
HPE sets end date for hobbyist licenses for OpenVMS - QUFB
https://legacyos.org/hpe-sets-end-date-for-hobbyist-licenses-for-openvms/
======
alxlaz
Oh, damn. The OpenVMS hobbyist license is actually why, a long time ago, I
joined DECUS Munich. It was a very complicated affair: DECUS Munich was one of
the few DECUS organizations that accepted members from outside their area (I
was nowhere near Munich, and there was no DECUS organization anywhere near me
-- ironically, I think DECUS Munich was the closest one). I am pretty sure
they had an age restriction so I _may_ have lied on my application form, as I
was 14 or 15 at the time or something like that. Also I didn't speak or write
any German so the application form wasn't exactly easy to fill in. This was
before Google Translate, so I had to go out and buy a German dictionary.
Thankfully, a lot of its members spoke English and they were extremely nice to
me.

It then took about two _months_ for the thick envelope containing a booklet,
some promotional material from a bunch of sponsors, and my membership card to
reach me by snail mail. I'd given up hope by then -- the local post service is
extraordinarily bad and I assumed they'd lost it.

I still carry my DECUS member card in my wallet, and it's getting harder and
harder to explain what it is...

Edit: the world is a very small place. Many after that, it turned out that one
of my colleagues at the time was _also_ a DECUS Munich member. He was an
extraordinarily bright German physicist, many years older than me, doing
research at the same lab where I was working at the time. I don't know how
many members DECUS Munich has, or had, but oh boy!

~~~
malux85
I have fond memories too, it was around 2002/2004 ish when I inherited an
alpha server 2100A from a friend and wanted to put OpenVMS on it, being in a
small town in New Zealand I went to the HP building in the closest city and
asked to speak to someone about OpenVMS

They of course had no idea what I was talking about, and after 5 cycles of
(10: explain what I want, let me get someone technical for you, I don’t know
what you’re talking about, go to 10)

I finally managed to get someone to point me at the OpenVMS hobbiest programs.

Eventually a managing to get the install media I got the system running and
spend 2/3 years coding applications for this weird system, while also working
on the Linux port for the alpha chips.

So much fun and positive memories, I’m sad to see the hobbiest program come to
an end

------
rbanffy
It seems like a no-brainer to subsidize an on-ramp for professionals into
their proprietary platform. VSI should probably do that.

I'm looking at you, IBM, and your restrictive z/OS licenses that prevent me
from legally using anything newer than MVS 3.8j on Hercules.

~~~
unixhero
I want to love Mainframes that much, but I frigging hate the way enthusiasts
are treated by IBM.

As such, and a direct consequence of it, I will never advise my clients to go
for anything IBM.

~~~
rbanffy
At least you can run Linux on an LPAR (and these machines are ridiculously
fast Linux boxes). I wonder how a couple racks of z15 systems would compare to
performance-equivalent racks of commodity x86 servers. I suspect that, per
watt and area, these machines can host a lot more VMs than commodity racks.

~~~
unixhero
One commercial said it could host 9000 docker containers per lpar. Sounds
tempting of course.

But nah. I am not touching it, until IBM gets their ducks in a row.

~~~
rbanffy
You can run z/VM under the LPAR and host multiple Linux images under it, or
host Linux directly on the LPAR and use KVM to split it into smaller VMs. The
penalty for CPU oversubscription seems relatively small with the almost a
gigabyte of L4 cache in every processor drawer.

I'm not buying one (sadly it's a bit over my impulse buy threshold), but I'd
love to play with one.

------
mikece
Excuse my ignorance on this topic, but what exactly can you do with OpenVMS
that you cannot do with a FreeBSD, Linux, or even Windows server? What's the
specific advantage of OpenVMS?

~~~
bitwize
OpenVMS has _real_ asynchronous I/O supported directly by the kernel. Under
Linux, all I/O is synchronous but possibly nonblocking, and all disk I/O is
blocking. OpenVMS also has a comprehensive, fine-grained security model
involving a database of subjects, actions, and objects, giving administrators
fine control over who may do what to what. In short, ACLs built into the OS
from the ground up. In Linux, ACLs are a bag on the side; their inclusion in
BSDs varies. OpenVMS also automatically logs all events, providing an audit
trail for security incidents. OpenVMS clusters easily (called a VAXcluster in
the VAX days); support for failover and load balancing is built into the OS.
OpenVMS's command line interface is designed around a mistake-prone operator
who hasn't had their coffee. It doesn't have, say, the 'rm -rf /' problem.
Unix's CLI assumes a perfect operator who gets everything right the first
time. "Fat fingering" a command could have disastrous consequences; in most
cases on VMS, the command interpreter will raise a syntax error. OpenVMS also
has file versioning built into the file system; again, this is a bag on the
side (formerly: SCCS/RCS, today: git) in Unix.

Oh, and OpenVMS doesn't crash. Like, ever.

Windows Server has some of these features. The NT kernel has the same designer
as VMS -- Dave Cutler, a man whose contempt for the Unix design philosophy is
well documented.

~~~
downerending
I cracked "root" on ours as an undergrad, so going to claim that the security
wasn't all that, at least lacking a perfect operator. (And didn't they
distribute it with vendor backdoors for a long time?)

Beyond that, AFAIK it didn't have pipes, which was a real limitation for
creating, well, pipelines to stream process data far larger than available
RAM.

I miss the days, but not the OS.

~~~
metaphor
Pipes wasn't a thing until v7.something or other. A bunch of lexical functions
weren't implemented until then too.

~~~
monocasa
Pipes very much existed before v7. At a bare minimum they're in v6 as I
remember them from Lyon's, but I think they were as far back as v3.

~~~
metaphor
Yeah, sure...from § 11.13.2 of TFM[1]:

> _In OpenVMS Version 7.1, the DCL PIPE command was introduced._

Ask me how I _really_ know OpenVMS v6 doesn't have pipes.

[1]
[http://h30266.www3.hpe.com/odl/axpos/opsys/vmsos84/6489/6489...](http://h30266.www3.hpe.com/odl/axpos/opsys/vmsos84/6489/6489pro_029.html)

~~~
monocasa
I thought you were talking about Unix, hence my Lyon's comment.

~~~
metaphor
I thought the GP's context made that clear, but fair enough.

------
ch_123
VSI (the new owners of VMS) have created a new Hobbyist program. It is
intended to run inside a emulator, but I imagine with some creativity it could
be deployed onto real hardware.

The big downsides are: A) You have to reinstall/recreate the emulator image
when it expires - they don't hand out new keys. B) No images for VAX (probably
the most popular platform for emulation due to SIMH)

~~~
cat199
Seriously though - looking at VSI pages it looks like basically the VMS
systems team greybeards spun off into a company.

If they want to see their whole life's work survive instead of fading into
increasing irrelevance, they should just open source it under a 'freemium'
model. With a bit of polish/tlc and focus on that area + maybe linux container
emulation support to ease compatibility issues, it would make a pretty amazing
basis for a 'cloud native' and 'iot' OS in addition to the ways that it's
currently used.

------
rs23296008n1
So they don't want hobbyists anymore? Interesting approach to growing the
userbase and providing at-home labs. But maybe this is the purpose. Perhaps it
is a precursor to sunsetting openvms into obsolescence?

I wonder how much bitrot and technical debt there is now accumulating in
openvms?

Reminds me of IBM and z/os where they are positively hostile. Then they wonder
why they can't find young COBOL programmers etc. Especially those with
workable familiarity with a platform and ecosystem.

~~~
racingmars
HPE licensed all rights to the OpenVMS operating system and codebase,
including ongoing support and all future distribution, to the new company, VMS
Software Inc., who among other things is working on an x86_64 port.

So I don't think it's so much that HPE "doesn't want hobbyists" anymore as it
is I'm guessing it's a natural (and probably contractual) part of HPE getting
entirely out of the OpenVMS business.

The new company already has a new hobbyist program (although I much preferred
how HPE did it):
[https://training.vmssoftware.com/hobbyist/](https://training.vmssoftware.com/hobbyist/)

~~~
icedchai
The new hobbyist program is somewhat useless to people who want to tinker with
old retro hardware. I suppose you could extract the install from the VM, but
that's more trouble than it sounds. If you bought a VAX or Itanic box off of
ebay, you're still out of luck.

~~~
racingmars
Yeah, perhaps I should have more strongly stated my "but I prefer how HPE did
it point", because I agree the current VSI hobbyist program is useless to me.
Hopefully by the time the current round of hobbyist licenses expire (HPE is
now issuing one last round of hobbyist keys through Dec 31, 2021) VSI will
have a better story for their hobbyist program for folks with old hardware
(like me).

If not... VMS PAKs aren't hard to generate on your own. I always appreciated
that HP provided a "legal" path, though.

~~~
rs23296008n1
Ok, I'll watch and see. I have a few old machines in the fleet which are kept
running for some reason. They're mainly for fun from what I can see. Similar
to the old quake server we used to have for "network testing" at the end of
the day.

------
sigwinch28
> The community support OpenVMS has received over the years has been
> instrumental in the success of the product.

> As we approach the end of the HPE OpenVMS V8.4 standard support period, HPE
> plans to conclude the HPE OpenVMS Hobbyist license program.

Boilerplate "fuck you and your contributions". Standard HP behaviour.

~~~
close04
> With the change in ownership of OpenVMS — HP Enterprise turned over the
> business to VMS Software Inc. — the hobbyist program is ending at HPE. VSI
> is considering one option to continue hobbyist-class licenses.

It looks like HP offloaded OpenVMS and future decisions to VSI, which doesn't
appear to be an HP subsidiary. Am I missing something? HPE giving out licenses
for another 2 years (end of 2021) is probably what was agreed with VSI.

~~~
sigwinch28
From the article:

> Users who wish to avail themselves of HPE OpenVMS long term licenses are
> encouraged to purchase permanent licenses at standard prices.

It seems like HP still have the ability to issue licenses, and from the VMS
Software Inc. FAQ [0]:

> VMS Software, Inc. (VSI) is the sole provider of the OpenVMS operating
> system and layered products. In 2014, VMS Software, Inc. licensed exclusive
> rights from Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) to develop new versions
> of the operating system.

Edit: after carefully re-reading, I get where you're coming from: HP sold off
the exclusive rights, and the company who has the rights might not want to
support hobbyists.

Well, if only HP had included a stipulation that hobbyist licenses remain
available in their license terms, especially since "The community support
OpenVMS has received over the years has been instrumental in the success of
the product".

[0]:
[https://vmssoftware.com/about/faq/#faq1](https://vmssoftware.com/about/faq/#faq1)

~~~
close04
> It seems like HP still have the ability to issue licenses

I expect they may retain the ability to issue licenses but surely not in a way
that undermines VSI's business model, like giving them away for free. So they
probably aren't allowed to undercut VSI in any way.

------
waspentalive
So now it is time to "Linux" VMS? Is it possible to do this?

~~~
alxlaz
A long, long time ago, there was a project called FreeVMS which aimed to do
that. Sadly, it didn't get much further than booting.

Edit: [https://github.com/rroart/freevms](https://github.com/rroart/freevms) .
It's definitely not big and professional like OpenVMS :-)

~~~
wazoox
Ah, looks like a fork of my friend jkb's work. Used to live on frevms.net,
nowadays squatted. ( see
[https://web.archive.org/web/20110310093558/http://www.freevm...](https://web.archive.org/web/20110310093558/http://www.freevms.net/)
).

~~~
alxlaz
Yeah -- when I saw a redesigned website at freevms.net, my heart skipped a
beat, I thought FreeVMS might still be alive. I couldn't track jkb's original
tree anymore and figured I'd link to that Github project instead, as it had a
few additional commits and, thus, a higher chance of running on more recent
emulators.

~~~
wazoox
I'll send him a direct email and keep you informed. Stay tuned :)

update : The reply was: He started a rewrite on L4, but it was too much for
one lone guy; he could start it all again if some want to participate.

~~~
alxlaz
OpenVMS has an enduring fan base -- maybe who knows enough to make meaningful
contributions is reading this!

~~~
wazoox
First, the code around the L4 kernel (Pistachio) is still available. I've
cloned it to github here so as to not overload jkb's personal server (still in
the origin):

[https://github.com/wazoox/FreeVMS](https://github.com/wazoox/FreeVMS)

What's missing:

\- L4 Pistachio is unsupported...

\- Memory management (VMS style) is to be implemented.

\- Drivers.

The website is still online somewhere, I hope to know the URL soon :) I'll add
it to the github README.

------
driverdan
Has no one cracked the license scheme yet?

~~~
icedchai
It was cracked _years_ ago. I won't pass the link out directly on HN but it
can be found with some googling.

------
mark-r
So I guess it was Open in name only?

~~~
projektfu
The "Open" was added to suggest harmony with POSIX, Motif/CDE and other
standards. OpenVMS was a proprietary OS used on VAX and Alpha computers long
before DEC was bought by Compaq (and then HP) and the name was not suggesting
open source the way OpenSolaris does.

~~~
mark-r
I was aware of VMS and its proprietary history long before they added Open to
it. I'm still not sure how Open ties to those other things.

~~~
icedchai
"Open standards"?

------
rbanffy
On the MPE/ix thing, is anyone actually relying on HP-3000 servers for
anything critical?

~~~
mkovach
I know there are places that still offer support for MPE/ix so I am sure
people are relying on it. HP EOL'd in 2006 and stopped all support in 2010.
System was around for about 40 years and I spent about 4 years in the mid-90's
working on a few of them at a manufacturing company. I was working on a pair
of HP-3000 that were bought in the last 70's. I got invited to the last
powering off in 2002.

Nice unique little systems. If I remember right, by the mid 80's the CPU was
emulated on a PA-RISC chip. Also, at some point the HP-3000 ran MPE XL and the
HP-9000 ran HP/UX using the same hardware. SPL (system programming language ..
cr native name there) was .. interesting. I still have some of the OS manuals
lying around attic.

~~~
rbanffy
The CISC version was a nice stack-based CPU. It's a shame that, with the lack
of support and software that can run on them, they'll end up lost.

I find it distressing there are no emulators for the CISC AS/400 side of the
mini-computer tree. At least the 3000 is in SIMH...

