We are excited to announce the availability of VSI OpenVMS E9.2 for x86-64, field test version of the upcoming V9.2 release. This is the next step in the journey to migrate OpenVMS to the x86-64 platform. The E9.2 release allows you to use the operating system with some of the most commonly-used hypervisors and includes a host of newly migrated applications.
VSI has been porting OpenVMS to x86-64 for a while now, and it seems they’re getting quite close to general availability. E9.2 is focused on x86 hypervisors, and the porting effort as a whole should provide a future upgrade path for VMS users for a long time to come.
It’s taking them forever. I wonder what the use case is for this system at this point, other than deep legacy applications.
While OpenVMS is a great operating system, it has seen its day. Beyond the legacy installed base, I can’t see many new installations as the result of this. If it had moved 20 years ago to x86 it might have competed for the non-desktop market more strongly, but that ship sailed. They should move to the same model Red Hat has taken in the past with Linux and create both a commercial supported product like RHEL, and a community supported version like Centos. Locking the OS and tools behind corporate licenses might gain some initial revenue, but I believe it will be at the expense of any future growth.
This is interesting, but let us be honest. It will stay a niche market, and has less potential than many newer operating systems. I would expect even ReactOS or Haiku having a brighter future.
Why? Because it now competes directly with Linux today. And it already failed to compete against UNIX of the past.
If you don’t already have legacy code running on VMS, why would you choose it over any of the alternatives?
The company seems to have bought the software and support contracts from HP regarding VMS.
So I assume their business model revolves around keeping most of those support contracts for as long as possible. And since Intanium/Alpha/VAX have gone the way of the dodo, that HW is becoming harder and harder to source. Which makes business nervous. So by having a straight path for the software to run on x86 HW unmodified, they can renew those contracts for a while more.
Yes, that’s most certainly the business model – and also why this is a slow endeavor I assume (low resources). But it’s not a growth market at all, which is why I suggested that there should be some enthusiast path as a secondary goal, once the primary one has been met. It won’t ever be competitive, but it would be a nice gesture to preserve some history.
There used to be a hobbyist program for VMS, right? I remember playing with it when I was in college and we got one of the alphas from our lab to play with at home. Is that still a thing?
I could not find it on their page.
Even Delphi decided to offer a free version again (though highly limited):
https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter
If they have no more “hobby” edition used by students today, I see no future for them when those students become professionals.