[Info-vax] VMS survivability

[Dan Cross]

In article <tsrf3b$4krc$1 at dont-email.me>,
Dave Froble  <davef at tsoft-inc.com> 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, and
>> 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).
>>
>> 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.
>
>What benefits do you imagine for VSI, for customers,
>if VSI were to do what you suggest.  Talking about
>the "open source" issue.

Establishment of a developer ecosystem, crowd-sourced fixes for
bugs, security auditing, and ensuring the longevity of the
software by no longer tying its existence to a very small
company that las recently laying off engineers.

In the meanwhile, VSI can dedicate itself to a long-term
lucrative business model that, realistically speaking if
they're talking about expanding the customer base at all,
they'll have to lean into anyway.

>That ignores the fact that they do not have the right to
>do so, at least with what they got from HP.

You quoted the part of my message that read that they should
begin, "doing the necessary legal work to make that happen."
Obviously this has not yet happened.  That does not mean they
should not be working to make it possible.

>I've 
>read that what VSI produces is theirs, and they could do whatever they want with 
>it.  We're pretty sure that any of the Macro-32 and Bliss code isn't from VSI. 

Sounds like something lawyers should start talking about.  Again
I point to the model of what Sun microsystems was able to do
with open sourcing a System V Unix variant.

>But my primary question, what benefits do you see of "open source"?

Let me turn this around on you: what do you see as the benefits
of a closed-source, for-pay licensing model?  How does that
drive sales and benefit customers?  How many margin dollars do
they anticipate to make on licensing?

	- Dan C.