This place is completely and totally dead, even compared to the reduced
activity of 3-4 years ago.

Where is everyone ?

Has everyone finally been forced to leave VMS behind after each "porting
complete" target date came and went ?

I am also aware that during the 8.5 years the port has been going on,
many VMS systems may have aged-out naturally as part of the normal
application development and replacement lifecycle.

So what happened ? Where is everyone ?

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

On 2023-03-10, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:

> This place is completely and totally dead, even compared to the
> reduced activity of 3-4 years ago.

510 messages in the last month alone would seem to indicate otherwise,
given the general state of usenet in this day and age.

Cheers,
Tom

On 3/10/2023 8:09 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> This place is completely and totally dead, even compared to the reduced
> activity of 3-4 years ago.

That is not my impression.

My impression is something like:

old days (before 2005) : average 25-50 posts per day, almost 100% on VMS

recent (after 2005) : average 5-10 post per day, 20% on VMS and 80% of
what DEC should have done 30 years ago and what VSI should do tomorrow.

I do not see a major drop the last 3 years.

I guess one could do an actual count using an archive.

https://narkive.net/stats/ng/55984.h.png

should supposedly be posting level to comp.os.vms for the last 20 years.

Not a good graph, but it looks to me like it fell some in the beginning,
but have been reasonable stable the last decade.

> Where is everyone ?
>
> Has everyone finally been forced to leave VMS behind after each "porting
> complete" target date came and went ?
>
> I am also aware that during the 8.5 years the port has been going on,
> many VMS systems may have aged-out naturally as part of the normal
> application development and replacement lifecycle.
>
> So what happened ? Where is everyone ?

The number of VMS systems has decrease dramatically the last
30 years (probably by 80-90%).

The number of VMS people has decreased even more the
last 30 years (probably by 90-95%).

The preferred forum for technical Q&A has to large extent
switched from usenet to various web forums (for VMS places
like forum.vmssoftware.com and SO).

Many of the old people are retired and do no longer
have an interest in VMS.

Many of the mid aged people are no longer working on
VMS but on Linux or Windows at work so no longer have
an interest in VMS.

Most of the (very few) younger people with an interest
in VMS go to the web forums instead if usenet, because
that is what they know.

Arne

Den 2023-03-10 kl. 14:09, skrev Simon Clubley:
> This place is completely and totally dead, even compared to the reduced
> activity of 3-4 years ago.
>
> Where is everyone ?
>
> Has everyone finally been forced to leave VMS behind after each "porting
> complete" target date came and went ?
>
> I am also aware that during the 8.5 years the port has been going on,
> many VMS systems may have aged-out naturally as part of the normal
> application development and replacement lifecycle.
>
> So what happened ? Where is everyone ?
>
> Simon.
>

I agree with Arne.
It is Usenet that is dead, not VMS.

Most VMS professionals that I know of would not even think of
posting or following anything *here*...

And that is a good thing (that users are moving away from Usenet
to more modern forum platforms). It helps drag VMS out of the view
that VMS is old and that it's users are also old and tired...

On 10/03/2023 16:39, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2023-03-10 kl. 14:09, skrev Simon Clubley:
>> This place is completely and totally dead, even compared to the reduced
>> activity of 3-4 years ago.
>>
>> Where is everyone ?
>>
>> Has everyone finally been forced to leave VMS behind after each "porting
>> complete" target date came and went ?
>>
>> I am also aware that during the 8.5 years the port has been going on,
>> many VMS systems may have aged-out naturally as part of the normal
>> application development and replacement lifecycle.
>>
>> So what happened ? Where is everyone ?
>>
>> Simon.
>>
>
> I agree with Arne.
> It is Usenet that is dead, not VMS.
>
> Most VMS professionals that I know of would not even think of
> posting or following anything *here*...
>
> And that is a good thing (that users are moving away from Usenet
> to more modern forum platforms). It helps drag VMS out of the view
> that VMS is old and that it's users are also old and tired...

But where are there any forums?

Openvmshobbyist is moribund
VSI forum seems just VSI stuff, especially X86. Usually people are
pointed here!

--
Chris

On 3/10/2023 11:39 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> It is Usenet that is dead, not VMS.
>
> Most VMS professionals that I know of would not even think of
> posting or following anything *here*...
>
> And that is a good thing (that users are moving away from Usenet
> to more modern forum platforms). It helps drag VMS out of the view
> that VMS is old and that it's users are also old and tired...

I must admit that I am old-fashioned enough to actually
like usenet.

That does not change the fact that the below 50 crowd rarely
use usenet.

Arne

On 3/10/2023 3:25 PM, Chris Townley wrote:
> On 10/03/2023 16:39, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>> And that is a good thing (that users are moving away from Usenet
>> to more modern forum platforms). It helps drag VMS out of the view
>> that VMS is old and that it's users are also old and tired...
>
> But where are there any forums?
>
> Openvmshobbyist is moribund
> VSI forum seems just VSI stuff, especially X86. Usually people are
> pointed here!

I see general VMS programming "how do I" questions there:
Basic, Cobol, Pascal etc..

There are of course also the "why does C on VMS x86-64 behave
different than C on VMS Itanium" question for VSI.

Not high volume. But some questions and answers.

Arne

On 3/10/2023 4:03 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 3/10/2023 11:39 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>> It is Usenet that is dead, not VMS.
>>
>> Most VMS professionals that I know of would not even think of
>> posting or following anything *here*...
>>
>> And that is a good thing (that users are moving away from Usenet
>> to more modern forum platforms). It helps drag VMS out of the view
>> that VMS is old and that it's users are also old and tired...
>
> I must admit that I am old-fashioned enough to actually
> like usenet.
>
> That does not change the fact that the below 50 crowd rarely
> use usenet.

Sadly, I expect the below 50 crowd don't use VMS much either.

bill

On 3/10/2023 6:24 PM, bill wrote:
> On 3/10/2023 4:03 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 3/10/2023 11:39 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>>> It is Usenet that is dead, not VMS.
>>>
>>> Most VMS professionals that I know of would not even think of
>>> posting or following anything *here*...
>>>
>>> And that is a good thing (that users are moving away from Usenet
>>> to more modern forum platforms). It helps drag VMS out of the view
>>> that VMS is old and that it's users are also old and tired...
>>
>> I must admit that I am old-fashioned enough to actually
>> like usenet.
>>
>> That does not change the fact that the below 50 crowd rarely
>> use usenet.
>
> Sadly, I expect the below 50 crowd don't use VMS much either.

That is undoubtedly a small group.

But I believe that it sometimes happen. If the VMS system(s)
is still running when the old VMS person retire, then
someone new get assigned to take care of it.

Arne

On Friday, March 10, 2023 at 8:10:02 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
> This place is completely and totally dead, even compared to the reduced
> activity of 3-4 years ago.
>
> Where is everyone ?
>
> Has everyone finally been forced to leave VMS behind after each "porting
> complete" target date came and went ?
>
> I am also aware that during the 8.5 years the port has been going on,
> many VMS systems may have aged-out naturally as part of the normal
> application development and replacement lifecycle.
>
> So what happened ? Where is everyone ?
>
> Simon.
>
> --
> Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
> Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

Answering your question, the answer is "no, it is not too late for VMS/OpenVMS on x86" although we all wished it could have happened sooner. That said, a better answer would be "it's complicated". Why?

A lot has happened since:
(1) HP signed the deal with VSI to continue development and support of VMS-OpenVMS (although HP/HPE supported it for at least 5 more years)
(2) HP split into HP and HPE
(3) HPE spun off (spin-merger) its software division with Microfocus. This resulted in HPE transitioning into a (mostly) hardware company
(4) IBM paid $34 billion to acquire Red Hat
(5) Microfocus was acquired by OpenText in 2023. [[[ so is HPE totally out of the software business? ]]]

Lots of people ignore item 4 but forget that IBM and DEC used to compete with each other, head-to-head, while manufacturing their own hardware and publishing their own software, which included operating systems. IBM continued to manufacture new CPU architectures (POWER8-9-10-11) and was paying Red Hat to make sure Linux ran on them. Intel was supporting Linux on Itanium until AMD changed the game by adding 64-bit support to x86 which forced Intel do do the same. After this event, Intel lost interest in Itanium leaving HP to continuing support on Linux. You can still see HP email addresses in the Linux kernel archives. This effort by HP employees seemed to stop in 2005. I can only assume this was a business decision by HP management.

So while HP/HPE was getting out of the software business, IBM never followed.

Meanwhile, while HP/HPE was walking away from software, their user community here remained steadfast.

Neil Rieck
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
https://neilrieck.net/OpenVMS.html

On 2023-03-10, bill <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/10/2023 4:03 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 3/10/2023 11:39 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>>> It is Usenet that is dead, not VMS.
>>>
>>> Most VMS professionals that I know of would not even think of
>>> posting or following anything *here*...
>>>
>>> And that is a good thing (that users are moving away from Usenet
>>> to more modern forum platforms). It helps drag VMS out of the view
>>> that VMS is old and that it's users are also old and tired...
>>
>> I must admit that I am old-fashioned enough to actually
>> like usenet.
>>
>> That does not change the fact that the below 50 crowd rarely
>> use usenet.
>
> Sadly, I expect the below 50 crowd don't use VMS much either.
>

And it turns out that the under 25 crowd don't give a damn about security,
only convenience. Let's see how long it takes for them to learn that lesson
the hard way. Just hope too many people don't get hurt while they are
learning this lesson:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64827885

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

On 3/13/2023 9:09 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-03-10, bill <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 3/10/2023 4:03 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 3/10/2023 11:39 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>>>> It is Usenet that is dead, not VMS.
>>>>
>>>> Most VMS professionals that I know of would not even think of
>>>> posting or following anything *here*...
>>>>
>>>> And that is a good thing (that users are moving away from Usenet
>>>> to more modern forum platforms). It helps drag VMS out of the view
>>>> that VMS is old and that it's users are also old and tired...
>>>
>>> I must admit that I am old-fashioned enough to actually
>>> like usenet.
>>>
>>> That does not change the fact that the below 50 crowd rarely
>>> use usenet.
>>
>> Sadly, I expect the below 50 crowd don't use VMS much either.
>
> And it turns out that the under 25 crowd don't give a damn about security,
> only convenience. Let's see how long it takes for them to learn that lesson
> the hard way. Just hope too many people don't get hurt while they are
> learning this lesson:
>
> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64827885

I don't think it is security per se that they are
unaware of - I believe it is more general than that.

There has been written about it in the press in recent months:
despite the hype about the young generations having
grown up with computers, smartphones and internet
then they are actually not tech savy.

Example:

https://www.worklife.news/technology/myth-buster-young-workers-are-not-tech-savvy-in-the-workplace-and-its-a-growing-problem/

It seems to me that if we look at the 3 groups:

A) those that understand IT aka understand what
programs, servers and network are
B) those that can use IT aka click the right
buttons on the screen
C) those that are lost with IT

then even though group C has shrunk dramatically
from a large portion among older to practically
zero among younger, then group A has also shrunk
from a small portion to an even smaller portion.

Arne

On Mon, 2023-03-13 at 09:25 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> then even though group C has shrunk dramatically
> from a large portion among older to practically
> zero among younger, then group A has also shrunk
> from a small portion to an even smaller portion.

"Idiocracy" is a thing, particuarly with US "Republicans" and UK
"Tories". Idiots, all.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

On Mon, 2023-03-13 at 14:18 +0000, Single Stage to Orbit wrote:
> On Mon, 2023-03-13 at 09:25 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> > then even though group C has shrunk dramatically
> > from a large portion among older to practically
> > zero among younger, then group A has also shrunk
> > from a small portion to an even smaller portion.
>
> "Idiocracy" is a thing, particuarly with US "Republicans" and UK
> "Tories". Idiots, all.

As a follow-up, I offer you this:

https://www.audioasylum.com/messages/pcaudio/119979/

I truly fear for our kids with people like that ...
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

In article <76f1555b9170a251addda2e9475efbb773365cdf.camel@munted.eu>,
Single Stage to Orbit <alex.buell@munted.eu> wrote:
>On Mon, 2023-03-13 at 14:18 +0000, Single Stage to Orbit wrote:
>> On Mon, 2023-03-13 at 09:25 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> > then even though group C has shrunk dramatically
>> > from a large portion among older to practically
>> > zero among younger, then group A has also shrunk
>> > from a small portion to an even smaller portion.
>>
>> "Idiocracy" is a thing, particuarly with US "Republicans" and UK
>> "Tories". Idiots, all.
>
>As a follow-up, I offer you this:
>
>https://www.audioasylum.com/messages/pcaudio/119979/
>
>I truly fear for our kids with people like that ...

Ah, that's making the rounds again. While it's from 2013, I
feel the need to say that I only listen to memcpy on vinyl.

- Dan C.

On Mo 13 Mär 2023 at 13:09, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:

> And it turns out that the under 25 crowd don't give a damn about security,
> only convenience. Let's see how long it takes for them to learn that lesson
> the hard way.

I do not think they will get it.
"It is a software problem. We can not do anything about it." is the
common attitude.

'Andreas