[Info-vax] VMS survivability

[Dave Froble]

On 2/20/2023 6:28 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
> In article <tsuep3$hia4$1 at dont-email.me>,
> Arne Vajhøj  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 2/19/2023 4:48 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
>>> In article <tst9dd$dhc4$1 at dont-email.me>,
>>> Arne Vajhøj  <arne 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.
>
> Too bad there are no native compilers for x86_64 yet,
> which means using a different platform, which comes back
> to cost.
>
> Do you...really not understand this?  No wait, nevermind.
>
>>> ...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.
>
> How do you think that's relevant to the text that you quoted?
> No wait, nevermind.
>
>>> 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.
>
> How do you think that's relevant to participating in the port?
> No wait, nevermind.
>
>>>> 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.
>
> How does one contribute to the work porting LLVM to VMS, then?
> No wait, nevermind.
>
>>>                            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.
>
> You are not even consistent within your own post.  There are as
> you said several hundred thousand projects to port to VMS, and
> no one is doing that work, but that people that are doing the
> work don't have a problem, even though they aren't doing it.
>
> Which is it?
>
> No wait, nevermind.
>
> 	- Dan C.
>

I like to keep an open mind, but I'm wondering if I should ask, are you one of 
Stallman's advocates?

-- 
David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
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