[Info-vax] VSI strategy for OpenVMS

[David Goodwin]

On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 2:24:06 PM UTC+12, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 9/14/2021 10:08 PM, David Goodwin wrote: 
> > On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 12:24:18 PM UTC+12, Arne Vajhøj wrote: 
> >> On 9/14/2021 7:52 PM, David Goodwin wrote: 
> >>> Because realistically what can VMS do that isn't cheaper and easier 
> >>> on Linux besides "run existing VMS applications"? Why pay for VMS to 
> >>> run ports of Linux software when you could just run Linux software on 
> >>> its native platform for free? 
> >> There is no license cost for Linux, but companies 
> >> pay for support. Using RHEL is not free. 
> >> 
> >> So there is be room for charging. 
> >> 
> >> But long term RHEL can probably be seen as a cap for what 
> >> can be charged. 
> > 
> > Any idea what RHEL actually costs compared to OpenVMS? I've really 
> > got no idea. RedHat must make a fair bit of money though given what IBM 
> > spent buying them in 2019 ($34bn). Thats more than twice what Compaq 
> > spent buying all of DEC ($15bn in 2019 money).
> Not that much per system. 
> 
> https://www.redhat.com/en/store/linux-platforms 
> 
> But some customers got a lot of systems. 

I suppose an interesting point is that companies _choose_ to pay RedHat, 
Canonical, SuSE, etc. There is no threat of having their servers turned off
if they decide to stop paying a subscription fee or RedHat goes out of
business. There is always the option of paying nothing and running a Linux
distribution with no commercial support.

If there were a fully functional version of OpenVMS that was free for 
commercial use would enough companies continue to pay VSI for support 
to keep the whole thing viable? Or is RedHats business model only viable 
due to the sheer size of the Linux market?