Nah, it will live on for a long time.... But, for the
sake of discussion,
would this free up machines for us to play with? I would expect that once
it is officially dropped, folks will be avoiding them like the plague.
Mebbie that will free some up from the cloistered shadows for NetBSD use?
Bob
Actually I'm suspecting that it might have the opposite effect, make it
harder to get them, at least the decent systems. Those that still need the
systems will be searching that much harder for good used systems. Remember
not everyone can move to Alpha-based OpenVMS systems, either because of
odd-ball hardware widgets, or software that isn't available on the Alpha and
can't be VEST'd. For example, as just came up on comp.os.vms, if you're
dependent on the old VMS CAI software for some reason, you're stuck on VAX.
It'll be just like on the PDP-11 where some stuff is easy to get and no one
wants, other stuff is much sought after commerically.
Zane