Ron,
Very articulate. It is clear to see why you are in the
profession you are in. Your posting cuts right to the heart of the
current QuickPoll on the web site. We have tried to go in a few
directions with mixed results and reactions. We (the OpenMPE Board)
believe we are trying to do what we were elected to do and we are being
as open with the community as the situation will allow us. Having said
that, we want more concrete indications from the membership about what
they want our time spent on. The debate and discussion here in the list
is great and I encourage everybody to participate (in a constructive
way), but we also need you to complete the QuickPoll. If you don't
recall your membership number there is a means through the membership
page to send a query to find it.
Thanx,
Jon Backus
-----Original Message-----
From: OpenMPE Support Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Ron Seybold
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 4:38 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [OPENMPE] ComputerWorld Article: Interviews
Hello Friends:
We're interested in what Patrick at Computerworld will be writing about
the 3000 transition, but that will depend on who he can reach who wants
to be quoted.
Ken said, "We want to tell the straight story" about OpenMPE.
What is the straight story? On the face of it, the organization has
advocated and negotiated a helpful agreement with HP about
emulator-based MPE licenses. 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.
And now there's been talk at last month's HP World of a fundraising
drive for the organization, although Jon's comments in the HP World
session seem to be the only mention of the drive -- I can't find
anything about fundraising on the Web site.
Finally there's some movement to create a virtual lab of MPE experts
under the OpenMPE aegis. Members have heard of no budget, no roster of
experts announced, or a timetable for projects.
The emulator project, from all we can gather right now, is either:
1. Only being pondered by one SW vendor, Allegro;
2. Being coded as a prototype which might appear this fall, but not
for sale anytime soon by another SW vendor, SRI;
3. Being pursued as a project thoroughly independent of OpenMPE by
Strobe Data, as a hardware card product. (We have a lengthy interview
with Strobe's founder Willard West coming up in the October NewsWire
issue.)
Members were surveyed in the spring about how many emulators they might
buy. And then there's those "every two weeks" phone calls between Jon
and Mike Paivinen.
What I'd like to know is this: Why is OpenMPE not an advocacy
organization for homesteading on the HP 3000? If it cannot make a
business case for this strategy, why does the organization exist?
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.
The heart and soul of the 3000's unique value lies in IMAGE and MPE, not
in PA-RISC hardware.
--
Ron Seybold, Editor In Chief
The 3000 NewsWire
Independent Information to Maximize Your HP 3000
http://www.3000newswire.com 512.331.0075 -- [log in to unmask]
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