[Info-vax] Desirable features for VMS

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/25/2024 8:21 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> A random sample of things from Linux/Unix I would like to see in VMS:
> 
> Mandatory Access Controls (my preference) or jails (Stephen's preference).

The market want containers.

I suspect that means Hoff jails with a marketing label of "container"
instead of "jail".

> 
> A shell with decent modern functionality such as:
> 
> 	Proper command history retention and merging from multiple sessions
> 	Easy searching of command history
> 	Tab completion
> 	Editing long command lines
> 	Globbing

+better control structures
+better data types

But I doubt it makes sense business wise.

VMS got:
* DCL for backwards compatibility
* GNV bash for *nix compatibility
* Python and Perl for more programmatic scripting

Even though DCL2 or XDCL would be nice then I don't think it
will increase VMS sale.

> Proper package management

Traditional Linux package management at the OS level would
be the wrong path. The result is a mess.

The right approach is package management at the application level.

maven, nuget, pypi, npm, composer etc. not yum, dnf etc..

For managing the truly OS stuff relative little is needed. PCSI2
or XPCSI.

 >                                     and management of updates.

An option for more automated updates of VMS would be nice.

> Loadable and unloadable kernel modules, with device driver/filesystem/etc
> functionality available from within these modules.

Nice.

But again I doubt it will increase VMS sale.

> ASLR and KASLR support.

That would probably come as part of ongoing security enhancements
at some point in time.

> Proper timezone management. (Everything is always UTC based, and your
> timezone is merely a local session property with no effect on the
> on-disk timestamps).

Nice but tricky to implement without breaking stuff.

Arne