[Info-vax] Posts

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 5/27/2024 9:16 PM, David Goodwin wrote:
> In article <v337me$92s3$1 at dont-email.me>, arne at vajhoej.dk says...
>>
>> On 5/27/2024 6:07 PM, David Goodwin wrote:
>>> In article <664dfc17$0$705$14726298 at news.sunsite.dk>, arne at vajhoej.dk
>>> says...
>>>>
>>>> On 5/22/2024 9:34 AM, Single Stage to Orbit wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 2024-05-22 at 12:19 +0000, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>>> Another reason could be that many VMS systems have reached the end
>>>>>> of their life and, for various reasons, many have now been replaced
>>>>>> with non-VMS solutions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> VMS is clearly in a managed decline situation, but the real question
>>>>>> is just how rapid is that decline before there isn't a large enough
>>>>>> userbase left to remain viable ?
>>>>>
>>>>> When it gets to that point I /really/ would like them to put it into
>>>>> the public domain and let us the hackers add drivers and other things
>>>>> to run it bare metal.
>>>>
>>>> That idea has come up numerous times.
>>>>
>>>> Most believe that it is totally impossible.
>>>>
>>>> VSI does not own the rights to all of VMS. VSI has a license
>>>> from HPE for the old parts of VMS and own the right to the
>>>> new parts of VMS that they have added.
>>>>
>>>> The chance of getting HPE to approve open sourcing the stuff
>>>> they own are close to zero. Only cost - no benefits.
>>>
>>> What costs would there be for HPE beyond those already paid as part of
>>> figuring what, if anything, they could sublicense to VSI?
>>
>> All.
>>
>> Whether HP/HPE can give VSI a license to sell VMS binaries similar
>> to how HP/HPE sold them and whether HPE can release the source code
>> as open source under license XYZ are two different questions.
>>
>> And with supposedly 25 million lines, then it will require a significant
>> software engineering and legal effort.
> 
> But HP/HPE didn't just give VSI a license to sell binaries.
> 
> HP/HPE released source code to VSI and allowed VSI to take that code and
> build new things on top of it (VSI OpenVMS).

HPE does not have a say about VSI source code.

VSI got the license to sell binaries that include HPE code. How much
VSI code those binaries contains are less important. And the answer
depends a lot on whether 8.4-2Lx or 9.x anyway.

> I don't see how that is all that different from releasing the source
> code to everyone and allowing everyone to take that code and build new
> things on top of it (Open OpenVMS).

Huge difference.

Like the difference between closed source and open source.

> Either way you're distributing the code to someone other than HPE
> employees and you'd have to be certain you had the right to sublicense
> any 3rd party code under your chosen terms before doing that.

They certainly had to do some work.

But allowing someone to use source code is not the same as open sourcing
it and allowing the recipients to redistribute freely.

> Given HPE hasn't added anything new since they conducted that review,
> HPEs rights at this point should be known and additional reviews
> shouldn't be necessary.

The analysis would need to be redone from scratch. Different
question.

>>> And of course HPE could just wash their hands of OpenVMS and transfer
>>> the copyrights entirely to VSI.
>>
>> Still work with no benefits.
> 
> Presumably if that ever happened it would be a case of VSI buying
> OpenVMS from HPE outright so the benefit would be in the being paid for
> it.

If VSI is making truck loads of money, then they may want to
give HPE a good offer. And if it is good enough then HPE will
of course consider.

But I think that is a slightly different scenario than what triggered
this subthread.

Arne