In message <[log in to unmask]>, Bob J. <[log in to unmask]>
writes
>> > * No plans to make SSCONFIG publicly available
>>
>> So license it to trusted third parties. Not making it available just creates
>> nightmare scenarios for HP's customers.
>
> This item is getting blown way out of proportion. If in
>the rare event that (whatever part is housing stable storage)
>fails your hardware vendor can replace the SPU. Next
>you call a few third party software vendors that use the ss
>info and get whatever key they use to lock up their product.
>That shouldn't take much effort....hardly a nightmare with just
>a little planning.
> The fact is (whatever part is housing stable storage) has proven
>to be the most reliable part of the systems.

Last Christmas (and not exactly Christmas, so it wasn't that everybody
was away), we had a hardware failure that led to the replacement of a
CPU, with the resulting change in HPSUSAN.

HP (for it was they who were supporting us) also thought the above true,
and suggested we got our 3rd party vendors to give us new keys, rather
than HP resetting the box to the old HPSUSAN.

On the third working day of attempting to follow this approach, when we
still had no 3rd party software running again, and we were getting next
to no useful work out of the box, we *demanded* that HP return and reset
the HPSUSAN. This they did, and off we went again.

And this was at a time, don't forget, when all the 3rd parties were
still in business and still in the HP3000 business to boot. As 3rd
parties drop out of the marketplace, we can only see this process
getting more arduous.

No names, no pack drill for the 'guilty' 3rd parties, but don't *ever*
try to tell anybody here that the inability to preserve an HPSUSAN is no
big deal.



--
Roy Brown        'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be
Kelmscott Ltd     useful, or believe to be beautiful'  William Morris