[Info-vax] VMS survivability (was: Re: Rendez-vous autour de VMS" of January 31 2023 report)

[Dan Cross]

In article <tsrdl6$4bfn$1 at dont-email.me>,
Arne Vajhøj  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>On 2/18/2023 3:20 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
>> In article <memo.20230218104100.11588B at jgd.cix.co.uk>,
>> John Dallman <jgd at cix.co.uk> wrote:
>>> In article <tsq2vo$3utev$1 at dont-email.me>, jan-erik.soderholm at telia.com
>>> (Jan-Erik Söderholm) wrote:
>>>> English version of the meeting notes:
>>>
>>> The license news is good. [snip]
>> 
>> Meh.
>> 
>> I'll be blunt: the only reasonable path for VMS to survive
>> is to open source it under an OSI-approved license.  VSI
>> should dedicated itself to finishing the x86_64 port and
>> doing the necessary legal work to make that happen,
>
>The general assumption is that VSI can't do that as
>they don't own VMS - HPE does.

Which is why they should start working with HPE now
to make it happen.  Sun didn't own SVR4; AT&T did.
Yet somehow OpenSolaris happened.

>> then pivot to consulting and services (honestly: this is
>> what DEC should have done, and it's largely what IBM did
>> in order to survive in the 00's).
>
>IBM did not open source its OS'es. They still make
>money selling licenses.

AIX is dead, replaced by Linux as far as IBM is
concerned.  While they do make some money on the
mainframe and iSeries side from licensing, they
make significantly more money selling consulting
and services.

>IBM has become a huge general IT consulting
>company competing with DXC, CGI, Accenture,
>Cap Gemini, TCS, InfoSys, HCL etc..
>
>But it is far from obvious that it would make any
>sense for VSI to go that route. It is a very
>crowded field - and big companies has huge advantages
>when bidding on the big and lucrative contracts.

It worked for RedHat, which was bought for 34
billion USD.  By IBM.

>> Trying to push VMS as a _product_ at any price point will
>> undoubtedly lead to an ever-dwindling user base and an
>> eventual fade into obscure irrelevancy.
>
>So the suggestion for VSI on how to prevent the
>license revenue from decreasing slightly every year
>is to let license revenue drop to zero immediately.

No.  The suggestion is to pivot into consulting
and services around an open source OS, following
the RedHat model.

>I don't think they will buy into that.

Then VMS is doomed: it's that simple.

	- Dan C.