[Info-vax] Final Orace release on VMS.

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2020-11-17 20:57:45 +0000, Jan-Erik Søderholm said:

> Den 2020-11-17 kl. 18:41, skrev Phillip Helbig (undress to reply):
>> In article <rp0tjh$15dr$1 at gioia.aioe.org>, Chris 
>> <xxx.syseng.yyy at gfsys.co.uk> writes:
>> 
>>> Seems to me, a lot of people arguing why VMS should *not* have a web 
>>> browser, again relegating VMS to a dark corner of serverism, when every 
>>> other major OS has a web browser support and is expected as a standard 
>>> feature. You run a web server, then you need a local browser to work on 
>>> it ideally, not on another machine elsewhere.
>> 
>> Exactly.  And it avoids having to have an additional machine just to 
>> run the web browser.
> 
> You do not need "an additional machine". Just do as everyone else does, 
> use the desktop system you already have anyway for everything not VMS 
> related. I really do not understand why you make everything so hard for 
> yourself.

The time and effort involved here is a feature, at least seemingly for Phillip.

Phillip is fond of previous-millennium computing, and the preferences, 
perceptions, norms and configurations of DEC and of OpenVMS from that 
era.

Many of us fell into or were pushed into running Microsoft Windows or 
some other client toward the end of the previous millennium, whether 
for Microsoft Office or Outlook or terminal emulation or some other 
requirement.

Once the terminal was replaced with a client running Windows, macOS, or 
otherwise and with a terminal emulator, that client then started 
getting usage beyond the terminal emulator.

But that Windows or Mac or other client usage is not an approach that 
Phillip prefers.  Running OpenVMS itself is a goal here. If that's not 
the central goal.

Now would a modern web browser see some use on OpenVMS? Sure. But that 
is very far down on the list of stuff I'd be looking for from VSI. And 
if (when?) a browser gets to the top of the scheduling list in 
Burlington, there's a whole big pile of prerequisites involved for any 
modern browser, too. As well as an expectation of ongoing (and quick) 
updates for browser issues, and there will inevitably be browser issues 
requiring quick updates. And before the browser arrives, mounting a 
share on OpenVMS or using sftp does what is needed. And given I'm not 
running X locally or remotely, the integrated browser becomes less 
useful.

-- 
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