[Info-vax] OpenVMS app development, kitting (was: Re: Making Open Source Tools Work for VMS)

[David Goodwin]

On Thursday, November 25, 2021 at 9:20:55 AM UTC+13, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 11/24/2021 2:26 PM, David Goodwin wrote: 
> > On Tuesday, November 23, 2021 at 8:19:21 PM UTC+13, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote: 
> >> On 11/22/2021 1:36 PM, Stephen Hoffman wrote: 
> >>> BTW: OpenVMS customers REJECTED an offer to open-source OpenVMS. Yes. 
> >>> Really. Outright rejected that. Put slightly differently, some of the 
> >>> open-source preferences around here can be... unexpected. Even among 
> >>> folks that have worked with OpenVMS for decades. 
> >> No surprise. People who use VMS like VMS. People who use VMS don't 
> >> like some open-source code, and don't like Richard 
> >> if-your-code-is-not-open-source-then-that-is-a-crime-against-humanity M. 
> >> Stallman and his ilk driving the community. (Yes, Stallman---who by all 
> >> accounts seems to be a rather creepy guy---really said that, insulting 
> >> millions of victims of real crimes against humanity.) 
> >> 
> >> Has VMS been handled badly by its owners, including DEC? Sure. Should 
> >> the solution be open source? Probably not. The world is not black and 
> >> white, though it seems that more and more people try to see it that way, 
> >> e.g. either one supports Trump or one is woke. Whatever happened to 
> >> old-fashioned common sense? 
> > 
> > If it had been open sourced then VAX hobbyists wouldn't be loosing access 
> > to OpenVMS at the end of this year. Same goes for people with older Alpha 
> > hardware. 
> > 
> > I think the main thing open-sourcing it would have achieved is securing *a* 
> > future for it. It would have guaranteed access indefinitely to anyone with an 
> > interest in running it. 
> > 
> > Now is there is no guarantee VMS will be available long term - its continued 
> > availability depends on it being profitable. If VSI is not replacing every customer 
> > that leaves then eventually everyone who is not the original owner of a permanent 
> > license will find themselves in the same situation as VAX hobbyists.
> I don't think there is much point as I don't think VSI can make VMS 
> open source and HPE won't make VMS open source. 
> 
> But even if they could and would, then I am not so sure about how 
> well it would work out. 
> 
> The VMS community is notorious for how few that actually contribute 
> to open source, so the VMS community could not drive the development. 
> 
> VSI can drive the development, but need to make money. Redhat makes 
> a lot of money from Linux, but there is a lot of Linux systems out there 
> and Redhat can keep the price so low that their commercial offering 
> still sell despite various free clones. But VMS does not have that 
> volume. 

Yeah, it seems unlikely the OpenVMS community would jump in and keep
the operating system alive. But I expect if the code was available someone
would eventually compile it and a free distribution of OpenVMS would then 
exist.

Supposedly HPE was considering open-sourcing it but if that was ever going
to happen it had to happen back when HPE announced OpenVMS was dead. 
When there were still people at HPE who knew what OpenVMS was and 
before VSI stepped in. I expect by the time OpenVMS is no longer 
commercially viable at VSI there will be no one left at HPE with the ability 
to open-source it. Most likely at some point in the next few decades
OpenVMS will join Tru64, Ultrix and all the other operating systems that can 
not be licensed anymore.