[Info-vax] Goodbye VAX

[Subcommandante XDelta]

On Sun, 2 Jan 2022 08:54:56 -0000 (UTC), Simon Clubley
<clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:

>On 2022-01-01, George Cornelius <cornelius at eisner.decus.org> wrote:
>>
>> And we all gave Bruce Mitchell h%ll for wearing his infamous "Screw the LMF" teeshirt to a Symposium.
>>
>
>I wonder, when x86-64 production licences come out, if VSI will take
>the opportunity to implement much more robust licence keys that cannot
>be easily bypassed (especially if they also take the opportunity to
>start signing core images so that they can't be patched to bypass
>such licencing).
>
>They obviously have no backwards compatibility licencing issues at the
>moment with x86-64 so it's the perfect time for them to implement such
>licencing changes. :-)
>
>Simon.

Hola comp.os.vms companeros,

Akin to cats and UFOs we come and go, manifest and demanifest, with a
nonclalant disregard for the laws of physics, exemplary netiquette,
and a philosophical disregard for the laws of intellectual property -
in the specific domain of preserving and defending the heritage and
legacy of the Digital Equipment Corporation.

Alas, as much as we'd might otherwise, like to, we do not always
meticulously follow the transactions and proceedings of the
comp.os.vms college, but this particular conversation thread caught
our weather, weathered, rheumy, ageing, prescription spectacled, eyes
- there is a pertinent DECronym:

FTFAJ: Fuck That For A Joke

With specific application to the expiration of VAX licenses.

Here is our RCE remedy from October 2012, the 35th Anniversary of VMS:

LiBREVMS.LMFGEN.OpenVMS.Tru64.OSF1.ULTRIX.v1.2.WinALL.x86.x64.KEYGEN-VLF

File-hosts:

https://www.mirrored.to/files/0LOAT2SY/

Usenet Binaries Newsgroups:

https://binsearch.info/?q=LiBREVMS.LMFGEN.OpenVMS.Tru64.OSF1.ULTRIX.v1.2.WinALL.x86.x64.KEYGEN-VLF

Any VAX shop, hobbyist or business, should be able to carry on,
indefinitely, in dignity, and in perpetuity, not hung high and dry
until the VSI systems are ship-shape and ready to roll out for
production implementation in existing and new VMS shops.

The VLF have no plans to publicly release any licensing RCE for
x86-x64 VSI VMS systems - if VSI is the viable future for VMS, we wish
it to both to survive and to thrive, regenerating the VMS ecosystems
back to glory, in the process.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is a tried and true, ancient maxim
of engineering, and the VLF would aver that that is the case with the
LMF.

Signing images, or implementing any other byzantine, bizarre, and
dizzingly diabolical, protection and licencing schemes, are just a
waste of developer attention cycles that could be better deployed in
honing and extending the excellence of their software - it's
excellence that sells and keeps on selling. Management should not
delude themselves with "security through obtuse obfuscation"
delusions.

The endless, myriad, hard lessons (for developers) from the Microsoft
Windows applications underground RCE Scene is that there is no
protection or licensing scheme that can't be bypassed, broken,
keygenned, or otherwise, utterly crushed and humiliated, for any
application or application suite, gargantuan, great, or small.

The VLF would advise the VSI to carry on with the LMF as it is, but
management and the VSI string-pull investors, need to remedially
self-educate about the psychology, values, and attitudes of the
remaining VAX and AXP installation shops - the principals of them all
wear eleven gallon Stetsons - and to not piss them off with
exploitative and insulting licensing policies - if they want perpetual
licensing at a fixed revision level, then so be it - attract new
business from them in other more wholesome & productive ways - like
asking them what they want, everyone moving forward.

Dare the stares and glares of the profit extraction billionaires.

As always, if you understand what the VLF do, and why, there is no
need to comment; if you do not understand the what or the why, or you
do, and you do not appreciate it, then we earnestly advise you, in
either case, to remain in the dignity of silence.

Semper VAX; Semper AXP - Semper DEC.

Thank you for your attention,

Yours sincerely,

VLF: The VMS Liberation Front
In VMS We Trust.

PS: A shout out and salute to Gérard Calliet and the team at the
VMSgenerations Working Group - the VLF greatly admire their above
ground work, from afar - industry association, institutional response,
aggregate activism, in the relation to VSI is the way to go -
individual petitioning will not cut it.

$!------------------------- damn straight --------------------------!$
$ opprobrium/level=kittens/mode=conniptions/input=VLF:/output=NL:   !$
$!-------------------------- enough said ---------------------------!$