Discussion:
VSI OpenVMS Webinar 6th June 2024 online
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John H. Reinhardt
2024-06-14 14:52:01 UTC
Permalink


Simon's gonna love the timeline on this.

Camiel is firmly in charge of the OpenVMS direction.

VMSClusters in the cloud in 2026

No mention of Hobbyists or the Ambassador program.

Norm Lastovica of SCI (Software Concepts International) talks about migration to x86
--
John H. Reinhardt
Single Stage to Orbit
2024-06-14 15:05:57 UTC
Permalink
Post by John H. Reinhardt
No mention of Hobbyists or the Ambassador program.
:-(
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens
Marc Van Dyck
2024-06-16 10:37:22 UTC
Permalink
Post by John H. Reinhardt
http://youtu.be/JDzZ91MzZfo
Simon's gonna love the timeline on this.
Camiel is firmly in charge of the OpenVMS direction.
VMSClusters in the cloud in 2026
No mention of Hobbyists or the Ambassador program.
Norm Lastovica of SCI (Software Concepts International) talks about migration to x86
It seems that, from this presentation, VSI purchased Polycenter
products
back from Broadcom. They only mentioned Watchdog but I think the 3
other
products are in the deal too. What they want to do with that is still
totally unknown. Port of Watchdog to X86 most unlikely as it is all
written in ADA...
--
Marc Van Dyck
Chris Townley
2024-06-16 10:44:15 UTC
Permalink
Post by John H. Reinhardt
http://youtu.be/JDzZ91MzZfo
Simon's gonna love the timeline on this.
Camiel is firmly in charge of the OpenVMS direction.
   VMSClusters in the cloud in 2026
No mention of Hobbyists or the Ambassador program.
Norm Lastovica of SCI (Software Concepts International) talks about migration to x86
It seems that, from this presentation, VSI purchased Polycenter products
back from Broadcom. They only mentioned Watchdog but I think the 3 other
products are in the deal too. What they want to do with that is still
totally unknown. Port of Watchdog to X86 most unlikely as it is all
written in ADA...
What is the state of Gnat on VMS?
--
Chris
Arne Vajhøj
2024-06-16 12:27:27 UTC
Permalink
Post by Chris Townley
Post by John H. Reinhardt
http://youtu.be/JDzZ91MzZfo
Simon's gonna love the timeline on this.
Camiel is firmly in charge of the OpenVMS direction.
   VMSClusters in the cloud in 2026
No mention of Hobbyists or the Ambassador program.
Norm Lastovica of SCI (Software Concepts International) talks about migration to x86
It seems that, from this presentation, VSI purchased Polycenter products
back from Broadcom. They only mentioned Watchdog but I think the 3 other
products are in the deal too. What they want to do with that is still
totally unknown. Port of Watchdog to X86 most unlikely as it is all
written in ADA...
What is the state of Gnat on VMS?
ACT dropped VMS support in 2015.

For what is available then to my understanding:

Alpha : very old 3.12.8 (based on GCC 2.8.1)

Itanium : see https://github.com/AdaLabs/gnat-vms

x86-86 : nothing

Arne
Arne Vajhøj
2024-06-16 12:43:46 UTC
Permalink
Post by Arne Vajhøj
Post by Chris Townley
Post by John H. Reinhardt
http://youtu.be/JDzZ91MzZfo
Simon's gonna love the timeline on this.
Camiel is firmly in charge of the OpenVMS direction.
   VMSClusters in the cloud in 2026
No mention of Hobbyists or the Ambassador program.
Norm Lastovica of SCI (Software Concepts International) talks about migration to x86
It seems that, from this presentation, VSI purchased Polycenter products
back from Broadcom. They only mentioned Watchdog but I think the 3 other
products are in the deal too. What they want to do with that is still
totally unknown. Port of Watchdog to X86 most unlikely as it is all
written in ADA...
What is the state of Gnat on VMS?
ACT dropped VMS support in 2015.
Alpha : very old 3.12.8 (based on GCC 2.8.1)
That should be available from many places.

But if you can't find it then I have a copy.
Post by Arne Vajhøj
Itanium : see https://github.com/AdaLabs/gnat-vms
x86-86 : nothing
Arne
Chris Townley
2024-06-16 13:02:59 UTC
Permalink
Post by Arne Vajhøj
Post by Arne Vajhøj
Post by Chris Townley
Post by John H. Reinhardt
http://youtu.be/JDzZ91MzZfo
Simon's gonna love the timeline on this.
Camiel is firmly in charge of the OpenVMS direction.
   VMSClusters in the cloud in 2026
No mention of Hobbyists or the Ambassador program.
Norm Lastovica of SCI (Software Concepts International) talks about
migration to x86
It seems that, from this presentation, VSI purchased Polycenter products
back from Broadcom. They only mentioned Watchdog but I think the 3 other
products are in the deal too. What they want to do with that is still
totally unknown. Port of Watchdog to X86 most unlikely as it is all
written in ADA...
What is the state of Gnat on VMS?
ACT dropped VMS support in 2015.
Alpha : very old 3.12.8 (based on GCC 2.8.1)
That should be available from many places.
But if you can't find it then I have a copy.
Post by Arne Vajhøj
Itanium : see https://github.com/AdaLabs/gnat-vms
x86-86 : nothing
Arne
Thanks. I had DEC Ada on VMS 7.3 on AXP

I just wondered how difficult it would be to port Gnat to VMS. The Ada
community seem to have lots of offerings - why not VMS X86?
--
Chris
Craig A. Berry
2024-06-16 15:07:37 UTC
Permalink
Post by Chris Townley
Post by Arne Vajhøj
Post by Arne Vajhøj
Post by Chris Townley
Post by John H. Reinhardt
http://youtu.be/JDzZ91MzZfo
Simon's gonna love the timeline on this.
Camiel is firmly in charge of the OpenVMS direction.
   VMSClusters in the cloud in 2026
No mention of Hobbyists or the Ambassador program.
Norm Lastovica of SCI (Software Concepts International) talks
about migration to x86
It seems that, from this presentation, VSI purchased Polycenter products
back from Broadcom. They only mentioned Watchdog but I think the 3 other
products are in the deal too. What they want to do with that is still
totally unknown. Port of Watchdog to X86 most unlikely as it is all
written in ADA...
What is the state of Gnat on VMS?
ACT dropped VMS support in 2015.
Alpha : very old 3.12.8 (based on GCC 2.8.1)
That should be available from many places.
But if you can't find it then I have a copy.
Post by Arne Vajhøj
Itanium : see https://github.com/AdaLabs/gnat-vms
x86-86 : nothing
Arne
Thanks. I had DEC Ada on VMS 7.3 on AXP
I just wondered how difficult it would be to port Gnat to VMS. The Ada
community seem to have lots of offerings - why not VMS X86?
gnat-llvm may be the best chance of getting Ada on OpenVMS x86:

https://github.com/AdaCore/gnat-llvm

But there are a lot of gotchas. It requires a prior installation of
GNAT, which likely means a cross-compile environment, and LLVM 16+,
whereas I think current VMS x86 compilers are based on something much
older currently. All of that could change eventually.
Single Stage to Orbit
2024-06-16 15:03:20 UTC
Permalink
Post by Chris Townley
Thanks. I had DEC Ada on VMS 7.3 on AXP
I just wondered how difficult it would be to port Gnat to VMS. The
Ada community seem to have lots of offerings - why not VMS X86?
Yes, that'd be ideal.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens
Arne Vajhøj
2024-06-16 17:44:21 UTC
Permalink
Post by Chris Townley
I just wondered how difficult it would be to port Gnat to VMS. The Ada
community seem to have lots of offerings - why not VMS X86?
Given that:
* Gnat is a big piece of software
* It is many versions back since it supported VMS
* Besides Gnat itself there may also be missing supporting
software
then it is definitely non-trivial.

I suspect that the french that did the VMS Itanium port will
be better to quantify the work. 500 hours? 5000 hours? Or?

With the bad tradition in the VMS world the last 25 years
of being very interested in getting free stuff but not being
interested in contributing, then I don't see it happen.

Arne
Single Stage to Orbit
2024-06-16 20:56:53 UTC
Permalink
Post by Arne Vajhøj
Post by Chris Townley
I just wondered how difficult it would be to port Gnat to VMS. The
Ada community seem to have lots of offerings - why not VMS X86?
* Gnat is a big piece of software
* It is many versions back since it supported VMS
* Besides Gnat itself there may also be missing supporting software
then it is definitely non-trivial.
I suspect that the french that did the VMS Itanium port will
be better to quantify the work. 500 hours? 5000 hours? Or?
With the bad tradition in the VMS world the last 25 years
of being very interested in getting free stuff but not being
interested in contributing, then I don't see it happen.
LLVM has never supported VMS so unless VSI contributes open source
patches back to the LLVM folks for their compiliers, it ain't
happening.

GNU C/C++ might be easier to port, and entirely possible to cross
compile ADA for VMS via amd64.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens
Craig A. Berry
2024-06-16 22:51:19 UTC
Permalink
Post by Single Stage to Orbit
Post by Arne Vajhøj
Post by Chris Townley
I just wondered how difficult it would be to port Gnat to VMS. The
Ada community seem to have lots of offerings - why not VMS X86?
* Gnat is a big piece of software
* It is many versions back since it supported VMS
* Besides Gnat itself there may also be missing supporting software
then it is definitely non-trivial.
I suspect that the french that did the VMS Itanium port will
be better to quantify the work. 500 hours? 5000 hours? Or?
With the bad tradition in the VMS world the last 25 years
of being very interested in getting free stuff but not being
interested in contributing, then I don't see it happen.
LLVM has never supported VMS so unless VSI contributes open source
patches back to the LLVM folks for their compiliers, it ain't
happening.
All of the existing OpenVMS x86 native compilers are based on LLVM. VSI
folks have expressed an intention to send a couple of new features that
they needed back upstream, and also to bring their own port current with
more recent LLVM releases. They may well have to do the latter before
they can do the former. But obviously their priority for the foreseeable
future will be stable and reliable releases of their own compilers that
will enable existing customers to move to x86.
Post by Single Stage to Orbit
GNU C/C++ might be easier to port, and entirely possible to cross
compile ADA for VMS via amd64.
Easier than what? Easier than LLVM, which has already been ported?
There have been ports of GCC for VMS, but not targeting x86 that I'm
aware of.
Arne Vajhøj
2024-06-16 23:39:36 UTC
Permalink
Post by Single Stage to Orbit
Post by Arne Vajhøj
Post by Chris Townley
I just wondered how difficult it would be to port Gnat to VMS. The
Ada community seem to have lots of offerings - why not VMS X86?
* Gnat is a big piece of software
* It is many versions back since it supported VMS
* Besides Gnat itself there may also be missing supporting software
then it is definitely non-trivial.
I suspect that the french that did the VMS Itanium port will
be better to quantify the work. 500 hours? 5000 hours? Or?
With the bad tradition in the VMS world the last 25 years
of being very interested in getting free stuff but not being
interested in contributing, then I don't see it happen.
LLVM has never supported VMS so unless VSI contributes open source
patches back to the LLVM folks for their compiliers, it ain't
happening.
All of the existing OpenVMS x86 native compilers are based on LLVM.  VSI
folks have expressed an intention to send a couple of new features that
they needed back upstream, and also to bring their own port current with
more recent LLVM releases. They may well have to do the latter before
they can do the former. But obviously their priority for the foreseeable
future will be stable and reliable releases of their own compilers that
will enable existing customers to move to x86.
VMS should release the VMS patches for LLVM. VSI probably will
release the VMS patches for LLVM. But it may take a few years.

Meaning a few years before the Gnat-LLVM for VMS work could start. But
I don't think it matters - I don't see the VMS community lift a task
in this magnitude.
Post by Single Stage to Orbit
GNU C/C++ might be easier to port, and entirely possible to cross
compile ADA for VMS via amd64.
Easier than what?  Easier than LLVM, which has already been ported?
There have been ports of GCC for VMS, but not targeting x86 that I'm
aware of.
In theory OS and ISA should be independent.

In the real world there may be some issues.

:-)

Arne
Lawrence D'Oliveiro
2024-06-16 23:53:31 UTC
Permalink
With the bad tradition in the VMS world the last 25 years of being very
interested in getting free stuff but not being interested in
contributing ...
That’s true everywhere. The GPL helps discourage that.
Arne Vajhøj
2024-06-17 00:00:48 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
With the bad tradition in the VMS world the last 25 years of being very
interested in getting free stuff but not being interested in
contributing ...
That’s true everywhere. The GPL helps discourage that.
No.

The problem is not that the VMS community does not want to
contribute their work back to upstream.

The problem is that (large part of) the VMS community does not
want to contribute work at all.

Arne

Lawrence D'Oliveiro
2024-06-16 23:52:09 UTC
Permalink
Post by Marc Van Dyck
Port of Watchdog to X86 most unlikely as it is all
written in ADA...
GNAT (GNU Ada) is available for a lot of platforms, including x86
<https://gcc.gnu.org/install/specific.html>.
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