[Info-vax] Is it too late for VMS on x86-64 ?

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 3/10/2023 8:09 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> This place is completely and totally dead, even compared to the reduced
> activity of 3-4 years ago.

That is not my impression.

My impression is something like:

old days (before 2005) : average 25-50 posts per day, almost 100% on VMS

recent (after 2005) : average 5-10 post per day, 20% on VMS and 80% of 
what DEC should have done 30 years ago and what VSI should do tomorrow.

I do not see a major drop the last 3 years.

I guess one could do an actual count using an archive.

https://narkive.net/stats/ng/55984.h.png

should supposedly be posting level to comp.os.vms for the last 20 years.

Not a good graph, but it looks to me like it fell some in the beginning,
but have been reasonable stable the last decade.

> Where is everyone ?
> 
> Has everyone finally been forced to leave VMS behind after each "porting
> complete" target date came and went ?
> 
> I am also aware that during the 8.5 years the port has been going on,
> many VMS systems may have aged-out naturally as part of the normal
> application development and replacement lifecycle.
> 
> So what happened ? Where is everyone ?

The number of VMS systems has decrease dramatically the last
30 years (probably by 80-90%).

The number of VMS people has decreased even more the
last 30 years (probably by 90-95%).

The preferred forum for technical Q&A has to large extent
switched from usenet to various web forums (for VMS places
like forum.vmssoftware.com and SO).

Many of the old people are retired and do no longer
have an interest in VMS.

Many of the mid aged people are no longer working on
VMS but on Linux or Windows at work so no longer have
an interest in VMS.

Most of the (very few) younger people with an interest
in VMS go to the web forums instead if usenet, because
that is what they know.

Arne