[Info-vax] VMS VAX License for personal Microvax 3100 Model 40

[David Goodwin]

On Saturday, July 30, 2022 at 5:53:10 AM UTC+12, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 7/29/2022 1:42 PM, Simon Clubley wrote: 
> > On 2022-07-29, Dave Froble <da... at tsoft-inc.com> wrote: 
> >> On 7/29/2022 8:56 AM, Simon Clubley wrote: 
> >>> On 2022-07-28, David Goodwin <dgso... at gmail.com> wrote: 
> >>>> 
> >>>> And maybe VSI will some day buy out VMS completely and make historic 
> >>>> releases available in some form rather than letting the few remaining valid 
> >>>> permanent licenses slowly vanish as companies throw them out or 
> >>>> hobbyists (who bought new or had them transferred) die without transferring 
> >>>> them on to someone else. 
> >>> 
> >>> Sorting out the rights to the third-party IP within VMS may be a problem 
> >>> if that ever happens. 
> >>> 
> >>> Simon. 
> >>> 
> >> 
> >> There should be no issues. 
> >> 
> >> As stated, VSI has the right and capability to issue a new version of VAX/VMS, 
> >> and then issue licenses (of any type) for the new version. 
> >> 
> > 
> > Read the above again. 
> > 
> > The suggestion above is about VSI buying out VMS completely from HPE. 
> > 
> > In that situation, issues around third-party IP most certainly do come 
> > into play.
> Possibly. Possibly not. Compaq bought DEC. HP bought Compaq. Were there any 
> third party IP issues there? Perhaps Compaq and HP illegally issued VMS 
> licenses? Fun questions. 
> 
> But VSI does not need to do any "buy-out" in order to issue a VAX/VMS version.

My point there was more for past releases from DEC and, to a lesser extent, Compaq.

There were a lot of version of OpenVMS for VAX and Alpha that can no longer be
licensed. What if, when I someday finish restoring my VAXstation 2000, I wanted to
run the version of VMS that originally shipped with it? The hobbyist program allowed
that but the hobbyist program is no more. How many permanent licenses for that 
version of VMS are even still in existence at this point and are any of those in hobbyst
hands? And the quantity of layered product licenses for that era of software still in
existence is surely tiny at this point.

If VSI were to issue a VIS OpenVMS VAX 7.4 then there exists *a* version for VAX
which is hugely better than the current situation. But it would still be illegal to
explore the history of OpenVMS. To date all I've ever seen is OpenVMS VAX 5.5 (for
which I have a condist set that came with my VAXstation 4000/60 but without a
license due to the transfer issue - that was thrown out by the previous owner AFAIK) 
and Compaq OpenVMS 7.3 (for which I have a  hobbyist CD). I'll never again be 
allowed to use either version or any other version.

Meanwhile I'm free to explore the complete history of Microsoft Windows - second-hand
boxed copies of that are no trouble to find and there is no license transfer issue preventing
me from legally playing with it. The history of Windows will be preserved but the history
of VMS will not.