[Info-vax] VMS survivability

[ultr...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 7:27:18 PM UTC-5, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 2/19/2023 4:48 PM, Dan Cross wrote: 
> > In article <tst9dd$dhc4$1... at dont-email.me>, 
> > Arne Vajhøj <ar... at vajhoej.dk> wrote: 
> >> On 2/18/2023 10:06 PM, Dan Cross wrote: 
> >>> In article <tsrpoc$5qhq$2... at dont-email.me>,
> >>>> It is problematic to find people to maintain the ifdefs 
> >>>> and build scripts of for VMS in many open source projects. 
> >>> 
> >>> Have you ever stopped to wonder why that is, and how one might 
> >>> go about changing it? 
> >> 
> >> It is not obvious to me why VMS being open source should 
> >> make it more attractive to develop open source on VMS. 
> > 
> > It's prohibitively expensive to do so today. Should commercial 
> > vendors port to OpenVMS using the hobbyist program? How about 
> > open source vendors?
> ???? 
> 
> Commercial vendors can use VSI's excellent ISV program. 
> 
> Open source developers can use either same ISV program 
> or hobbyist program. 
> 
> Minimum cost = zero.
> >> There is no (non-religious) reason for an open source developer 
> >> to not develop open source on a closed source OS. 
> > 
> > Cost.
> Practically all software vendors has developer programs. 
> 
> Including VSI. 
> 
> Cost is not an issue.
> >> Open source simply requires people developing 
> >> open source. 
> > 
> > ...which requires an incentive, which no one has for VMS. Very 
> > few people in the open source world are running it, so why would 
> > they develop for it? What incentive does anyone have to develop 
> > for a closed proprietary platform controlled by a single, small 
> > company?
> It is an observable fact that open source is developed for 
> closed source platforms.
> >> A couple of well known quotes: 
> >> 
> >> Benjamin Franklin - Well done is better than well said 
> >> 
> >> John F Kennedy - Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you 
> >> can do for your country 
> > 
> > So I know a lot about OS implementation on x86, but have no 
> > practical way to contribute to getting OpenVMS running. Oh 
> > well.
> There are a few hundred thousand open source projects 
> to get running on VMS.
> >> VMS does not need people that say: 
> >> - VSI please open source VMS 
> >> - someone please port GNAT to VMS 
> >> - someone please port Rust to VMS 
> >> - someone please port XYZ to VMS 
> >> 
> >> VMS need people that say: 
> >> - I have ported XYZ to VMS 
> >> - I have created ABC on VMS 
> > 
> > How, pray tell, is one going to cooperate in, say, porting GNAT 
> > or Rust or LLVM to VMS, when all that development is being done 
> > in a highly proprietary context that by its very nature 
> > precludes collaboration?
> Close source does not preclude collaboration.
> > Suppose somebody finds a latent bug in 
> > the OS that's tickled by the new compiler; how does one help get 
> > that fixed without the source code? Sure, provide a really good 
> > bug report, but none of that helps people do what you claim VMS 
> > needs above.
> The people that actually do port open source to or develop 
> open source for VMS does not seem to have that problem. 
> 
> They report it. VSI engineering responds. 
> 
> Not really that different from open source for the vast majority 
> of developers that don't want to do OS fixes themselves. 
> 
> Recent example: Mark Daniels and the link time issue. 
> 
> Arne

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