[Info-vax] VMS documentation, was: Re: Special deals on Tape Drives

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2022-03-16 00:09:04 +0000, chris said:

> Thanks, more or less what I suspected. No longer a vms user, but would 
> like to see it succeed. Problem is that it's so far behind the 
> mainstream now, it will take a lot of effort to catch up. As I said, 
> porting cups or other mainstream printing system would fix the printing 
> issue for good, but even that would require effort from people familiar 
> with both unix and vms.

The lengths of the various dependency chains have been increasing for a 
while, yes.

Specifically for printing, CUPS has been mentioned before, as has IPP/IPPS.

Adding IPP/IPPS usually also means adding a dependency on Zeroconf / 
mDNS / Bonjour, too. Etc.

> What might be just as important is the head in sand attitude of some, 
> as the song goes, you ain't gonna learn what you don't want to know. In 
> computing, I always expected to have to keep up with developments and 
> in fact, that's one of the main attractions of tech, lifelong learning 
> and always a student...

There are also discussions of target markets and scale and available 
staff and schedule, and of the rate of change across available 
platforms.

VSI necessarily has to target those that are still using OpenVMS and 
existing apps, and to particularly keep those customers buying support 
contracts, and maybe then adding new apps.

Whether there's enough interest in the OpenVMS x86-64 port—both within 
the installed base, and beyond—also depends on factors we don't yet 
know, not the least of which are pricing, terms, and availability.

To be clear, VSI is doing exactly what they need to be doing here, too. 
Where this all goes longer-term for VSI and OpenVMS and customers using 
OpenVMS, once the x86-64 port becomes available?

Few vendors have managed to catch up again after falling behind what is 
considered competitive product offerings; getting behind on the 
proverbial curve.


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Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC