Gavin writes:

>
> Jeff writes:
> > 1. Will the version(s) of MPE that runs on the emulator include
> > crippling code? If so, will it be possible to upgrade the license
> > to get a fully performant version of MPE? If not, GREAT!.
>
> There would be no effective "crippling code" when running MPE on an
> emulator.  Besides having to go out of one's way to enable
> "crippling" on an
> emulator, it would be a silly concept since any emulator will
> be slow enough
> on its own without needing any help :-)
>
<--- big snip --->

Excellent questions all.

And, questions that need to be answered sooner rather than later. I would
like HP to put a date to when it will announce licensing provisions. The
pressure of having a due date tends to allow one to brush aside the
unimportant and think more clearly about what is truly important. No serious
work will be done on an emulator until these questions are answered.

Several people have raised the issue of license transfer and proof of
license. I agree this is important and will become increasingly so as more
and more machines fall off support (the  "easy" way to "prove" you have a
valid license). The license transfer process has been one of the great
mysteries about the HP 3000 and suggests HP does not have records of the
HPSUSAN's it has created. The current system is horribly flawed and must be
addressed.

Other questions:

When will this whole license transfer and new license creation process
start? HP must commit to a schedule if any work on an emulator is to start.

What will be the delivery mechanism? I would prefer to see CD-ROM because of
all the obvious problems associated with using tape.

And now for the more philosophical/legal questions. What exactly do we get
by going through this entire process of transferring or buying an MPE
license after 10/31/2003? What is to prevent someone from building (and
selling) a PA-RISC emulator with no strings attached if he thinks there is a
market? I suspect that what little is not known about running MPE (or HP-UX)
on PA-RISC hardware could be reverse engineered and added to an emulator. In
which case, if you already have a copy of MPE, why should you care whether
HP approves your use of it? If we represent such a miniscule market, is HP
going to marshal all its legal muscle to go after us? I doubt it.

I have a fully licensed copy of MPE that I run on one machine. Why should I
pay HP anything to replace that one old PA-RISC machine with an emulator
running on new hardware? Why should I pay HP anything when it created the
situation where I have a legal version of MPE that will not run on my
legally licensed HP 3000 (you can see it btw at www.burke-consulting.com)
because HP thought it could goose up revenue by artificially obsolescing
whole classes of systems? And, while I'm at it, HP did not care a wit about
its fiercely loyal customer base when it cavalierly killed the HP 3000, so
why should I care about any of the niceties surrounding licensure? Why
indeed?

John Burke