21 May
2003
21 May
'03
12:45 p.m.
A friend of a friend offered me what he says is a
complete
set of OpenVMS media. No manuals, just the media.
For free as in beer?
From what I
understand, isn't there some type of hobbyist
free license
for
openvms? If so, not sure why I should grab the media from him
if I can just download it. Or is there a value to getting the
media from him, as to it giving me the ability to purchase a
license transfer or something... in short, is there a special
reason getting "real" media is desirable?
You are allowed to get the media any way you like. Someone can
give it to you, you can copy someone's distribution or you
can order it from the above people (for some reasonable cost).
Or you can order it from HP for commercial rates :-)
Just about the only thing you cannot do is offer them for
public download (and hence you should not be able to find them
this way).
Lastly... he said it runs on vax's and pdp's.
Not sure if he
knows what he's talking about, so I'll ask here. Could this
run on my 11/44?
No. It will run on either your VAXen or your Alphas (or both,
if you get both sets of distributions). Note that the
CONDIST (consolidated distribution?) contains the OS and
a few integrated products (clustering, networking etc.).
This is one or two CDs for VAX and the same for Alpha
(there is a separate CONDIST for each).
The layered products are on the CONOLD (I forget what
that stands for). That used to be a set of 11 CDs for
VAX issued quarterly. That's probably down to 6 or less
by now. There is a corresponding Alpha CONOLD but I
have no idea how many CDs that is.
Given that he thinks it runs on PDPs, you should make
sure that you know exactly which CDs you are getting;
especially if any form of consideration is changing
hands. They should be fairly clearly marked (VAX or
Alpha, "Binary" or "Software Product Library" and
they should also indicate a month/year and
CD number if the set.
Antonio
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Antonio Carlini arcarlini(a)iee.org