I wonder, if you get from VSI an Alpha or Itanium license file for OpenVMS, would OpenVMS for VAX accept the same license file?
People long ago cracked the license key generation for OpenVMS. (Plus, there are various leaked license files floating around, including non-expiring perpetual licenses.) The OpenVMS hobbyist community has always opposed doing that – there is no reason to do that when there is a legal method to run OpenVMS, and there was a concern it would damage relations with HPE thereby threatening the future of the hobbyist program. But, if there stops being any legal way to run OpenVMS on VAX, I wonder if the community attitude would change on that topic?