Well Said!

Ron - sorry for the snipping...

At 2003-09-09 04:38 PM, Ron Seybold wrote:
(snip)
>  There's no legally-binding document,
>however, and the HP document is full of statements like "HP Intends,"
>because HP's lawyers wouldn't brook anything more binding. Perhaps
>they will in the future, but there's no guarantee.

Question:  How can emulator vendors (and their potential customers) make
any commitments when HP won't give anyone more than a storm-tossed deck to
stand on?

(snip)

>Finally there's some movement to create a virtual lab of MPE experts
>under the OpenMPE aegis.

Once upon a time HP used to hire consultants to work on MPE and
hardware.  HP also used to work closely with the old Interex System
Improvement Committee (up to about 1993). I would imagine that HP would
have NDA's that could be applied to the OpenMPE virtual lab experts (and if
not, shame, shame on HP).

(snip)

Let me propose a more lasting project for OpenMPE: the access rights
>to MPE/iX source code, to be used by the members of the
>organization's vLab, with results to be shared among OpenMPE members.
>That's more important than an emulator which competes with used
>hardware for sales.

And, most importantly...

>The heart and soul of the 3000's unique value
>lies in IMAGE and MPE, not in PA-RISC hardware.

The above statement is, in my personal opinion, the reason many of us want
to continue to use MPE.  The hardware it runs on is largely irrelevant at
this point.

John
All opinions are mine and not necessarily those of my employer.