I believe OpenMPE and these Emulator discussions very quickly devolved into
an HP Placebo.  Who needs an emulator when there's plenty of used hardware
lying in 3rd party warehouses, now being sold for pennies on the dollar?
First things first, please:  If OpenMPE were really seeking, and HP were to
really release MPE to Open Source, _competing_ emulators would simply appear
- economic feasiblility wouldn't be a question, as MPE's popularity would
soar (assuming MPE's really as great as we all think it is), probably
evolving into something outwardly visible as 'mpesh'.

'Anonymous' wrote off-list and I agree:
"MPE is no Longer an HP Asset...it is a legal Liability.  All the rhetoric
is to defer legal discussions until the User population is too small to
react.  Once the large corporate users have "volunteered" to "upgrade",
Homesteaders become squatters.

"In anticipation.......Each of you should send HP "Legal" a letter
advising of your decision to qualify as a "Self Maintainer" as defined
under the IBM Consent decree.  This requires HP to provide you with all
service manuals and diagnostics (incl SSCONFIG) to maintain your system."

That sure makes a lot more sense than 99% of the gibberish we've been
hearing about an emulator and 'just trust us' and 3rd party license
non-issues.  It makes me sad to see wasted all the excellent CSY efforts
that have gone into merging the good parts of ux into mpe (and thus nearly
the good of mpe onto ux) only to have it all scrapped with true marriage on
the horizon.


PS for a change I disagree with Wirt just a bit:  Instead of

"The emulator is dead, and thus the future of MPE is dead, and two agencies
have killed it: HP and OpenMPE. Of the two, I blame OpenMPE the most."

my take is a bit more like:

"Without Open Source, the future of MPE is dead, thus the emulator is dead,
too."  re the two agencies, the secrecy bit has made them one and the same.

Tracy Pierce