No.  No.  No.  If MPE had been able to compete fairly to begin with, it
would have flourished.  If it is chained to HP it will die.  Why has UNIX
gained so much market share over the years?  Why did Apple, with probably
the best operating system ever written for a personal computer (for ease of
use and reliability) not beat Microsoft?  Why has Linux grown so rapidly?
Why have proprietary operating systems all but died out?  This should be
clear.  Times have changed.  Hardware is a commodity, and unless you have
better reliability or price, you lose.  People don't buy a particular
vendor's hardware because of the software it will run.  Software is to be
free to move from one hardware vendor to another, or nobody is going to
write it.  If you control MPE, it will die a slow death.  Open it up, it
will eventually win.  I believe that installations using MPE would actually
increase in number.  It is a very reliable, stable, efficient, powerful
operating system.  But, if it is controlled too much, it will die.  Maybe
slowly, but it will die, never the less.

HP should receive royalties for MPE.  Every copy.  I won't deny that.
They've earned it.  But the limits HP is putting on MPE will cause software
purveyors to go elsewhere.  Many have already jumped ship.  Without fresh
offerings in software, any platform will die.  HP is not going to kill MPE
this way... it will cut its arms off and let it bleed to death on its own,
saying that it would have died anyway.  If a reasonable royalty for every
copy were granted HP, they could have an increasing revenue stream from MPE,
without having to support it in any way.  Not a bad way to end a product
line, IMO.

(Not necessarily the opinion of my employer).

Michael Snead


                -----Original Message-----
                From:   Mark Klein [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
                Sent:   Tuesday, October 01, 2002 10:11 AM
                To:     [log in to unmask]
                Subject:        Re: PA-RISC Emulator

                On 30 Sep 2002 at 11:28, Ron Seybold wrote:

                > It's not clear why HP wants to retain its hand in a market
that it is
                > moving away from, but things like the emulator's MPE
license needing
                > HP hardware seem to prove that's the position HP is taking
for now.

                I think that many people are really missing the significance
of this.

                HP has decided to exit the MPE business. They could very
well have
                said "no" to any licensing arrangements, period. MPE is dead
...
                there is nothing to see here ... move along.

                But, they have agreed in principle to put a mechanism into
place to
                allow the creation of NEW MPE licenses after they exit the
business.
                Without that, MPE is dead. With that, there is the
possibility that
                MPE can live on for those that want it.

                We gotta crawl before we can walk ... walk before we can
run. The
                agreements on the "Gang of 6", have not dropped a wall in
front of
                us, but may in fact have helped us to start the walking
phase. It
                ain't perfect, but it is better than the alternative. Now,
lets spend
                our engergy in favorable fashion and try to move this
process along,
                instead of complaining about it.

                Regards,


                M.




                --
                Mark Klein
                http://www.dis.com
                PGP Key Available