[Info-vax] Whither VMS?

[Robin Fairbairns]

 Bob Eager <rde42 at spamcop.net> writes:
>On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:15:59 -0500, Bob Koehler wrote:
>
>> "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88 at comcast.net> writes:
>>
>>> Keeping bad code a secret in order to prevent hacking is, to say the
>>> least, a poor way to do business.  Sun has made most of the Solaris
>>> source code available for comment, criticism, and improvement.  The
>>> stuff that's still not public belongs in whole or in part to third
>>> parties and is used by Sun under license.
>> 
>>    Obviously Sun and Microsoft don't think the same!  Sun was one of the
>>    early proponents of "open sysytems".  Microsoft owns the most closed
>>    system in the business.  Nobody is allowed to see inside!
>
>Not true. We had access to the NT source code, and I think it's still 
>around somewhere.

one of our research groups had it (possibly later than the marketing
nt era) on a windows "terminal server".  i was supposed not to look at
it (not having signed an nda) but was supposed to co-administer the
machine.

>Not that I thought much of the quality...

i resisted the temptation to look (even then, i had a life to get on
with), so can't possibly comment on the quality of the code.

maintaining a machine you're not allowed to look at reminds me of the
stories of the aldermaston awre atlas 2 (titan at the computer lab was
the prototype atlas 2).

the spooks said that the ict people weren't allowed to look at the
machine while running[*], so when it crashed, the only hint came from
the console output: by the time the support people got to it, the
memory had been wiped.

amazing any bugs got resolved -- i'm assured they did.

[*] after all, they would probably go out and make themselves an
h-bomb if there were allowed to look.
-- 
Robin Fairbairns, Cambridge