[Info-vax] A new suggestion to handle the temporary production licences problem

[Phillip Helbig undress to reply]

In article <ihs071F5l8iU1 at mid.individual.net>, Andrew Brehm
<andrew at netneurotic.net> writes: 

> > Den 2021-06-03 kl. 12:24, skrev Andrew Brehm:
> > 
> > The current roadmap has Alpha "Standard Support" into 2030 (as long
> > as the current roadmap reaches). But it also depends on what you
> > mean with a "new version". An Alpha 8.4-2L3? We don't know.
> > 
> > Anyway, for those a 1-2 core x86 VM will probably be "enough".
> > Should those production systems be free?
> 
> No. But I think they ought to keep running if unlicensed.
> 
> You are confusing enforcement mechanism with price policy.
> 
> I have not commented on how much OpenVMS should cost and what uses
> should be free. I just thought collapsing a running system to using at
> most 4 cores and 8 GB of memory would be an acceptable way to deal with
> forcing licence and support renewals and would allow for easier adoption
> among hobbyists, developers and sysadmins.

I see your point, but it is not a good idea in practice, since it misses 
the smaller production systems.  Think of it this way: x86 systems are 
powerful (because more modern) and even a minimal system is probably 
more powerful than most Alphas (many still in use) and even some or most 
Itaniums.  If there is a collapse and the system needs more than 8 GB, 
then your idea doesn't work.  Also, more powerful systems can be had for 
free (if not now then soon).  Should hobbyists not be allowed to use 
them?

OK, your idea is orthogonal to hobbyist licenses, which could exist for 
any system.  However, in practice, such licenses for low-powered systems 
could be used by hobbyists if there are no license costs.

Things are complicated enough; we shouldn't make them more complicated, 
especially not by defining something which is not future proof.  I 
remember when a 1-GB disk and 24 MB memory was a big system with a big 
price.