[Info-vax] Entitled attitudes, was: Re: vax vms licenses

[chris]

On 02/26/21 15:10, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
> In article<s1b1ns$u0d$1 at gioia.aioe.org>, chris
> <chris-nospam at tridac.net>  writes:
>
>> On 02/26/21 13:23, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> On 2021-02-25, David Goodwin<dgsoftnz at gmail.com>   wrote:
>>>> On Friday, February 26, 2021 at 7:56:48 AM UTC+13, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>> On 2021-02-25, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)<hel... at asclothestro.multivax.de>   wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Let's bring some reality back to the discussion. The only reason VMS
>>>>>> has a future at all is because of VSI. What has VSI done wrong here?!
>>>>>>
>>>>> Absolutely nothing. But I suspect some of the attitudes displayed here
>>>>> are annoying VSI employees (and causing sore heads due to the head banging
>>>>> that is probably going on within VSI at the moment).
>>>>
>>>> Which is why I'm not sure why people keep bringing VSI into the conversation.
>>>>
>>>> The topic is vax vms. VSI has no interest in or rights to any existing VAX VMS
>>>> release - its a different now abandoned product from a different company.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Because someone looking to offer a hobbyist program to a group of people
>>> will look to see how those same group of people treat hobbyist programs
>>> from other companies.
>>>
>>> Simon.
>>>
>>
>> Probably going against the stream here, but the whole idea of a
>> "hobbyist program", is obsolete and won't encourage any new users
>> to try out the system. Ideally, it would be free for none commercial
>> use, then tiered charges for commercial use, starting perhaps with
>> a modest charge for patch updates. I would be happy to buy into
>> that. As a software dev myself, I will always pay for software
>> that's uses a lot, but won't pay a lot just for evaluation. Most
>> people are honest and will do the right thing, given the opportunity.
>>
>> People will not make the effort to try it out for evaluation if
>> there are any obstacles put in the way of accessing it, other
>> than perhaps registration. There's are so many good alternatives out
>> there now and VMS will be effectively starting from scratch, since
>> it's been so long (decades) since it was considered a mainstream OS.
>>
>> It's the way that much modern software is marketed these days. Get
>> potential customers interest with an effective free trial first,
>> then build on that by selling support and added services...
>
> That might well be the way forward for x86 on VMS.  IIRC, the licensing
> and support model won't be the same as it was for VMS in the past.
>
> However, the discussion here concerns the demise of the hobbyist license
> for VAX.  HPE could issue more, but decided not to.  VSI could, but only
> if they produce a new version of VMS for VAX, and have chosen not to.
>
> I seriously doubt that playing with VMS on VAX is a good way to get
> people interested in VMS, so that is a red herring.  Some people want to
> continue to run VMS on VAX as a hobby.  While I sympathize, sometimes it
> just isn't possible, and in my view it is way out of line to openly say
> it is OK to flaunt the terms of the license just because you cannot get
> the license you want.
>

I suppose it could be argued that since licences for vms on vax are no
longer issued (?), there are no terms to be abused. Since HP still
effectively own the vms version, t would be up to them to make a
statement as to usability. Meanwhile, many will still continue to use 
it, approved or not. Such is the real world and not everything is
perfect, life is an approximation and all that.

As I said earlier, i'm always willing to pay for sotfware that's used
for real work, but would have no qualms about booting an old vax
running vms for hardware test purposes. I would probably choose
Netbsd for anything more than that. much more scope for doing
something useful with the hardware...

Chris