Re: Story Time

In article <1181065705.540389.236110@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
davidc@xxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
On Jun 5, 7:49 am, b...@xxxxxxxxxxx (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
But Linux has the one thing that the people in this group you denigrate
have repeatedly said was needed, marketing. I personally have stated
numerous times that if marketing can do what it has for a puile of crap
like Linux just imagine what it could do for a gem like VMS!!

The marketing came much later - after a huge amount of development,
distributions, and more were done. Not only that, but were done by a
wide variety of individuals, volunteers, and groups - not companies or
marketers. In fact, much of the actual software development still
comes from these individuals, volunteers, and groups.

All of which applies to BSD equally except that BSD had several years
headstart (including the development that continued despite the AT&T
lawsuit which everyone involved in the technical side of the game knew
was never going to go anywhere). The only thing Linux has that BSD
does not is marketing. And look at the difference in awareness and
interest. BSD's license is much more business friendly than the GPV.
BSD is stabler, more secure, more efficient and has more stuff that
was actually implemented correctly than Linux. And still businesses
are flocking to Linux and ignoring BSD. And the answer is, marketing.
Ask any CIO you know who is involved in one of these Linux migrations
why Linux and not BSD. The most likely answer will be, "What's BSD?"
Sure sounds like the same boat VMS is in to me. :-)


Except that the largest majority of those truly useful applications
can not be ported to VMS. Why? Because half of them require fork()
and the other half require a current version of X11. Neither of which
VMS has or is likely to have in the near (or even distant) future.

You see, you still declare failure before even beginning. You
rationalize porting of 100% of applications as impossible by revolving
around 2 minor things.

I am not spinning anything. Name the applications that people are most
likely to want. Then look at what they contain. Actually, the obsolete
version of X11 that is available for VMS is probably the bigger show
stopper as desktop apps are what sells computers today. But there are
still alot of cute little things with fork() in them. And that list
was not meant to be exclusive. It just pointed out the two most common
shortcomings frequently mentioned here everytime this subjecy comes up.

Spinning the loss instead of attempting the
win. And the fact that there ARE applications and services that have
been ported pretty much invalidates your claim on its face. The fact
that wxWidgets and GTK+ libraries are already ported to VMS
(incidently, they both use X11), and many others use pthread rather
than fork() just makes the claim look uninformed. And there are tons
of "console" apps that require neither.

Console apps don't sell computers or OSes today. I have a closet full
of VT terminals the University abandoned to prove it. All they were
used for was Registration, twice a year and that is no longer done
with character cell applications. And, if it's so simple and VSM has
all the pieces needed, let me know when you have OpenOffice running.


The codebase that makes up the *AMP suite (Apache, MySQL, PERL/PHP)
and Mozilla as all been successfully ported to OpenVMS. Guess what?
fork() and X11 didn't stop them.

You can see a ton of work in the VMS C library to support more of the
"glibc" features that are becoming more common in modern C/C++
development. The GNV effort makes even more of this possible.

After all, Ford got unbreakable glass by ignoring people with your
view and hiring people who didn't know better.

There were thousands upon thousands of MG and Triumph owners (still are,
actually) but even that didn't save BLM from bad management.

And again, exactly like I stated at the beginning - "what next faux
pas HP has committed to accelerate the death of OpenVMS". What I see
here is a case where there is NO circumstance where HP could succeed
in your mind. Even when there is marketing, it's "not enough" or "too
late" or whatever other excuse you want to choose for the moment. If
HP puts out something that doesn't mention VMS, its touted as another
"sure sign" that HP is trying to kill VMS.

I have never said that HP was trying to kill VMS. In fact, I doubt they
would expend the energy. It is sufficient to just continue to ignore it
while milking the cash cow until the last user finally leaves. The point
I and many others have made is that it would take minimal effort to reverse
the trend that has been seen with VMS the last daceade or so. A few thousand
dollars for marketing. Giving a few good stories to the press. Anything
to convince the people buying IT today that there is a future in buying
and running VMS.


You are actually becoming part of the PROBLEM.

I can't be part of the problem because I am not even in the equation.
But if you think the solution is in sticking my head in the sand like
so many others, then I admit I am not going to be part of the solution.


I actually see a lot of work out there for porting various libraries/
apps, but part of the issue is there isn't much organization. Maybe
we need a "SourceForge" environment for OpenVMS developers where we
can work together better.

What stops you from using SourceForge? I haven't looked at it but I
was not aware of anything that restricted projects to Linux.

bill

--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
bill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include <std.disclaimer.h>
.

Relevant Pages

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