Linux for "cloud computing": Request for Input

[Jon 'maddog' Hall]

Mark,

>There is still some good stuff happening with VMS, for example if you
>are an hp software partner, you can get ssh access to a virtual
>machine running OpenVMS 8.4 EFT.

I did not mean to imply that there was not "good stuff happening with
VMS"....but VMS is and was not DECnet.

Even when I was there you could see the writing on the wall for DECnet
as a protocol.  TCP/IP was available for VMS, first through Wollongong
(boy, I have not thought about them in years!) and then through DEC
itself with TCP/IP Services for VMS (then TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS,
now HP TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS).

BUT people still had LAT boxes, and wanted to use them.  And LAT boxes
did not speak TCP/IP.  So there were gateway products and such created,
both by DEC and then by others.  But the gateway products just were not
the same as "DECnet".

DECnet Linux was just another fine example of FOSS extending the life of
otherwise forgotten hardware.

I went to the HP site and found the latest version of DECnet OpenVMS
(Version 7.3).  The date on the manual was May of 1993, one year before
I met Linus.

DECnet-Plus for OpenVMS (including X.25 support) latest version is 8.3,
with a date of June 2006.

RIP DECnet Linux!

md