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- From vlf@star.enet.dec.com Fri Oct 25 16:32:49 2013
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- From: Subcommandante XDelta <vlf@star.enet.dec.com>
- Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
- Subject: VLF: The 36th Anniversary Communique from the VMS Liberation Front
- Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 16:32:49 +1100
- Organization: The VMS Liberation Front
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- A 36th Anniversary Communique from the VMS Liberation Front
- Greetings comp.os.vms collegians,
- 1. AYBABTU
- "All Your Base Are Belong To Us."
- The VLF, the VMS Liberation Front DELTA:: node, have always wanted to
- transmit that in a communique, and clearly, we have just done so,
- however, unfortunately the use of it is not justified, since we still
- have not established the necessary conditions and resources to rescue
- VMS from mind-share oblivion and installation extinction in a
- conclusive manner.
- We can but try.
- 2. Prefatory Remarks
- http://is.gd/The_35th_Anniversary_Of_VMS
- Unfortunately, due to complex analogue world concerns, the VLF have
- not been as productive as they would have liked in the intervening
- year, since the 35th anniversary of VMS. Even this 36th anniversary
- communique will not be as planned and intended; it is merely a
- 'heart-beat' and 'pulse' communique, largely to signal that the VLF
- project is not moribund and that we are still on job.
- Whilst I cannot speak for my esteemed colleague, Subcommandante
- BYPASS, on this particular matter, I, Subcommandante XDelta, am
- ashamed to admit that I have not been attending with any continuity of
- diligence, to the reading of the annals of the transactions of the
- comp.os.vms collegiate, in the last year - however I do note the
- <dansabrservices@yahoo.com> spear-heading an initiative to take over
- the VMS business from HP and make a real, honest, go of it; this is
- probably the best prospective development to have occurred in the last
- decade - may it come to pass, the VLF salute him, and advise getting
- the stock exchanges that still use VMS, on board with the project.
- I also note with, not inconsiderable, admiration, the research and
- development of the DCL debugger.
- We in the VLF, may have, collectively, one foot in the grave, but the
- other is still dancing a lively jig on the grassy verge beside it.
- However we remain acutely aware of the decrement of time remaining on
- our finitary system clocks, and we remain concerned and despairing for
- the grand-children and the future generations of humanity that they
- may lose the conceptual and functionality excellence and literacy of
- the VMS operating system forever, to their profound intellectual
- impoverishment.
- Which, of course, is also in the fore-front of the minds of the VMSen
- (VMS Memory Stewards) of the VMS (VMS Mind-share Society) on
- comp.os.vms and elsewhere.
- In the larger context, and bigger picture, of the planetary situation,
- we are also gravely concerned for the grand-children and the future
- generations with regards to global-warming, ecological degradation and
- collapse, species extinction, the despoiling of civil society, the
- NSA/PRISM intelligence-industrial complex, to name but a few of the
- big burning issues, and the corruption of governance cultures integral
- and prudential competence in the face of all such challenges.
- With reference to 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance', the
- 'Inherent Pirsigian Quality', appears to be leaching out of so many
- aspects of the planetary reality.
- However in the context of the proceedings of the comp.os.vms
- collegiate, we will not digress further on such matters, and return to
- that feather in our caps and volitional brick in our backpacks, which
- are the specific challenges for the VLF project.
- 3. Hardware Emulator Releases
- Please refresh your memories on the context, raison d'etre, vision,
- mission, and purpose of the VMS Liberation Front:
- http://is.gd/LiBREVMS
- Thank you.
- You might as well charge or refresh your tankard with a quality
- lagered product, while you are at it.
- The VLF Release History:
- 2012-10-25:
- LiBREVMS.LMFGEN.OpenVMS.Tru64.OSF1.ULTRIX.v1.2.WinALL.x86.x64.KEYGEN-VLF
- Stromasys.CHARON-VAX_Xx_66x0.v4.0.Build.122-04.Retail.WinALL.x86.x64.Cracked-VLF
- Stromasys.CHARON-VAX_Xx_66x0.v4.1.Build.134-02.Retail.Win7.W2K8.x86.x64.Cracked-VLF
- Stromasys.CHARON-AXP_4100_DS_ES_GS.v4.1.Build.129-04.Retail.WinALL.x64.Cracked-VLF
- These four releases established a basic basis for which our beloved
- Vernon, could be preserved, at existing revision levels, on existing
- DEC architectures, in perpetuity.
- For the 36th anniversary of VMS, we now also release:
- 2013-10-25:
- Stromasys.CHARON-AXP.v4.2.Build.142-01.68704122.Retail.GNU.Linux.x64.Cracked-VLF
- Stromasys.CHARON-11.v2.5.Build.117.Retail.WinALL.x86.Cracked-VLF
- As a modest, yet significant, extension to that basis foundation, with
- the inclusion of a GNU/Linux CHARON-AXP hardware emulator, delivering
- independence from Microsoft windows for AXP/VMS at least.
- Although the CHARON-11, PDP-11 hardware emulator is not on the
- critical path of the VLF project, none the less, all good VMS men
- should know what its significance is and what to do with it to
- preserve and extend the PDP-11 intellectual heritage of the Digital
- Equipment Corporation, for future generations to study.
- The CHARON-11 emulator was retired by Stromasys as of December 2006.
- The CHARON-11 emulator was liberated by the VLF as of October 2013.
- All the VLF releases can be downloaded from the Usenet Binaries
- Newsgroups:
- http://is.gd/VLF_RELEASES
- 4. Some Observations On Stromasys
- Although, to date, the majority of the VLF releases have been CHARON
- hardware emulators, that is because, firstly, we had a, sadly, finite,
- but, fortunately,substantial, mother-lode of CHARON retail installers
- and secondly because the stable, immaculate, preservation of Vernon
- mandated the most exacting hardware emulators be used. The VLF do not
- have a particular axe (neither VAX nor AXP) to grind with Stromasys,
- they are entitled to make a business from the slow, gradual death of
- the VMS installation ecology, if there is a business to be made.
- What Stromasys (or any other corporation) is not entitled to do,
- however, is to encourage the slow, gradual, death of VMS, and to
- sabotage its rebirth and renaissance, to suit their business model -
- not that we are asserting that Stromasys is, we were more thinking of
- Microsoft.
- A useful metaphor is to consider a majestic tall Redwood or a mighty,
- Yggdrasil class, Ash tree that has been ring-barked and clear-felled,
- but not totally uprooted, despite the worst of intentions. The roots
- and stump represent the VMS architecture and engineering ecology, the
- trunk and branches represent the installation ecology and the leaves
- the expertise ecology of the VMS operating system.
- The Stromasys corporate logo resembles a fungus that you might find
- growing on a cut tree trunk, feasting happily on rotting wood, doing
- what comes naturally for fungus, in accordance with Nature's laws in
- the great cycles of life - you could hardly criticise the fungus.
- The trunk stump and root system represents the evergreen "self
- regenerating" principle of the VMS architecture and engineering, ever
- ready and able to sprout a new CPU architecture trunk, well able to
- reconnect to the old, existing, trunk and branches to restore the tree
- to the vertical with full, original, vigour, if only it was not being
- starved of nutrition and water, chain-sawed, napalmed, nuked, and
- otherwise poisoned, amputated, and attenuated by various vested
- interests. HP are the legal owners and the stewards of the VMS
- intellectual property, but they do not actually command VMS asset
- management policy, which is determined by remote-control internal
- puppetry by external third parties in the considered forensic opinion
- of the VLF.
- Even the most apt and adept analogy has its limitations: Stromasys is
- not a fungus, but a for-profit corporation, which has built an
- extremely successful business on the slow death of the tree trunk of
- the historical installation base of VMS; their CHARON emulator
- technology is outstanding, no doubt about it; they probably employ the
- greatest concentration of ex-digits on the planet; they have extensive
- and deep expertise of VMS hardware and software architectures in their
- direct employment.
- The remaining VMS installation customer base are all rusted on, they
- are highly motivated, either they want to keep using VMS for part or
- all of their enterprise computing, or they have to.
- Those enterprises that have divested themselves of VMS except for
- legacy VMS applications running on CHARON virtualised hardware, would
- find it easier to cultivate and maintain human expertise, in the long
- term, for their legacy systems, if only they could deploy and
- implement VMS systems on modern hardware and CPU architectures that
- have a future for their other enterprise computing needs; if a legacy
- system isn't broken, then don't fix it, and don't migrate it; keep on
- keeping on and keep your VMS expertise gainfully employed,
- continuously practicing and deepening their VMS skills, either on the
- legacy systems or elsewhere in the enterprise.
- Given the substantial capitalisation and expertise that it has
- accumulated, Stromasys would be a logical candidate to purchase the
- VMS asset from HP; it would not contradict their existing business
- model but complement it and without veering into "business speak" the
- synergies are self-evident.
- Stromasys could make a fortune from the slow death of the VAX and AXP
- hardware with their virtualisation technologies and also make a
- fortune from the rebirth and renaissance of VMS ported to mainstream
- Intel and ARM, 32 and 64 bit CPU architectures.
- http://www.stromasys.com/about-us/
- As a first course of business, after taking ownership of the VMS
- intellectual property, Stromasys could and should, at the very least,
- for instance:
- (a) Open source VMS and the condist layered products - a logical step
- to take, particularly given the obvious business opportunities for a
- visibly trustable VMS in concert with its excellent security
- infrastructure, in a post NSA/PRISM world; whilst the source-code
- would be open, they could still market their own forked builds of VMS,
- built from their own code-repositories in their data-stores that they
- physically control. The research and development, refinement and
- evolution of VMS should never again be suppressed by the cupidity,
- stupidity or wilful mediocrity of any management regime, past, present
- or future.
- When was the last time that any serious research and development of
- VMS architecture done? - a decade ago, two decades ago? Microsoft
- operating systems are still playing catch up to where VMS was in the
- mid to late eighties; Microsoft have had a two decade head-start,
- which is more than enough time, it is high time that VMS, as a
- proprietary-hybrid returned to the stage and gave Microsoft operating
- systems a real challenge, on all CPU architectures where Microsoft
- operating systems abide.
- (b) Do a four way, simultaneous, port of VMS to Intel i386 and
- x64/AMD64 as well as ARM-32 and ARM-64; to i386 to skewer,
- conclusively, two decades of corporate dishonesty and duplicity, the
- 'Itanium Slum Scam', but also to tap the vast market of 32 bit
- computers still being used in non-first world countries - particularly
- in their government, educational and institutional sectors. VMS is
- perfectly capable of running the full spectrum of computing tiers,
- from the mainframe to the mobile phone, and all tiers in-between. In
- implementing a four way, simultaneous port, done immaculately and
- impeccably in accordance with the "VMS Way", the VMS architectural
- infrastructure will be established so that VMS portability can never
- be questioned, misrepresented or lied about ever again.
- (c) Design and market the VMS equivalent of the "Raspberry Pi" as
- multi-core ARM CPU computing units, that have two gigabit ethernet
- ports each, one for networking, the other for computer interconnect
- clustering. Such cheap and cheerful clustering lego-bricks
- (dimensioned 1 by 4 by 9, of course) would be a boon both for the
- student, the hobbyist, the computing science academy, and the IT
- departments of enterprises wishing to model, design and study large
- VMS clusters.
- (d) Re-implement an analogue of the 'VAXELN' RT/OS for Intel i386,
- x64/AMD64 and ARM-32, ARM-64, and then port all of the CHARON hardware
- emulators to it, on all of those CPU architectures. Historically,
- Stromasys or SRI (Software Resources International), ever deploying a
- CHARON on a Microsoft Windows operating system, must have been driven
- from the marketing department droids, it was certainly not based on
- any technical merit in regards to a truly reliable foundation for
- business critical legacy systems. They should have deployed all of
- their CHARONS on their own bespoke GNU/Linux from the get to, or
- deployed the obvious and logical proprietary resource of the
- outstanding QNX RT/OS.
- (e) Design and implement a VMS/VM to put Microsoft operating systems
- back in their rightful place - safe and secure, virtualised, out of
- harms way, within a VMS frame-work.
- (f) Besides supporting legacy HP hardware, establish partnerships with
- quality hardware vendors such as Lenovo; the acme and zenith of
- computing would be a Lenovo ThinkPad running VMS natively, for
- example. Stromasys would make its real money from the VMS asset in the
- provision of authentic and genuine, provably deliverable, technical
- support for BCS, business critical systems.
- Once word gets around that VMS has a real future and is again a viable
- proprietary-hybrid alternative, enterprise refugees from Microsoft
- will start to slowly, at first, but surely, trickle in and accumulate
- and the installation, applications, and expertise ecologies will start
- to repopulate and rebuild; solid income growth rings would start to
- accrete back on the trunk of the VMS tree.
- The reader may think that I have accidentally ingested one of the
- grand-children's 'health' cookies - you would be mistaken - it is the
- grounded, blue sky kite flying envisioning of a possible future that
- can be made probable either by Stromasys, or a passionate individual
- spear-heading the initiative or a consortium of the existing
- enterprise VMS users.
- One does not have to be a few opcodes short of a full instruction set
- or a few addressing modes short of orthogonality to see this
- potential.
- This has been but the shallowest of shallow shoals of envisioning, do
- not let any nay-saying straw-man timorous disingenuity of intellect
- that may arise in the mind of the reader cloud either judgement or
- imagination of what the potential is.
- 5. In Conclusion
- Although we have much more that merits saying on the subject of
- necessary and exigent VMS activism, we will leave it to another
- communique in the near future.
- We cordially and convivially remind the reader to not waste attention,
- time, and energy, criticising the VLFs strategies and methods, rather
- think of something better to do in regards to VMS activism, and to
- then go and actually do it.
- Our reasoning and logic, of course, can be constructively examined for
- possible fault; however good luck with that!
- The VMS Liberation Front, once again, thank you all, the VMS of the
- VMS, VMS Memory Stewards of the VMS Mind-share Society, the
- comp.os.vms collegiate, for your collective attention.
- Best regards,
- Subcommandante XDelta,
- p.p. Subcommandante BYPASS
- The VMS Liberation Front
- mailto:vlf@hush.com
- Manifesto: http://is.gd/VLF_MANiFESTO
- Releases: http://is.gd/VLF_RELEASES
- Communiques: http://is.gd/VLF_COMMUNiQUES
- In VMS We Trust
- $!------------------------ damn straight -------------------------!$
- $ opprobrium/level=kittens/mode=conniptions/input=VLF:/output=NL: !$
- $!------------------------- enough said --------------------------!$
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