6 ms·

I am an enthusiastic fan of VMS - my first job was tending to a small VAX cluster. I sat down and read the entire hardcopy documentation, which was maybe as man

I am an enthusiastic fan of VMS - my first job was tending to a small VAX cluster. I sat down and read the entire hardcopy documentation, which was maybe as many as twenty 3" binders. After learning about the OpenVMS community license I got excited and applied for a license. Bought myself a [PiDP-11](https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11) and got ready to party. OpenVMS got back to me, asking me to clarify just why I wanted this software. I has already explained my background and intent. They said it was insufficient justification and pointed me to a (windows based) student package :( Very discouraging. I just can't understand why they would make this ancient OS so inaccessible. It is genuinely great stuff, and with an active community it would probably re-emerge as a legitimate contender. So, all that being said, I followed the link and read the FAQ, and found this: >"You can participate in the field test if you are a customer or partner of VSI with a valid support contract." What gives, VSI. what the heck even gives?!

Aloha 4y ago
I dont understand - did you have an Integrity or Alpha you wanted to run it on?
- memetomancer 4y ago
  I was considering getting a Vax station 3100, but otherwise planned to run it on SIMH (emulator).
  - icedchai 4y ago
    If you google "VMS Liberation Front", your licensing problems will be solved.
    - huslage 4y ago
      Next we need a z/OS Liberation Front
      - kotaKat 4y ago
        ^ This. The amount of hoops for an aspiring mainframer that just wants to poke at z/PDT and throw money at IBM is silly. They ghosted me after trying to sign up for it.
        skissane 4y ago
        All you have to do is go to this website – https://www.ibm.com/marketplace/purchase/configuration/en/us/checkout?editionID=EIDXNMGM https://www.ibm.com/marketplace/purchase/configuration/en/us... – sign in with your IBM ID (anyone can create one), and provide your details, and give your credit card number. I've successfully done it up to the step where you give your credit card, I haven't taken it further because I'm not sufficiently interested in this to justify to myself giving IBM so much money. One thing I noticed – IBM does not want individual consumers as customers, only enterprises. If you say they live in the US, the order form says "IBM products are only available for commercial, academic, public, research, or other organizational use", and asks you for an organisation name. I am in Australia, so I give my country of Australia and home address, it then asks me to certify I am buying it for a business, and won't let the order process continue unless I tick it. For Australian orders, it also asks for an Australian Business Number (ABN), which you get from the government when you register a business with them. (Government agencies, and educational/religious/charitable/nonprofit/etc institutions, and trusts, are also eligible for them.) I guess the US equivalent would be an IRS EIN, or a DUNS number, but the US order form doesn't ask for one, just an organisation name. Anyone in Australia, can get an ABN, but you have to tell the government you are running a business, and in theory they can revoke it if you aren't a real business (and occasionally they actually have). However, another way to get an ABN – anyone can incorporate a company, and when you do you get an Australian Company Number (ACN), and anyone with an ACN is automatically entitled to an ABN (the ABN is just the ACN with a couple of checksum digits prefixed). I actually own a company, which does nothing and has never done anything – one day I was daydreaming about starting my own business, so I created a corporation, and then I daydreamed a bit more, and then I parked the idea – but I pay US$200 a year to the government to keep my corporation alive, so I have a legitimate ABN to give them through that. There is no legal requirement for a corporation to do anything, a "shelf corporation" which stays forever dormant and just pays the annual fees (and engages in a few other pro forma annual legal rituals) is legally just as valid as a billion dollar company If I gave them my credit card number, and let them charge all that $$$ to it – I expect they'd process the order. How are they supposed to know that my "business", despite being a real legal corporation, is actually just a "fantasy daydream business" not a real one? I don't see how they could tell. (I mean, I could be an independent contractor/consultant/freelancer working through that corporation, rather than a full-time employee – and maybe one day I shall be.) They could cancel the order and give me the $$$ back instead of fulfilling it, but I'd be surprised if they did that. Indeed, ex-IBM employee Colin Paice in Scotland reports successfully buying it from them – https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on-my-ubuntu-laptop/ https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on... – I guess one thing that may help – don't say it is for a hobby or personal use, claim it is for a business (which if you think about it, doesn't even have to be a lie – tell yourself a story about how you are going to use this to develop software to sell people, and if you believe your own story, that makes it true – who knows, believing in it might even make it happen – and if it doesn't ever actually happen, well a lot of businesses fail, often even just as they are getting started...)
  - classichasclass 4y ago
    I've actually got a VAXstation 3100 M76. It's fun to run it on the hardware, but most of these little VAXen have performance most charitably described as pedestrian.
    - the_only_law 4y ago
      Yeah they later ones aren’t priced to bad on eBay. You can occasionally find some minicomputers and some of the larger VAXStations but they tend to be a lot more especially considering it would have to ship freight.
      - dhosek 4y ago
        I was tempted (but fortunately didn’t succumb) to buy the IBM 4000-series minicomputer my college was decommissioning in the 90s. It would have been both cool and an overwhelming burden to have this thing.
  - the_only_law 4y ago
    I don’t think modern OpenVMS runs on VAX anymore. But hey if you have the ever popular Itanium architecture, it will run.
    - sehro 4y ago
      Yeh, the last OpenVMS release for VAX was 7.sommat, and hasn't been updated since. Alpha and Itanium still have active releases with mostly feature parity, tho.
  - jasomill 4y ago
    Last I heard, VSI's agreement with HP only permits them to issue licenses for VSI OpenVMS releases, and they've never released a VAX build. So at this point, any VAX license would have to come from HP (who, AFAIK, is no longer issuing them, at least not to hobbyists).
phendrenad2 4y ago
Maybe security through obscurity? They can legitimately tell their customers "not just anyone can get a copy of VMS" and then they can imply that that means that hackers can't hack it or something. I'm sure big government customers go for that sort of thing.
- chasil 4y ago
  Older versions of VMS have a showstopper login bug that can be used to obtain the full privilege of the kernel. There are many older VMS installations where this cannot be fixed, and more still where it is not worth the trouble of engaging a support contract to obtain the patches. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/06/openvms_vulnerability/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/06/openvms_vulnerabili...
- jasomill 4y ago
  Anyone can get a copy of VMS, just not this closed beta. VSI plans to add the x86 version to the free community license program [1] at a later date. In the mean time, the Alpha version runs very well under emulation, and is available both under the CLP (free, registration required[1]; also includes Itanium, though AFAIK no emulators capable of running it exist), and as a freely downloadable (no registration required), preinstalled student kit bundled with a preconfigured Windows emulator[2]. Note that the "student" license is unrestricted for non-commercial use; you don't have to be an actual student to use it. [1] https://vmssoftware.com/community/community-license/ https://vmssoftware.com/community/community-license/ (note "x86 (planned)") [2] https://training.vmssoftware.com/student-license/ https://training.vmssoftware.com/student-license/
ch_123 4y ago
That's strange, I've been able to get access to their license and I did not have to give a particularly elaborate story/justification for them. I do own a real Alpha system and pointed this fact out in my request, so maybe that helped?
- jasomill 4y ago
  I had no problem getting both Alpha and Itanium kits from VSI, after explaining that I planned to run on an Alpha emulator and a hypothetical Itanium box that I didn't actually own yet, but may someday acquire. So they're clearly not too picky about hardware ownership. They did initially suggest the student package to me as well, but after replying that I had prior VMS experience and would prefer to install and configure the system myself, they promptly issued my licenses.
  - memetomancer 4y ago
    Thanks, I gave up after the student package referral... which I guess worked as designed! Maybe now I will get some genuine hardware and take another shot.
    - nix23 4y ago
      >Thanks, I gave up after the student package referral... Because it's the easier option for people who just want to try it out or don't want to invest time (which seams to be the case with you).
flenserboy 4y ago
The documentation was amazing. I did campus backups in the white room back in college, and for some reason that was the place they had shelf after shelf of these binders; while the Vaxen hummed, I read through them. It was something of a letdown to move to MAN pages when we got some UNIX boxen.
- jnsquire 4y ago
  ah, a fellow tape monkey. Our "white room" had collected 25 years of old hardware and manuals back in the 90s. I loved trawling through it all. Best job ever.
inejge 4y ago
I just can't understand why they would make this ancient OS so inaccessible. The OS is used by a limited and probably dwindling number of vendors of specialized, complex and long-lived software originally developed for VAX/VMS. I was tangentially related to users of such software for a while; the vendor made the VAX->Alpha and Alpha->Itanium transitions, but saw the writing on the wall and ported the software away from VMS. VSI is not a large outfit, and they're a business. They don't need the hassle of dealing with hobbyists. It is genuinely great stuff, and with an active community it would probably re-emerge as a legitimate contender. It's a fascinating and superbly documented system, agreed. But a contender? Far too late for that, IMO, if it was ever in the cards (I don't think so.)
nix23 4y ago
That was absolutely NOT the case for me: They literally wrote: quote: "we understand that not everyone has a windows machine (studentpackage), if you still want/need a community license (alpha iso) please answer....." One day later got my alpha OpenVMS key EDIT: And when someone from VMSSOFTWARE reads this: Thank you!! It's still part of HNET/BITNET ;) EDIT2: If someone want's to try out openvms like sdf.org: https://eisner.decus.org/online/ https://eisner.decus.org/online/

Aloha 4y ago

I dont understand - did you have an Integrity or Alpha you wanted to run it on?

memetomancer 4y ago
I was considering getting a Vax station 3100, but otherwise planned to run it on SIMH (emulator).
- icedchai 4y ago
  If you google "VMS Liberation Front", your licensing problems will be solved.
  - huslage 4y ago
    Next we need a z/OS Liberation Front
    - kotaKat 4y ago
      ^ This. The amount of hoops for an aspiring mainframer that just wants to poke at z/PDT and throw money at IBM is silly. They ghosted me after trying to sign up for it.
      - skissane 4y ago
        All you have to do is go to this website – https://www.ibm.com/marketplace/purchase/configuration/en/us/checkout?editionID=EIDXNMGM https://www.ibm.com/marketplace/purchase/configuration/en/us... – sign in with your IBM ID (anyone can create one), and provide your details, and give your credit card number. I've successfully done it up to the step where you give your credit card, I haven't taken it further because I'm not sufficiently interested in this to justify to myself giving IBM so much money. One thing I noticed – IBM does not want individual consumers as customers, only enterprises. If you say they live in the US, the order form says "IBM products are only available for commercial, academic, public, research, or other organizational use", and asks you for an organisation name. I am in Australia, so I give my country of Australia and home address, it then asks me to certify I am buying it for a business, and won't let the order process continue unless I tick it. For Australian orders, it also asks for an Australian Business Number (ABN), which you get from the government when you register a business with them. (Government agencies, and educational/religious/charitable/nonprofit/etc institutions, and trusts, are also eligible for them.) I guess the US equivalent would be an IRS EIN, or a DUNS number, but the US order form doesn't ask for one, just an organisation name. Anyone in Australia, can get an ABN, but you have to tell the government you are running a business, and in theory they can revoke it if you aren't a real business (and occasionally they actually have). However, another way to get an ABN – anyone can incorporate a company, and when you do you get an Australian Company Number (ACN), and anyone with an ACN is automatically entitled to an ABN (the ABN is just the ACN with a couple of checksum digits prefixed). I actually own a company, which does nothing and has never done anything – one day I was daydreaming about starting my own business, so I created a corporation, and then I daydreamed a bit more, and then I parked the idea – but I pay US$200 a year to the government to keep my corporation alive, so I have a legitimate ABN to give them through that. There is no legal requirement for a corporation to do anything, a "shelf corporation" which stays forever dormant and just pays the annual fees (and engages in a few other pro forma annual legal rituals) is legally just as valid as a billion dollar company If I gave them my credit card number, and let them charge all that $$$ to it – I expect they'd process the order. How are they supposed to know that my "business", despite being a real legal corporation, is actually just a "fantasy daydream business" not a real one? I don't see how they could tell. (I mean, I could be an independent contractor/consultant/freelancer working through that corporation, rather than a full-time employee – and maybe one day I shall be.) They could cancel the order and give me the $$$ back instead of fulfilling it, but I'd be surprised if they did that. Indeed, ex-IBM employee Colin Paice in Scotland reports successfully buying it from them – https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on-my-ubuntu-laptop/ https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on... – I guess one thing that may help – don't say it is for a hobby or personal use, claim it is for a business (which if you think about it, doesn't even have to be a lie – tell yourself a story about how you are going to use this to develop software to sell people, and if you believe your own story, that makes it true – who knows, believing in it might even make it happen – and if it doesn't ever actually happen, well a lot of businesses fail, often even just as they are getting started...)
- classichasclass 4y ago
  I've actually got a VAXstation 3100 M76. It's fun to run it on the hardware, but most of these little VAXen have performance most charitably described as pedestrian.
  - the_only_law 4y ago
    Yeah they later ones aren’t priced to bad on eBay. You can occasionally find some minicomputers and some of the larger VAXStations but they tend to be a lot more especially considering it would have to ship freight.
    - dhosek 4y ago
      I was tempted (but fortunately didn’t succumb) to buy the IBM 4000-series minicomputer my college was decommissioning in the 90s. It would have been both cool and an overwhelming burden to have this thing.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  I don’t think modern OpenVMS runs on VAX anymore. But hey if you have the ever popular Itanium architecture, it will run.
  - sehro 4y ago
    Yeh, the last OpenVMS release for VAX was 7.sommat, and hasn't been updated since. Alpha and Itanium still have active releases with mostly feature parity, tho.
- jasomill 4y ago
  Last I heard, VSI's agreement with HP only permits them to issue licenses for VSI OpenVMS releases, and they've never released a VAX build. So at this point, any VAX license would have to come from HP (who, AFAIK, is no longer issuing them, at least not to hobbyists).

phendrenad2 4y ago

Maybe security through obscurity? They can legitimately tell their customers "not just anyone can get a copy of VMS" and then they can imply that that means that hackers can't hack it or something. I'm sure big government customers go for that sort of thing.

chasil 4y ago
Older versions of VMS have a showstopper login bug that can be used to obtain the full privilege of the kernel. There are many older VMS installations where this cannot be fixed, and more still where it is not worth the trouble of engaging a support contract to obtain the patches. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/06/openvms_vulnerability/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/06/openvms_vulnerabili...
jasomill 4y ago
Anyone can get a copy of VMS, just not this closed beta. VSI plans to add the x86 version to the free community license program [1] at a later date. In the mean time, the Alpha version runs very well under emulation, and is available both under the CLP (free, registration required[1]; also includes Itanium, though AFAIK no emulators capable of running it exist), and as a freely downloadable (no registration required), preinstalled student kit bundled with a preconfigured Windows emulator[2]. Note that the "student" license is unrestricted for non-commercial use; you don't have to be an actual student to use it. [1] https://vmssoftware.com/community/community-license/ https://vmssoftware.com/community/community-license/ (note "x86 (planned)") [2] https://training.vmssoftware.com/student-license/ https://training.vmssoftware.com/student-license/

ch_123 4y ago

That's strange, I've been able to get access to their license and I did not have to give a particularly elaborate story/justification for them. I do own a real Alpha system and pointed this fact out in my request, so maybe that helped?

jasomill 4y ago
I had no problem getting both Alpha and Itanium kits from VSI, after explaining that I planned to run on an Alpha emulator and a hypothetical Itanium box that I didn't actually own yet, but may someday acquire. So they're clearly not too picky about hardware ownership. They did initially suggest the student package to me as well, but after replying that I had prior VMS experience and would prefer to install and configure the system myself, they promptly issued my licenses.
- memetomancer 4y ago
  Thanks, I gave up after the student package referral... which I guess worked as designed! Maybe now I will get some genuine hardware and take another shot.
  - nix23 4y ago
    >Thanks, I gave up after the student package referral... Because it's the easier option for people who just want to try it out or don't want to invest time (which seams to be the case with you).

flenserboy 4y ago

The documentation was amazing. I did campus backups in the white room back in college, and for some reason that was the place they had shelf after shelf of these binders; while the Vaxen hummed, I read through them. It was something of a letdown to move to MAN pages when we got some UNIX boxen.

jnsquire 4y ago
ah, a fellow tape monkey. Our "white room" had collected 25 years of old hardware and manuals back in the 90s. I loved trawling through it all. Best job ever.

inejge 4y ago

I just can't understand why they would make this ancient OS so inaccessible. The OS is used by a limited and probably dwindling number of vendors of specialized, complex and long-lived software originally developed for VAX/VMS. I was tangentially related to users of such software for a while; the vendor made the VAX->Alpha and Alpha->Itanium transitions, but saw the writing on the wall and ported the software away from VMS. VSI is not a large outfit, and they're a business. They don't need the hassle of dealing with hobbyists. It is genuinely great stuff, and with an active community it would probably re-emerge as a legitimate contender. It's a fascinating and superbly documented system, agreed. But a contender? Far too late for that, IMO, if it was ever in the cards (I don't think so.)

nix23 4y ago

That was absolutely NOT the case for me: They literally wrote: quote: "we understand that not everyone has a windows machine (studentpackage), if you still want/need a community license (alpha iso) please answer....." One day later got my alpha OpenVMS key EDIT: And when someone from VMSSOFTWARE reads this: Thank you!! It's still part of HNET/BITNET ;) EDIT2: If someone want's to try out openvms like sdf.org: https://eisner.decus.org/online/ https://eisner.decus.org/online/