[Info-vax] vax vms licenses

[Dave Froble]

On 4/27/2022 1:34 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 4/27/2022 1:16 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 4/27/2022 12:00 PM, John Dallman wrote:
>>> In article <f83619d5-0856-458a-a044-945dbb203e11n at googlegroups.com>,
>>> dgsoftnz at gmail.com (David Goodwin) wrote:
>>>> This one I imagine is pretty easy to deal with at this point. HPE
>>>> has no further use for OpenVMS - its only remaining value is in
>>>> whatever fees they're collecting from VSI.
>>>
>>> It has another importance in the strange world that corporate board
>>> members live in. While they're getting money from VSI, they can make a
>>> case that they're exploiting the OpenVMS intellectual property. If they
>>> open-source it, a case can be made by shareholders *and their lawyers*
>>> that they're discarding an asset.
>>
>> What knowledge or evidence do you have that HPe is still getting any money
>> from VSI?
>>
>> I've never heard of any such payments, but then again, perhaps such would not
>> be common knowledge.
>
> It seems likely that VSI has paid something, but whether it was
> a one time lump sum or an annual amount or a percentage of license
> revenue or the symbolic 1 dollar or something else has as far
> as I know not been public disclosed.

Correct, so where do all these claims such as that above come from?

> Note that the main driver for the spinoff was probably not the
> money. Whatever VSI paid must have been peanuts in the HPE
> world. HPE wanted out of the VMS business, but they wanted
> to get out without reputational damage and lawsuits for not
> meeting obligations. Having VSI take over VMS allowed HPE
> to do a graceful exit.

One could speculate that HPe paid VSI to take VMS off their hands.  Not that I 
think such happened, but speculation is so wide open, and so few facts.

Also note that HPe sold support that VSI provided for a while.


-- 
David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
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