Re:OpenVMS on x86
by skissane on Saturday May 07, 2022 @01:58AM
(#31292473)
I haven't done it myself, but from what I've heard it isn't hard to work around the licensing restrictions and run it anyway even without a hobbyist license.
I know a lot of people in the OpenVMS hobbyist community were dead set against people doing that, and I do understand why – one of the big reasons was they were worried that it might give the hobbyist community a bad name inside DEC/Compaq/HP(E), which in turn might lead to the hobbyist program being discontinued.
But, when it comes to OpenVMS on VAX – there is no alternative, I really doubt anyone who currently works for HPE cares one iota, and I'm not sure why VSI should be upset about it either? So maybe that former logic is no longer applicable.
Different story for Alpha and Itanium (and soon to be x86), for which there is a hobbyist program run by VSI, and the same concern (that hobbyists hacking license restrictions might upset the vendor to the point that they cancel the hobbyist program) applies to VSI as well.
(I suppose one possible reason VSI might get upset with breaking licensing restrictions on VAX, is that any technical workaround for VAX licensing might also work on newer platforms – but I don't know if that is actually true, and even if it were, VSI could easily make it false by moving to an incompatible licensing system for their OpenVMS releases.)
I know a lot of people in the OpenVMS hobbyist community were dead set against people doing that, and I do understand why – one of the big reasons was they were worried that it might give the hobbyist community a bad name inside DEC/Compaq/HP(E), which in turn might lead to the hobbyist program being discontinued.
But, when it comes to OpenVMS on VAX – there is no alternative, I really doubt anyone who currently works for HPE cares one iota, and I'm not sure why VSI should be upset about it either? So maybe that former logic is no longer applicable.
Different story for Alpha and Itanium (and soon to be x86), for which there is a hobbyist program run by VSI, and the same concern (that hobbyists hacking license restrictions might upset the vendor to the point that they cancel the hobbyist program) applies to VSI as well.
(I suppose one possible reason VSI might get upset with breaking licensing restrictions on VAX, is that any technical workaround for VAX licensing might also work on newer platforms – but I don't know if that is actually true, and even if it were, VSI could easily make it false by moving to an incompatible licensing system for their OpenVMS releases.)