[Info-vax] Looking for early VAX/VMS CSD Consolidated Software Distribution

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2021-05-13 14:13:13 +0000, Timothy Stark said:

> I am looking for older VMS consolidated distro 1989 for VMS 4.x systems too.

You're probably not going to have much luck with that quest, and will 
have to switch tactics and look for individual layered product kits.

As OpenVMS VAX was then known, VAX/VMS kit distributions and licensing 
worked differently thirty-some years ago.

ConDist kits and the License Management Facility were intended to 
replace the plethora of product kits and whatever patches that had 
previously existed; to consolidate the distributions and the licensing.

ConDist was largely a creature of VAX/VMS V5.0 and later, and of the 
availability of the License Management Facility, and of the advent of 
then-capacious CD media.

This as layered product kits for versions prior to VAX/VMS V5.0 tended 
to be distribution-restricted. Users licensed and purchased and got 
specific layered product distro kits on TK50, 1600 BPI 9-track magtape, 
TU58, RA60, and/or other distro media.

DECnet used patch-based licenses, but most layered products back then 
didn't have separately-installed licenses, and didn't contain license 
checks.

Here's what one of the few layered product licensing schemes looked 
like, prior to LMF: 
https://www.digiater.nl/openvms/freeware/v50/netrtg040/

CD layered product distribution kits did exist prior to VAX/VMS V5.0 
(for those VAX/MicroVAX/VAXstation/VAXserver systems with CD drives), 
but the aggrate ConDist-style CD layered product kits AFAIK did not.

DEC chose CD media and retired all the other installation kit media 
with OpenVMS Alpha.

The lack of new media availability from media vendors and the lack of 
CD load support triggered the retirement of all of the VAX-11 servers, 
too.


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