[Info-vax] VSI strategy for OpenVMS

[William]

In addition, it needs a free OpenVMS VM image that open source developers can use for testing and that open source projects can use in Continuous Integration pipelines. The VM can be limited in maximum up time, RAM, disk, no commercial use, etc., as long as it can build and package an application like gcc.

On Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 6:39:09 PM UTC+1, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 9/12/2021 7:18 AM, John Dallman wrote: 
> > The current "open source on OpenVMS" caused me to wonder how VSI's 
> > strategic plan for OpenVMS and its applications works. Some bits are 
> > fairly easy to deduce, but others are far less clear. 
> > 
> > The OpenVMS customer base has been slowly shrinking for quite a while. 
> > Since VSI lives on support contract income, this is a serious problem. 
> > Reasons for organisations to carry on using the OS include:
> > But the reasons for carrying on using OpenVMS don't obviously indicate a 
> > particular field or market segment of computing where OpenVMS usage is 
> > concentrated. It seems likely that the existing customers are a somewhat 
> > random selection of the organisations that took up VMS in the 1970s 
> > through 1990s. That creates a problem. 
> > 
> > DEC was a large organisation, capable of having expert teams in most 
> > fields of computing. VSI probably can't manage that. Their efforts to 
> > grow the customer base will presumably have to be focused on one or two 
> > areas. There seems to be a potential problem after customers start 
> > transitioning to x86: demand for software for many different fields, from 
> > a wide variety of customers. 
> > 
> > Porting open source is one answer, but there's an awful lot of it out 
> > there, making for a huge task, and doing it is at least as complicated as 
> > porting Linux software to Windows. That suggests that a Linux 
> > compatibility layer/library might be a good idea, but there have been 
> > several past attempts at that, and none seem to have got established. 
> > 
> > It's not obvious to me what VSI should concentrate on once OpenVMS is 
> > working on x86 and customer transitions have become routine. It is clear 
> > that should be some kind(s) of server work, but not which ones. 
> > 
> > Opinions?
> I don't think VSI has said much about their plans beyond x86-64 port. 
> 
> And it will also take a few years to get it out, get customers 
> migrated and stabilize it and fill the most obvious gaps. 
> 
> But to me the focus should be obvious: operating systems are 
> sold by applications - VMS needs more applications, so work 
> should focus on getting more applications developed for and 
> ported to VMS. 
> 
> Thinking loud that must include: 
> - extend available compilers 
> - create a model for distribution of native open source libraries (PCSI 
> is not the way top go for dozens or hundreds of libraries) - use 
> VCPKG as inspiration 
> - work with open source projects to include VMS as supported platform 
> in main repo 
> - work with commercial products to add support for VMS 
> - create VMS calling standard V2 with OO support and 
> add support for it to at least C++, Pascal and Basic 
> 
> Arne