[Info-vax] vax vms licenses

[chris]

On 04/19/22 19:05, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2022-04-19, chris<chris-nospam at tridac.net>  wrote:
>>
>> Not familiar with later versions, but at least with 5.4 vax, it's
>> possible to install vms and have indefinate access with the root
>> account (sorry, was it operator ?) with no licence input at all.
>> Istr, it nags you, but doesn't stop anything happening.
>>
>
> Ignoring the legal issues, you can work from OPA0: in this way, but
> you have no networking and no access to any DEC layered products,
> including the compilers, as they also require licences to be installed.
>

That's right and iirc, decwindows worked as well. That machine did
have Wolongong TCP/IP and the Vax C compiler, perhaps more, but never
did any serious work with it. Loads of Deccery at work, but
already moved over to a first Sun workstation for home use. I
really liked Decwrite on VMS though, years ahead of the pack, but
vms incompatability at various levels with the developing industry
standards made it a bad career move to invest too much time on.
So much design elegance, effort and leadership from DEC and still
a sad loss.

>> I was given a VSII/GPX by a company I worked for, 1990, and never got
>> round to transferring the licence, though it was only powered
>> up from time to time and never used for anything serious, just
>> out of interest.
>>
>> Even Oracle have quite generous licensing terms, where any of
>> the software downloaded from their website is free to use
>> for non commercial purposes. Very wide range as well. Don't
>> understand why vms should still use the archaic lmf style
>> licensing, but I guess they think there is a good reason...
>>
>
> It's part of the historical DEC mindset unfortunately that may have
> been perfectly acceptable at one time but which has not adapted to
> today's world.
>
> Don't forget that VSI has now become the company that has imposed
> time-limited _production_ licences on its customers and they expect
> the customers to just accept this.
>
> IOW, with these time-limited production licences, if VSI goes bust,
> then those licences will eventually stop working and hence so will
> the customer systems those licences are installed on.
>
> Simon.
>

Time will tell, but time limited licences would be definate show
stopper for me. Any sort of LMF implies a lack of trust and that
is core to all relationships in life...

Chris