[Info-vax] Posts

[Craig A. Berry]

On 5/27/24 10:46 PM, David Goodwin wrote:
> In article <v33ev3$dujk$1 at dont-email.me>, arne at vajhoej.dk says...
>>
>> 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.

> But HPE gave all of the OpenVMS *source code* to to VSI under some
> license, a license that was different from any that had previously been
> applied to this source code. Any 3rd party code present was either
> sublicensed to VSI or removed and maybe provided in binary form only.
> 
> For HPE to do this they had to do some work to figure out what they
> could and what they couldn't hand over. HPE had to be sure of their own
> rights before they could grant any rights to VSI. And they had to remove
> anything they weren't allowed to distribute, or go back to whoever owns
> the code and get permission to sublicense it to VSI.
> 
> I don't see how that work is any less than what HPE would have to do to
> open source it. I guess if you're open-sourcing it you might want to
> search for and remove any insults from the code? But thats probably not
> strictly necessary.
> 
> Also, didn't DEC/Compaq actually publish some substantial part of the
> OpenVMS codebase on Microfiche and CD-ROM? So presumably they would have
> had pretty good records on what was fit for public release and what
> wasn't.
> 
> Semi-related, is there actually much 3rd party code in OpenVMS beyond
> X11, Motif and CDE (all things that are open-source today anyway)?

I'm pretty sure some of the device drivers have vendor-supplied code in
them.  SSH was proprietary, but thankfully has been replaced by OpenSSH.

It certainly isn't easy to understand from out here in the peanut
gallery what makes it so difficult to open source VMS.  But Clair Grant
has said it's been tried on a couple of different occasions and it just
isn't going to happen. I know it's c.o.v and back seat driving is what
we do here (done some it myself!) but just be aware that senior level
insiders have found the obstacles insurmountable.