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Comment by electroly | Hacker News Reader

VMS Software's intention in porting VMS to x86 was certainly to capture commercial sales. It was an expensive undertaking; there would be no other reason to spend the money besides expecting to recoup it in sales. The whole company's existence is because of the existing commercial customer base. They acquired the rights to VMS from HPE with the expectation that they'd make money with it. They have a press release talking about all the support contracts they inherited from HPE.

The real question is: what do they get out of offering a hobbyist license? I honestly don't think they get anything and it's just a nice gesture of goodwill. Nobody is going to pick up the hobbyist VMS license and then decide to adopt VMS at work. I bet it doesn't lead to a single extra commercial sale. It's nice that they're offering it despite that.

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> Nobody is going to pick up the hobbyist VMS license and then decide to adopt VMS at work. I bet it doesn't lead to a single extra commercial sale. It's nice that they're offering it despite that.

While I think you're probably right, having the hobbyist x86 option might help with testing and identifying bugs though, due to the larger user base.

> The real question is: what do they get out of offering a hobbyist license?

Commoditize your complements: If you sell VMS software, it stands to reason you would like there to be people who know how to use it. Even better if you don’t have to pay the train them.

Tons of people know how to use Linux because you can just download a distro and start using it… It’s the same reason MS and Cisco have all those certificate programs.

I never understood why IBM didn’t make a hobbyist version of their mainframe OSes for Hercules.

> The real question is: what do they get out of offering a hobbyist license?

I think part of it is hoping to encourage open-source software ports over to OpenVMS.

This same kind of short term thinking is what doomed VMS and UNIX in the first place, and why we use Linux for such things now.

Yes, I know. Linux already having won is my point. The window for VMS's mainstream relevance ended decades ago. New companies won't be adopting VMS today no matter how many free hobbyist licenses you offer. It's just not going to happen. So VMS in 2023 exists to service the existing customer base. We're way past the point where VMS can hope to roll up to the commercial level at new companies by offering free licenses to a few scrappy hobbyists. Decades ago that could have worked. Today the landscape is different.

VSI knows all of this, of course. I really don't think they intend to compete with Linux in 2023 with hobbyist licenses. That was never in the cards.

I think there's room out there for "weird" OSs... but I do agree that a "hobbyist license" doesn't cut it this late in the game.

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