is still being maintained.  If that is the case,
>>> and the OP is staying on VMS, then there is problem no reason to move.
>>> If he is not staying on VMS, then he has no choice but to move to
>>> something else.
>>
>> For the time being, at least, we are staying on VMS. There have been
>> a couple of attempts over the last 20 years to move off it and
>> on to something more modern, but all have failed.
> 
> Was there any reasons to move to another environment?

A lot of companies were very concerned about HP(E)'s commitment
to VMS. Luckily that is fixed by now.

Some companies may be concerned about finding VMS expertise
in the future.

>> Now there is a project going on looking at bringing in a 3rd party
>> package to take over our core engine functionality, but that is
>> moving extremely slowly too, for a number of reasons. >
> Is there a reason for doing so?

The movement from custom solution to off-the-shelf / semi-off-the-shelf
solutions is not new.

When such migrations start it is often believed to be cheaper.

Reality is that a standard solution with customizations often turn
out to be just as expensive as the in house solution it replaced.

But it still has benefits. The standard solution will come with a
lot of extras - it will usually be more web friendly, more cloud
and container ready, more database independent, more OS independent
etc.. And it is less risk - as long as you pay then it is somebody
elses problem to find the core developers - and often also
the customization consultants.

Arne