John, due to time zones differences, I have the privilege of being the first
available board member to be in the capacity to reply to your message.

While I do not wish to elaborate on the feeling of frustration exposed by
many a user/customer of HP since 11/14/01, I wish to commend the few
remaining vCSY staff members for their action. Without these people, nothing
would have been possible, and MPE would already be promised to the dust heap
of IT history. I won't name them all, but everyone knows whom I'm talking
about. Now we have a way to continue to work with customers who will not
have migrated (for any reason) after MPE's official EOL in 12/2006, and that
means these sites have a future. Such was not the case immediately after
11/14. It's a small step for us, but a giant leap for the OpenMPE Community.

That being said, the "restrictions" laid out so far are quite fewand, IMHO,
they all make sense :

1) An activation process : This is no different of most currently available
software. In fact, MPE is already restricted, by means of the famous
HPSUSAN. You may even view the requirement as a way to protect your right to
use MPE, by authenticating the licence.

2) Run MPE on an HP platform : In fact, we view this "requirement" as
relaxing the present restriction imposed on MPE. At this point (02/28/2003),
MPE can only be run on an HPe3000 platform. In the emulated version, it will
be allowed to run on ANY HP platform, not just a 3000.

As far as the emulator is concerned, we are talking of really 2 different
pieces of software : one is the PA-RISC emulator running on top of another
OS (possibly Linux), and the second one is MPE/iX itself, running on top of
the emulator. The floated $500 figure refers to the RTU for MPE/iX only. I
have no clue what a RTU for the PA-RISC emulator would be. This latter
amount would of course go to the emulator company. The question could be
validly answered by the emulator companies.

My €0.02

Christian Lheureux
Responsable du Département Systèmes et Réseaux / Head of Systems and
Networks Department
APPIC R.H.
business partner hp invent
Tel : +33-1-69-80-97-22   /   Fax : +33-1-69-80-97-14 / e-mail :
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
AIM nickname : MPE Evangelist
"Le Groupe APPIC recrute, contactez nous !"



> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : OpenMPE Support Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]]De la part de
> John Dunlop
> Envoyé : vendredi 28 février 2003 15:22
> À : [log in to unmask]
> Objet : Re: MPE/iX Licensing and Distribution for an Emulated
> Environment
>
>
> Jeff, Mark et al who are continuing the sterling work for the HP3000
> community that they have always done: Guys, please be aware
> that there are a
> lot of bitter feelings out there among the HP3000 faithful. I
> am sure that
> is not news to you but it is probably difficult for the
> majority of HP3000
> users to separate the recent(ish) management decisions at HP from the
> sincere enthusiasm for the future of MPE shown by the few CSY
> and support
> people that remain. Before the announcement, HP3000 customers
> were extremely
> loyal to HP, since the announcement, HP3000 customers are
> loyal to MPE and
> are very lacking in trust for HP. Part of the problem that I
> perceive is
> that HP is still determined to extract $$$s from the
> community that it has
> turned its back on (notice I said HP, I don't really include
> CSY under the
> HP umbrella any more). It is my opinion (based on some information I
> received) that HP will never relinquish its ownership of MPE
> and may well
> even offer some support after the published EOL of 2006.
> Therefore, it would
> appear that efforts to gain ownership of MPE are a waste of time and
> resources. I have been reading the Emulator thread with
> interest as it seems
> a promising direction , but it seems that HP is also throwing
> up obstacles
> to this enterprise. I suppose it would be too much to hope
> that HP would
> give its blessing to an Emulator without imposing
> restrictions, e.g. that it
> must be run on an HP machine, each copy to cost $500, an XP
> type activation
> process etc. I am not against paying for an Emulator but I
> think the cash
> should go to the company who produces and maintains the
> software, not to HP.
> Just my .02 Euros.
>
> Cheers,
>
> John Dunlop
>