[Info-vax] Open Source on OpenVMS - A Progress Report

[Simon Clubley]

On 2009-10-14, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>
> But I am rather sure that the main reason is that there are
> way to few people that are willing to spend time on it.
>
> You are one of the relative few exceptions.
>
> My guess is that it is mostly due to demographics. Most VMS'ers
> have demanding jobs, families, houses, dogs, mortgages etc. that
> take their time. It requires extraordinary commitment to prioritize
> open source work.
>

There is another reason, which is true in my case:

I use open source software as a means to towards enabling me to do
another project. One example would be designing and building a circuit
and then programming the microcontrollers in that circuit.

A few years ago, I looked at running the software I needed to do this
and other tasks under VMS, and it didn't take me long to realise that
this was going to be a major project.

Given that I already had a perfectly viable operating system to hand,
in the form of Linux, it didn't make any sense to invest a major amount of
time in porting to VMS before I could start on the projects I wanted to
use those tools for.

In order words, people generally use software as a means to an end, and
when the software in question already runs on a viable alternative, there
is little motivation to spend major amounts of time to make it run on
another platform.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
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