On 4/26/2022 12:12 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 4/26/22 10:45, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 4/26/2022 7:04 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>> On 4/25/22 22:37, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>> What if a number of VMS customers, currently with support contracts,
>>>> just
>>>> declared "no, we won't accept that"?  Do you really think VSI would
>>>> let them
>>>> just walk?
>>>
>>> Are you saying that VSI would give some people a better deal while the
>>> majority would be stuck with the original plan?  You don't think that
>>> would drive them away?
>>
>> Standard customer rules:
>>
>> 1) The customer is always right.
>>
>> 2) When customer is wrong, refer to rule #1.
>>
>
> Where's the tongue-in-cheek emoji?
> You can't possibly be that naive.

????

Everybody knows that is how business works.

> If that were true we would still be buying from DEC or at the very
> least HP would still be pushing VMS.

????

If DEC has known that and provided the PC's, cheap
fast work stations etc. that customers wanted then
DEC would still exist.

Arne

On 4/26/2022 2:35 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 4/26/2022 1:21 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> On 2022-04-26, Dave Froble <davef@tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>>>> The evidence coming out of France is that VSI are indeed allowing the
>>>> customers to walk away rather than addressing the concerns of those
>>>> customers when it comes to the time-limited production licences.
>>>
>>> How many customers have walked away?  Can you name even one?
>>
>> David, have you read _anything_ that Gerard has posted ???
>
> Yes, I have.  Now address my question.  Can you name one VMS customer
> that intended to stay on VMS but then walked away because of the
> licensing?  Not someone complaining.  Someone who actually walked away.

Probably only a handful of people at VSI knows that number.

My best guess is that the number is very very small.

Why? Because if it was not then VSI would have changed
license policy!

Paying customers standing in the door and saying
that policy XYZ will mean they no longer will be a customer
carries a lot more weight than c.o.v. discussions.

Arne

On 4/26/2022 7:11 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 4/26/2022 4:29 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 4/26/22 15:12, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
>>> In article <t47lt0$1pi$1@dont-email.me>, Dave Froble
>>> <davef@tsoft-inc.com> writes:
>>>> What if a number of VMS customers, currently with support contracts,
>>>> just
>>>> declared "no, we won't accept that"?  Do you really think VSI would
>>>> let them
>>>> just walk?
>>>
>>> It depends on how many there are and whether they would really walk if
>>> VSI stood firm.
>>
>> The bad side of all this is I expect no one is going to publicly
>> state they are leaving because of this. I expect that options other
>> than VMS will be looked at and projects to move away from VMS will
>> be started.  The move will only become apparent when they fail to
>> renew their licenses and by then it will be much too late to fix it.
>
> I don't know any businessmen that are so passive.  Most will get in a
> vendor's face and let them know what they want.

If they want to stay on VMS then they would of course
tell VSI what they want to see for them to be able
to stay on VMS.

It would be crazy to keep what they want a secret. VSI
are not mind readers.

Arne

On 4/26/22 19:58, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 4/26/2022 7:11 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 4/26/2022 4:29 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>> On 4/26/22 15:12, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
>>>> In article <t47lt0$1pi$1@dont-email.me>, Dave Froble
>>>> <davef@tsoft-inc.com> writes:
>>>>> What if a number of VMS customers, currently with support
>>>>> contracts, just
>>>>> declared "no, we won't accept that"?  Do you really think VSI would
>>>>> let them
>>>>> just walk?
>>>>
>>>> It depends on how many there are and whether they would really walk if
>>>> VSI stood firm.
>>>
>>> The bad side of all this is I expect no one is going to publicly
>>> state they are leaving because of this. I expect that options other
>>> than VMS will be looked at and projects to move away from VMS will
>>> be started.  The move will only become apparent when they fail to
>>> renew their licenses and by then it will be much too late to fix it.
>>
>> I don't know any businessmen that are so passive.  Most will get in a
>> vendor's face and let them know what they want.
>
> If they want to stay on VMS then they would of course
> tell VSI what they want to see for them to be able
> to stay on VMS.
>
> It would be crazy to keep what they want a secret. VSI
> are not mind readers.

I assumed we were talking about businessmen like the various French
who appear to have been unable to get any acceptable information out
of VSI. I was merely pointing out that it was unlikely they would
then run around shouting "I'm leaving VMS" from the rooftops. They
would merely continue running while working on a replacement and would
then just become another ex-VMS user.

bill

On 4/26/22 19:46, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 4/26/2022 7:04 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 4/25/22 22:37, Dave Froble wrote:
>>> On 4/25/2022 1:20 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>> On 2022-04-22, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>>> On 4/22/2022 1:46 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I keep wondering if VSI has gone for a policy of short-term income at
>>>>>> the expense of damaging long-term income and I hope that isn't the
>>>>>> case.
>>>>>
>>>>> They have obviously intended the opposite: they want to convert
>>>>> short term one time revenue to long term recurring revenue.
>>>>>
>>>>> How it actually works out is to be seen.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The alternative viewpoint is that their short-term aggressive licence
>>>> policies could be scaring off VMS the customers who would have made up
>>>> their long-term income.
>>>
>>> What if a number of VMS customers, currently with support contracts,
>>> just declared "no, we won't accept that"?  Do you really think VSI
>>> would let them just walk?
>>
>> Are you saying that VSI would give some people a better deal while the
>> majority would be stuck with the original plan?  You don't think that
>> would drive them away?
>
> Business is business.
>
> Based on what VSI has actually said then it seems highly likely.
>
> Quote from Terry Holmes:
>
> <quote>
> Having said the above, we do recognize that there are specific
> situations that are so important to human health and wellness that even
> the idea of an expiring O/S license in a critical situation would not be
> the “Right Thing” to do.  Therefore, to those customers who may have
> specific situations (i.e. nuclear plants, military armaments, local
> infrastructure projects, other key government agencies that protect
> their citizens, etc….), we will grant an exception to this policy and
> allow VSI Perpetual licenses to be provided.
> </quote>

So you have First Class customers and you have Second Class customers.
If my vendor considered me a Second Class customer I would start looking
for a new vendor.

bill

On 4/26/2022 8:12 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 4/26/22 19:58, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 4/26/2022 7:11 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>>> On 4/26/2022 4:29 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>> On 4/26/22 15:12, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
>>>>> In article <t47lt0$1pi$1@dont-email.me>, Dave Froble
>>>>> <davef@tsoft-inc.com> writes:
>>>>>> What if a number of VMS customers, currently with support
>>>>>> contracts, just
>>>>>> declared "no, we won't accept that"?  Do you really think VSI
>>>>>> would let them
>>>>>> just walk?
>>>>>
>>>>> It depends on how many there are and whether they would really walk if
>>>>> VSI stood firm.
>>>>
>>>> The bad side of all this is I expect no one is going to publicly
>>>> state they are leaving because of this. I expect that options other
>>>> than VMS will be looked at and projects to move away from VMS will
>>>> be started.  The move will only become apparent when they fail to
>>>> renew their licenses and by then it will be much too late to fix it.
>>>
>>> I don't know any businessmen that are so passive.  Most will get in a
>>> vendor's face and let them know what they want.
>>
>> If they want to stay on VMS then they would of course
>> tell VSI what they want to see for them to be able
>> to stay on VMS.
>>
>> It would be crazy to keep what they want a secret. VSI
>> are not mind readers.
>
> I assumed we were talking about businessmen like the various French
> who appear to have been unable to get any acceptable information out
> of VSI.  I was merely pointing out that it was unlikely they would
> then run around shouting "I'm leaving VMS" from the rooftops.  They
> would merely continue running while working on a replacement and would
> then just become another ex-VMS user.

They will tell VSI.

But they will not tell the world. Companies very rarely
explains stuff like that to the public.

Arne

On 4/26/2022 8:16 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 4/26/22 19:46, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 4/26/2022 7:04 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>> On 4/25/22 22:37, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>> On 4/25/2022 1:20 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>> On 2022-04-22, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>>>> On 4/22/2022 1:46 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I keep wondering if VSI has gone for a policy of short-term
>>>>>>> income at
>>>>>>> the expense of damaging long-term income and I hope that isn't
>>>>>>> the case.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> They have obviously intended the opposite: they want to convert
>>>>>> short term one time revenue to long term recurring revenue.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> How it actually works out is to be seen.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The alternative viewpoint is that their short-term aggressive licence
>>>>> policies could be scaring off VMS the customers who would have made up
>>>>> their long-term income.
>>>>
>>>> What if a number of VMS customers, currently with support contracts,
>>>> just declared "no, we won't accept that"?  Do you really think VSI
>>>> would let them just walk?
>>>
>>> Are you saying that VSI would give some people a better deal while the
>>> majority would be stuck with the original plan?  You don't think that
>>> would drive them away?
>>
>> Business is business.
>>
>> Based on what VSI has actually said then it seems highly likely.
>>
>> Quote from Terry Holmes:
>>
>> <quote>
>> Having said the above, we do recognize that there are specific
>> situations that are so important to human health and wellness that
>> even the idea of an expiring O/S license in a critical situation would
>> not be the “Right Thing” to do.  Therefore, to those customers who may
>> have specific situations (i.e. nuclear plants, military armaments,
>> local infrastructure projects, other key government agencies that
>> protect their citizens, etc….), we will grant an exception to this
>> policy and allow VSI Perpetual licenses to be provided.
>> </quote>
>
> So you have First Class customers and you have Second Class customers.
> If my vendor considered me a Second Class customer I would start looking
> for a new vendor.

Business is business.

If you go to McDonalds regularly then McDonalds give you points
that you occasionally can use to get a free burger.

Cloud providers does not customize their offerings unless
someone like US DoD comes and talk about byuing for 10 B$
services.

The question is not *if* - the question is *how much*.

Arne

On 4/26/22 20:17, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 4/26/2022 8:12 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 4/26/22 19:58, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 4/26/2022 7:11 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>> On 4/26/2022 4:29 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>>> On 4/26/22 15:12, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
>>>>>> In article <t47lt0$1pi$1@dont-email.me>, Dave Froble
>>>>>> <davef@tsoft-inc.com> writes:
>>>>>>> What if a number of VMS customers, currently with support
>>>>>>> contracts, just
>>>>>>> declared "no, we won't accept that"?  Do you really think VSI
>>>>>>> would let them
>>>>>>> just walk?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It depends on how many there are and whether they would really
>>>>>> walk if
>>>>>> VSI stood firm.
>>>>>
>>>>> The bad side of all this is I expect no one is going to publicly
>>>>> state they are leaving because of this. I expect that options other
>>>>> than VMS will be looked at and projects to move away from VMS will
>>>>> be started.  The move will only become apparent when they fail to
>>>>> renew their licenses and by then it will be much too late to fix it.
>>>>
>>>> I don't know any businessmen that are so passive.  Most will get in
>>>> a vendor's face and let them know what they want.
>>>
>>> If they want to stay on VMS then they would of course
>>> tell VSI what they want to see for them to be able
>>> to stay on VMS.
>>>
>>> It would be crazy to keep what they want a secret. VSI
>>> are not mind readers.
>>
>> I assumed we were talking about businessmen like the various French
>> who appear to have been unable to get any acceptable information out
>> of VSI.  I was merely pointing out that it was unlikely they would
>> then run around shouting "I'm leaving VMS" from the rooftops.  They
>> would merely continue running while working on a replacement and would
>> then just become another ex-VMS user.
>
> They will tell VSI.
>
> But they will not tell the world. Companies very rarely
> explains stuff like that to the public.
>

Why tell VSI? Once the decision has been made and money, time
and effort invested in the move what would they expect to gain?

bill

On 4/26/2022 8:30 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 4/26/22 20:17, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 4/26/2022 8:12 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>> On 4/26/22 19:58, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>> On 4/26/2022 7:11 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>>> On 4/26/2022 4:29 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>>>> On 4/26/22 15:12, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
>>>>>>> In article <t47lt0$1pi$1@dont-email.me>, Dave Froble
>>>>>>> <davef@tsoft-inc.com> writes:
>>>>>>>> What if a number of VMS customers, currently with support
>>>>>>>> contracts, just
>>>>>>>> declared "no, we won't accept that"?  Do you really think VSI
>>>>>>>> would let them
>>>>>>>> just walk?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It depends on how many there are and whether they would really
>>>>>>> walk if
>>>>>>> VSI stood firm.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The bad side of all this is I expect no one is going to publicly
>>>>>> state they are leaving because of this. I expect that options other
>>>>>> than VMS will be looked at and projects to move away from VMS will
>>>>>> be started.  The move will only become apparent when they fail to
>>>>>> renew their licenses and by then it will be much too late to fix it.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't know any businessmen that are so passive.  Most will get in
>>>>> a vendor's face and let them know what they want.
>>>>
>>>> If they want to stay on VMS then they would of course
>>>> tell VSI what they want to see for them to be able
>>>> to stay on VMS.
>>>>
>>>> It would be crazy to keep what they want a secret. VSI
>>>> are not mind readers.
>>>
>>> I assumed we were talking about businessmen like the various French
>>> who appear to have been unable to get any acceptable information out
>>> of VSI.  I was merely pointing out that it was unlikely they would
>>> then run around shouting "I'm leaving VMS" from the rooftops.  They
>>> would merely continue running while working on a replacement and would
>>> then just become another ex-VMS user.
>>
>> They will tell VSI.
>>
>> But they will not tell the world. Companies very rarely
>> explains stuff like that to the public.
>
> Why tell VSI?  Once the decision has been made and money, time
> and effort invested in the move what would they expect to gain?

They would tell VSI before the decision is made to see
if VSI will change their mind.

Arne

On 4/26/2022 3:11 PM, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
> In article <3a643f5c-5df8-4743-b466-a5ae1599aa38n@googlegroups.com>,
> David Goodwin <dgsoftnz@gmail.com> writes:
>> But I don't see that happening. Too risky, too hard. And I suspect many
>> OpenVMS users would rather see the platform go extinct than be
>> open-sourced.
>
> If VMS were open source, it wouldn't work. Many point out the
> differences between VMS and other operating systems. One of them is
> that if open source works for some, it doesn't necessarily work for all.

OpenVMS users are not against closed source (for obvious reasons).

But very few OpenVMS users are against open source. They already
use lots of open source on VMS and on other platforms. Being
anti open source is so 1990'ish.

Arne

On 4/26/2022 5:48 PM, David Goodwin wrote:
> Perpetual licenses only solve the problem in the short term. Regardless of what
> VSI does the customers they have today will over time leave (out of business,
> whatever OpenVMS was doing is no longer needed, etc). VSI needs to win new
> customers to replace those that leave. Perpetual licenses alone won't encourage
> *anyone* to switch from Linux.
>
> Closed source with perpetual licenses guarantees that one day it will no longer
> be possible to buy new licenses. It guarantees that one day security updates
> will no longer be available. It guarantees that one day when those hidden
> security vulnerabilities are discovered no one will be legally allowed to fix them.

There is no guarantee that closed source will go EOL. It seems
likely that at some point in time customers will want
something newer and the product be dropped due to lack of demand.
But in theory a closed source product could continue indefinitely.

And it is not really that different for open source. It could
continue indefinitely. But most likely at some point in time
users will want something newer and the open source project
dies from lack of business backing and lack of volunteer
interest.

Arne

On 4/22/2022 3:31 PM, John Dallman wrote:
> In article <t3uplg$9o9$2@dont-email.me>,
> clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP (Simon Clubley) wrote:
>> I keep wondering if VSI has gone for a policy of short-term income
>> at the expense of damaging long-term income and I hope that isn't
>> the case.
>
> I suspect they need to become profitable fairly quickly, or risk their
> backers pulling the plug.

Based on available info they are profitable already.

>> VSI appears to be relying on the remaining VMS user base being a
>> captive userbase that can't easily move away, but that only works
>> if being a captive user doesn't become too painful or too risky
>> for the user.
>
> They are not in a position to grow the user base quickly, are they?

The natural order of events for VSI must be:
1) get VMS x86-64 completed
2) get existing customers migrated to VMS x86-64
3) modernize VMS
4) get new customers

> Thinking about that, it would seem to require some new kind of
> application software that works uniquely well on VMS, presumably because
> of some VMS feature that is hard to port to Linux or Windows. The current
> VMS user community doesn't seem likely to invent such a thing, nor do VSI
> staff, because they're all very experienced with the current ways of
> doing things.

Not so sure.

Today unique features important enough to drive application
migration are rare in the OS world.

And most don't even want their new applications to be
OS specific.

Arne

On 4/25/2022 10:06 PM, David Goodwin wrote:
> As long as OpenVMS is as proprietary and closed source as it is I don't see
> younger people paying much attention to it.

Insisting on using open source is mostly for people
in their 40's and 50's.

Young people don't care.

Fashion has changed. And besides much open source are now
dominated by big software companies.

> Its just not worth investing effort
> into something that could be taken away at any time.

Young people does typical not look long term.

For those that does look long term then closed source vs open source
is not the most important factor. It is about expected future and that
is not determined by open/closed source status.

> Most open-source
> projects are also going to have no interest in maintaining any level of support
> for some obscure proprietary operating system too so maintaining ports is
> going to be all on VSI.

It is all about trust in the future.

Open source does not have a problem supporting Windows despite it
being closed source. Nobody expect it to go away.

> Of course it doesn't have to be this way - Sun has proven that. OpenSolaris
> is still being actively maintained and enhanced under the name Illumos.
> There are a variety of Illumos distributions to choose from, Joyent use Illumos
> as the basis for their cloud platform (SmartOS), and there is some NAS
> product that uses it too. Meanwhile the closed-source variant of Solaris
> will probably disappear when support for 11.4 ends in 2034.

The Solaris path does not look attractive to me.

> This is probably the only realistic path forward for OpenVMS that doesn't see
> it managed into extinction.

Both Windows and commercial Linux seems to do fine. VMS could as well.

> If it were open-sourced then the rest of the industry
> might pay it some attention, perhaps a community might form and pick up
> some of the maintenance and porting burden. It might get used in some new
> products and solutions.

VMS users are infamous for their lack of enthusiasm when it comes to
actually do something.

:-(

And even outside the VMS world recent years has shown huge problems
with getting open source maintained.

Arne

On 4/26/22 20:39, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 4/26/2022 8:30 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 4/26/22 20:17, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 4/26/2022 8:12 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>> On 4/26/22 19:58, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>>> On 4/26/2022 7:11 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>>>> On 4/26/2022 4:29 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>>>>> On 4/26/22 15:12, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
>>>>>>>> In article <t47lt0$1pi$1@dont-email.me>, Dave Froble
>>>>>>>> <davef@tsoft-inc.com> writes:
>>>>>>>>> What if a number of VMS customers, currently with support
>>>>>>>>> contracts, just
>>>>>>>>> declared "no, we won't accept that"?  Do you really think VSI
>>>>>>>>> would let them
>>>>>>>>> just walk?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It depends on how many there are and whether they would really
>>>>>>>> walk if
>>>>>>>> VSI stood firm.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The bad side of all this is I expect no one is going to publicly
>>>>>>> state they are leaving because of this. I expect that options other
>>>>>>> than VMS will be looked at and projects to move away from VMS will
>>>>>>> be started.  The move will only become apparent when they fail to
>>>>>>> renew their licenses and by then it will be much too late to fix it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't know any businessmen that are so passive.  Most will get
>>>>>> in a vendor's face and let them know what they want.
>>>>>
>>>>> If they want to stay on VMS then they would of course
>>>>> tell VSI what they want to see for them to be able
>>>>> to stay on VMS.
>>>>>
>>>>> It would be crazy to keep what they want a secret. VSI
>>>>> are not mind readers.
>>>>
>>>> I assumed we were talking about businessmen like the various French
>>>> who appear to have been unable to get any acceptable information out
>>>> of VSI.  I was merely pointing out that it was unlikely they would
>>>> then run around shouting "I'm leaving VMS" from the rooftops.  They
>>>> would merely continue running while working on a replacement and would
>>>> then just become another ex-VMS user.
>>>
>>> They will tell VSI.
>>>
>>> But they will not tell the world. Companies very rarely
>>> explains stuff like that to the public.
>>
>> Why tell VSI?  Once the decision has been made and money, time
>> and effort invested in the move what would they expect to gain?
>
> They would tell VSI before the decision is made to see
> if VSI will change their mind.
>

And now your back to the original point. People apparently have
told VSI ans VSI apparently said "We will consider it for customers
we consider special. For the rest, no." At that point if a
customer decides to move off of VMS there is no reason to tell VSI
anything.

I used to be a DISH customer. Service got bad. I complained. They
opted to do nothing but offer the service to others at a cheaper rate
than they were charging me. I let the service run out and moved to
DirecTV. I didn't tell DISH I was leaving. They found out when I
didn't renew the contract. I guess that can be another kind of sticker
shock. Only in the negative direction. :-)

bill

On 4/26/2022 9:13 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 4/26/2022 3:11 PM, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
>> In article <3a643f5c-5df8-4743-b466-a5ae1599aa38n@googlegroups.com>,
>> David Goodwin <dgsoftnz@gmail.com> writes:
>>> But I don't see that happening. Too risky, too hard. And I suspect many
>>> OpenVMS users would rather see the platform go extinct than be
>>> open-sourced.
>>
>> If VMS were open source, it wouldn't work. Many point out the
>> differences between VMS and other operating systems. One of them is
>> that if open source works for some, it doesn't necessarily work for all.
>
> OpenVMS users are not against closed source (for obvious reasons).
>
> But very few OpenVMS users are against open source. They already
> use lots of open source on VMS and on other platforms. Being
> anti open source is so 1990'ish.
>
> Arne
>

I don't see where this "anti-open source" comes from. Doesn't make any sense.

Even if VMS was open source, VSI would still have their copy of it, and they
would use and support that copy. If someone else wanted to do otherwise, fine,
who cares, but VSI would most likely not support anything they didn't control.
For that matter, who would do such a stupid thing?

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

On 4/26/2022 8:16 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 4/26/22 19:46, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 4/26/2022 7:04 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>> On 4/25/22 22:37, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>> On 4/25/2022 1:20 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>> On 2022-04-22, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>>>> On 4/22/2022 1:46 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I keep wondering if VSI has gone for a policy of short-term income at
>>>>>>> the expense of damaging long-term income and I hope that isn't the case.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> They have obviously intended the opposite: they want to convert
>>>>>> short term one time revenue to long term recurring revenue.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> How it actually works out is to be seen.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The alternative viewpoint is that their short-term aggressive licence
>>>>> policies could be scaring off VMS the customers who would have made up
>>>>> their long-term income.
>>>>
>>>> What if a number of VMS customers, currently with support contracts, just
>>>> declared "no, we won't accept that"? Do you really think VSI would let them
>>>> just walk?
>>>
>>> Are you saying that VSI would give some people a better deal while the
>>> majority would be stuck with the original plan? You don't think that
>>> would drive them away?
>>
>> Business is business.
>>
>> Based on what VSI has actually said then it seems highly likely.
>>
>> Quote from Terry Holmes:
>>
>> <quote>
>> Having said the above, we do recognize that there are specific situations that
>> are so important to human health and wellness that even the idea of an
>> expiring O/S license in a critical situation would not be the “Right Thing” to
>> do. Therefore, to those customers who may have specific situations (i.e.
>> nuclear plants, military armaments, local infrastructure projects, other key
>> government agencies that protect their citizens, etc….), we will grant an
>> exception to this policy and allow VSI Perpetual licenses to be provided.
>> </quote>
>
> So you have First Class customers and you have Second Class customers.
> If my vendor considered me a Second Class customer I would start looking
> for a new vendor.

Or by telling the vendor they had better treat me as first class, or better,
cause the highway is a calling.

I do find it interesting that the worst doomsayers are those without any
relationship with VSI. Any current customers with VSI support out there have
much to say about the issue?

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

On 4/26/2022 10:22 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 4/26/22 20:39, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 4/26/2022 8:30 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>> On 4/26/22 20:17, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>> On 4/26/2022 8:12 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>>> On 4/26/22 19:58, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>>>> On 4/26/2022 7:11 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>>>>> On 4/26/2022 4:29 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 4/26/22 15:12, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
>>>>>>>>> In article <t47lt0$1pi$1@dont-email.me>, Dave Froble
>>>>>>>>> <davef@tsoft-inc.com> writes:
>>>>>>>>>> What if a number of VMS customers, currently with support contracts, just
>>>>>>>>>> declared "no, we won't accept that"? Do you really think VSI would
>>>>>>>>>> let them
>>>>>>>>>> just walk?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It depends on how many there are and whether they would really walk if
>>>>>>>>> VSI stood firm.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The bad side of all this is I expect no one is going to publicly
>>>>>>>> state they are leaving because of this. I expect that options other
>>>>>>>> than VMS will be looked at and projects to move away from VMS will
>>>>>>>> be started. The move will only become apparent when they fail to
>>>>>>>> renew their licenses and by then it will be much too late to fix it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I don't know any businessmen that are so passive. Most will get in a
>>>>>>> vendor's face and let them know what they want.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If they want to stay on VMS then they would of course
>>>>>> tell VSI what they want to see for them to be able
>>>>>> to stay on VMS.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It would be crazy to keep what they want a secret. VSI
>>>>>> are not mind readers.
>>>>>
>>>>> I assumed we were talking about businessmen like the various French
>>>>> who appear to have been unable to get any acceptable information out
>>>>> of VSI. I was merely pointing out that it was unlikely they would
>>>>> then run around shouting "I'm leaving VMS" from the rooftops. They
>>>>> would merely continue running while working on a replacement and would
>>>>> then just become another ex-VMS user.
>>>>
>>>> They will tell VSI.
>>>>
>>>> But they will not tell the world. Companies very rarely
>>>> explains stuff like that to the public.
>>>
>>> Why tell VSI? Once the decision has been made and money, time
>>> and effort invested in the move what would they expect to gain?
>>
>> They would tell VSI before the decision is made to see
>> if VSI will change their mind.
>>
>
> And now your back to the original point. People apparently have
> told VSI ans VSI apparently said "We will consider it for customers
> we consider special. For the rest, no." At that point if a
> customer decides to move off of VMS there is no reason to tell VSI anything.
>
> I used to be a DISH customer. Service got bad. I complained. They
> opted to do nothing but offer the service to others at a cheaper rate
> than they were charging me. I let the service run out and moved to
> DirecTV. I didn't tell DISH I was leaving. They found out when I
> didn't renew the contract. I guess that can be another kind of sticker
> shock. Only in the negative direction. :-)

Interesting. My daughter has done rather well getting both DirecTV and Dish to
offer more, reduce rates, and such when she finds them making those special
offers. Part of that is the willingness to mention the competitor and switch if
necessary. Usually she gets what she wants.

Playing the devil's advocate role again Bill? Have fun.

As for the French, I'm still not sure just what they asked for, and I've not
seen any details that I understand in Gilbert's posts. Do you know what they
asked VSI for"

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

Den 2022-04-27 kl. 01:14, skrev Dave Froble:
> On 4/26/2022 5:57 PM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>> Den 2022-04-26 kl. 20:11, skrev Dave Froble:
>>> On 4/26/2022 1:09 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>> On 2022-04-26, Dave Froble <davef@tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>>>>> On 4/26/2022 8:09 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>>> On 2022-04-26, gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>>>>>>> On Tuesday, April 26, 2022 at 1:28:10 AM UTC-7, John Dallman wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> (snip)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> As an additional logistical point, open-sourcing VMS while building it
>>>>>>>> requires using out-of-production Itanium servers would be suicidal: it
>>>>>>>> has to be sustainable on commodity hardware first.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> DEC nicely released the 36 bit OS for us to use, though with only
>>>>>>> (from them) out of production hardware.   I am not so sure when
>>>>>>> emulators came out, but it would not have been hard to write one
>>>>>>> by then.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I suspect VAX is nicer to write an emulator for than Alpha or Itanium,
>>>>>>> but all are possible to keep VMS running on new hardware.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There are full system emulators for all architectures I am aware of
>>>>>> apart from Itanium, which should tell you something. I once spent a
>>>>>> weekend looking at the possibility of writing one, and came to the
>>>>>> conclusion of basically "forget that!".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Even with the initial help from Ski for the instruction set component,
>>>>>> writing an Itanium emulator would be a massive job and not all the
>>>>>> required bits and knowledge are freely available.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For example, you can no longer freely download the Itanium firmware
>>>>>> that such an emulator would require.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Simon.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> If emulators for building VMS is the issue, Alpha emulators already
>>>>> exist.
>>>>> Don't need no stinkin itanic.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Read the original quote above. Itanium is currently used for things
>>>> that Alpha cannot be used for.
>>>
>>> I don't see anything like that?
>>>
>>> What can itanic do that Alpha cannot?  It's a shared code base.
>>
>> You can lookup he SPD's or similar. There are a lot of tools
>> that are available on IA64 but not on Alpha.
>>
>
> You don't seem to be missing them ...
>
> :-)
>

Why do you think that? And why do you think that our needs
are the same as for everyone else?

In article <t4aeqg$vk1$1@dont-email.me>, Dave Froble
<davef@tsoft-inc.com> writes:

> I do find it interesting that the worst doomsayers are those without any
> relationship with VSI. Any current customers with VSI support out there have
> much to say about the issue?

There is an obvious selection effect here: those who are fine with the
license policy are fine being VSI customers. Those who aren't, aren't.

On 4/27/2022 3:09 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2022-04-27 kl. 01:14, skrev Dave Froble:
>> On 4/26/2022 5:57 PM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>>> Den 2022-04-26 kl. 20:11, skrev Dave Froble:
>>>> On 4/26/2022 1:09 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>> On 2022-04-26, Dave Froble <davef@tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>>>>>> On 4/26/2022 8:09 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>>>> On 2022-04-26, gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Tuesday, April 26, 2022 at 1:28:10 AM UTC-7, John Dallman wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> (snip)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> As an additional logistical point, open-sourcing VMS while building it
>>>>>>>>> requires using out-of-production Itanium servers would be suicidal: it
>>>>>>>>> has to be sustainable on commodity hardware first.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> DEC nicely released the 36 bit OS for us to use, though with only
>>>>>>>> (from them) out of production hardware. I am not so sure when
>>>>>>>> emulators came out, but it would not have been hard to write one
>>>>>>>> by then.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I suspect VAX is nicer to write an emulator for than Alpha or Itanium,
>>>>>>>> but all are possible to keep VMS running on new hardware.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> There are full system emulators for all architectures I am aware of
>>>>>>> apart from Itanium, which should tell you something. I once spent a
>>>>>>> weekend looking at the possibility of writing one, and came to the
>>>>>>> conclusion of basically "forget that!".
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Even with the initial help from Ski for the instruction set component,
>>>>>>> writing an Itanium emulator would be a massive job and not all the
>>>>>>> required bits and knowledge are freely available.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> For example, you can no longer freely download the Itanium firmware
>>>>>>> that such an emulator would require.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Simon.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If emulators for building VMS is the issue, Alpha emulators already exist.
>>>>>> Don't need no stinkin itanic.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Read the original quote above. Itanium is currently used for things
>>>>> that Alpha cannot be used for.
>>>>
>>>> I don't see anything like that?
>>>>
>>>> What can itanic do that Alpha cannot? It's a shared code base.
>>>
>>> You can lookup he SPD's or similar. There are a lot of tools
>>> that are available on IA64 but not on Alpha.
>>>
>>
>> You don't seem to be missing them ...
>>
>> :-)
>>
>
> Why do you think that? And why do you think that our needs
> are the same as for everyone else?

You have mentioned multiple times that your customer has 3 DS20E systems.

Of course, you may also have access to an itanic ...

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

In article <f83619d5-0856-458a-a044-945dbb203e11n@googlegroups.com>,
dgsoftnz@gmail.com (David Goodwin) wrote:

> Possibly Illumos would be more widely used if Oracle had chosen
> OpenSolaris as the path forward rather than trying to make it
> proprietary again.

From what I know about Oracle, that was never in prospect. Their reason
for buying Sun was to be able to optimise the SPARC hardware and Solaris
to improve Oracle DB performance and get a more compelling offering than
Oracle DB on other vendors' hardware. It turned out that all the easy
optimisation had been done already, and developing new generations of
SPARC hardware would be expensive.

They never showed any interest in Solaris on x86-64, although taking that
up would have allowed developing optimised machines for Oracle DB at far
lower cost than new SPARC processors.

> But the other challenge to OpenSolaris being popular is that it is
> close enough to Linux that its probably hard to justify choosing it
> over the more popular alternative.

I think that's the main factor.

It also lacks the large number of companies and people that have adopted
Linux and have vested interests in its success. There may not be room for
lots of successful open-source operating systems.

> This one I imagine is pretty easy to deal with at this point. HPE
> has no further use for OpenVMS - its only remaining value is in
> whatever fees they're collecting from VSI.

It has another importance in the strange world that corporate board
members live in. While they're getting money from VSI, they can make a
case that they're exploiting the OpenVMS intellectual property. If they
open-source it, a case can be made by shareholders *and their lawyers*
that they're discarding an asset.

Remember, when Sun decided to open-source Solaris, they were under the
impression that it would make the Solaris business more profitable /for
them/. Their grounds for this have never been clear and it didn't work
out for them at all. HPE aren't going to follow that example.

> They'd probably be willing to accept accept a lump sum to transfer the
> copyrights and walk away.

Yes, but it would be quite a large lump sum.

> But managed decline is probably a safer bet than paying a pile of
> money to open-source it. They'll make some amount of money for a
> decade or two. Then they'll end maintenance and support but perhaps
> continue to renew licenses for a while longer until the number of
> remaining customers isn't worth it then they'll abandon OpenVMS
> and the platform will go extinct.

Quite probably.

John

On 4/27/2022 12:00 PM, John Dallman wrote:
> In article <f83619d5-0856-458a-a044-945dbb203e11n@googlegroups.com>,
> dgsoftnz@gmail.com (David Goodwin) wrote:

>> This one I imagine is pretty easy to deal with at this point. HPE
>> has no further use for OpenVMS - its only remaining value is in
>> whatever fees they're collecting from VSI.
>
> It has another importance in the strange world that corporate board
> members live in. While they're getting money from VSI, they can make a
> case that they're exploiting the OpenVMS intellectual property. If they
> open-source it, a case can be made by shareholders *and their lawyers*
> that they're discarding an asset.

What knowledge or evidence do you have that HPe is still getting any money from VSI?

I've never heard of any such payments, but then again, perhaps such would not be
common knowledge.

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

On 4/27/2022 1:16 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 4/27/2022 12:00 PM, John Dallman wrote:
>> In article <f83619d5-0856-458a-a044-945dbb203e11n@googlegroups.com>,
>> dgsoftnz@gmail.com (David Goodwin) wrote:
>>> This one I imagine is pretty easy to deal with at this point. HPE
>>> has no further use for OpenVMS - its only remaining value is in
>>> whatever fees they're collecting from VSI.
>>
>> It has another importance in the strange world that corporate board
>> members live in. While they're getting money from VSI, they can make a
>> case that they're exploiting the OpenVMS intellectual property. If they
>> open-source it, a case can be made by shareholders *and their lawyers*
>> that they're discarding an asset.
>
> What knowledge or evidence do you have that HPe is still getting any
> money from VSI?
>
> I've never heard of any such payments, but then again, perhaps such
> would not be common knowledge.

It seems likely that VSI has paid something, but whether it was
a one time lump sum or an annual amount or a percentage of license
revenue or the symbolic 1 dollar or something else has as far
as I know not been public disclosed.

Note that the main driver for the spinoff was probably not the
money. Whatever VSI paid must have been peanuts in the HPE
world. HPE wanted out of the VMS business, but they wanted
to get out without reputational damage and lawsuits for not
meeting obligations. Having VSI take over VMS allowed HPE
to do a graceful exit.

Arne

On 4/27/2022 1:34 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 4/27/2022 1:16 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 4/27/2022 12:00 PM, John Dallman wrote:
>>> In article <f83619d5-0856-458a-a044-945dbb203e11n@googlegroups.com>,
>>> dgsoftnz@gmail.com (David Goodwin) wrote:
>>>> This one I imagine is pretty easy to deal with at this point. HPE
>>>> has no further use for OpenVMS - its only remaining value is in
>>>> whatever fees they're collecting from VSI.
>>>
>>> It has another importance in the strange world that corporate board
>>> members live in. While they're getting money from VSI, they can make a
>>> case that they're exploiting the OpenVMS intellectual property. If they
>>> open-source it, a case can be made by shareholders *and their lawyers*
>>> that they're discarding an asset.
>>
>> What knowledge or evidence do you have that HPe is still getting any money
>> from VSI?
>>
>> I've never heard of any such payments, but then again, perhaps such would not
>> be common knowledge.
>
> It seems likely that VSI has paid something, but whether it was
> a one time lump sum or an annual amount or a percentage of license
> revenue or the symbolic 1 dollar or something else has as far
> as I know not been public disclosed.

Correct, so where do all these claims such as that above come from?

> Note that the main driver for the spinoff was probably not the
> money. Whatever VSI paid must have been peanuts in the HPE
> world. HPE wanted out of the VMS business, but they wanted
> to get out without reputational damage and lawsuits for not
> meeting obligations. Having VSI take over VMS allowed HPE
> to do a graceful exit.

One could speculate that HPe paid VSI to take VMS off their hands. Not that I
think such happened, but speculation is so wide open, and so few facts.

Also note that HPe sold support that VSI provided for a while.

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

I asked about OpenVMS for VAX license.

VSI doesn't work with VAX.
I'd like to use SIMH VAX program with OpenVMS.
Learning or testing. Without real VAX hardware ...

So there isn't any solution?
It sounds bad! :-(