Licences for VAX

[mjimji]

I have a friend who may be about to buy a VAX. It is apparently working but doesn't have licences. Does anyone know if there is any way of getting licences for it?

[arne_v]

This is not easy.

The situation to my best knowledge is:
* VSI cannot sell you a license for a non-VSI VMS version and there is no VSI VMS for VAX
* HPE does not sell new VMS licenses any more
* if you find someone with a valid VMS VAX license then you still need HPE to approve the transfer (and it may turn out to be impossible to find the right person in HPE to do that)

The only known way to my best knowledge is you buy one from HPE finance/leasing department. They supposedly get VMS VAX licenses back when old hardware is returned and has figured out that they can make money by selling the license (and because it is HPE then it is legal).

[sms]

Code: Select all

> I have a friend who may be about to buy a VAX. [...]

   Are we talking about a hobbyist, or a business, or what?

> [...] any way of getting licences for it?

   For VMS (et al.) not some other OS?  (You don't need a license for
the hardware.)

   Actual licenses might be hard to obtain, and/or expensive.  If you --
sorry, your "friend" -- would be satisfied with illicit PAKs, then
you/he/she might study a recent comp.os.vms discussion:

      https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.vms/c/ordFMsxo2sg

   As always, "license" and "PAK" are spelled differently for a reason.

[mjimji]

Thanks both, for answering my question - again

Yes, it's for hobbyist use. Yes, for VMS. Yes, it really is for a friend