INFO-VAX Sat, 17 May 2008 Volume 2008 : Issue 275 Contents: Re: OT: lost Re: OT: lost So who's running VMS anyway? Re: VMS equivalent of Unix su (was Account creation) Re: VMS equivalent of Unix su (was Account creation) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 17 May 2008 17:36:10 +0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Markus_D=F6hr?= Subject: Re: OT: lost Message-ID: <482EFB6A.6010201@t-online.de> IanMiller wrote: > nil carborundum illegitimi Noli nothis permittere te terere. :) -- Markus ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 May 2008 17:36:48 +0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Markus_D=F6hr?= Subject: Re: OT: lost Message-ID: <482EFB90.3020708@t-online.de> IanMiller wrote: > nil carborundum illegitimi Noli nothis permittere te terere. :) -- Markus ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 May 2008 22:00:48 +0800 From: "Richard Maher" Subject: So who's running VMS anyway? Message-ID: Hi, Over the years I've had occasion to become a tad concerned about the level of ineptitude-driven insecurity being experienced by your average HP/VMS management apparatchik. Now, they certainly would not be alone in the quest for a yogi, a maharishi, or a memphis-meltdown life coach, to abrogate their responsibilities to, but the extent to which several of them have come under the influence of various industry Svengalis has given me cause for much consternation. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy to hear what any "industry expert" has to say, it's just that I'd much rather hear it from the organ-grinder himself rather than after being regurgitated through the prism of any monkeys, lackeys, or minions, that may be scattered throughout HP/VMS. So it was with some enthusiasm, nay relief, that I greeted the news of Eric Newcomer's forthcoming keynote address to the VMS Bootcamp. So I looked up the Bootcamp agenda hoping to see if his keynote address would be broaching such issues as "Web Services - Ten years of a failed technology; where next?" but I couldn't find anything. Then I came across Eric's blogg under IONA's *"Thought Leadership"* section at: - http://blogs.iona.com/newcomer/archives/000564.html but was a bit surprised not to see any proud mention of the "OpenVMS Bootcamp" in the list of upcoming conferences at which he will be speaking. Anyway, I'm sure that was just a simple oversight. What's important is the substance of what he has to say and what influence, if any, it may have on ex-colleagues, friends, and compatriots on the starship VMS. And just when you think you've seen all this IT industry has to offer (us if not so much the customers), you get slapped in the face by something truly remarkable - "Middleware for Middleware"! Not only do they have to buy middleware so that their disparate and/or heterogeneous systems can talk to each other, they have to purchase further software (or perhaps smack-bang-ware) 'cos the first lot of interoperability claims were all bullshit and never gonna work anyway. Look, I must have misunderstood this, so if someone attends Eric's talk could they please come back and advise later. But hold on, maybe the idea has merit. This "universal adapter" (or perhaps "Enterprise Service Bus"? - Now where have I heard that before? Spooky! Presumably any name other than a "hub" as that would be all a bit Tibco(ish) with its bollocks ODBC adapters) may soon have real application in the VMS arena. With VMS Middle Management now actively supporting the port of gSOAP to VMS, just as "the first production release" of WSIT hits the shelves, their customers are going to need some middleware-for-middleware to rosetta-stone the ideosyncracies. Then there's the GlassFish port, that'll be coming on stream, as soon as gSOAP approaches a deliverable, and this universal-adapter stuff is becoming critical! My God, how did we ever live without it? We have the solution; the IMM team have just been a bit slow in shipping us the problem. (And then in another couple of years we can come up with a "kernel-disambiguator" codename "Tannoy" or "middleware-for-middleware-for-middleware"?) Yep, this ideas got legs alright! If I was counselling Ann McQuaid I'd be sorely tempted to advise her to provide a few million in seed money for a VMS port of Artix. But, I'm not picking on Eric or IONA, let's not leave Tibco out, their market capitalization and customer-base appear to be a lot bigger but I don't see why we still shouldn't slip'em a couple of mill loose change to bring ActiveMatrix onboard to Rendezvous HUBlike with our Universal Adapters. But why stop there? I'd also recommend setting up several HP/VMS Web Services - "Centres of excellence" in say several geographical regions. Nowhere in particular, but for the sake of argument let's say, um, plucking something random, um, Dublin, Munich and Christchurch? Honestly, you all make me bloody sick! If you didn't laugh, you'd cry :-( Can not one of you pricks pause long enough to stop and ask the VMS client-base what *they* want? Or does your arrogance, predilection for "Thought Leadership", and unwillingness to cut your losses on a failed architecture, prevent you from even countenancing an alternate point of view? Here's a news flash for Ann McQuaid, if she ever makes it out of the HP/VMS ashram, *"It's called RIA!"* and you can find out all about it at one or two places including http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Internet_application the "I" in RIA stands for Internet (something that one or two people are using these days to conduct business ma'am) Please point me at the HP/VMS websites exhibiting RIA and their accompanying tutorials! Please tell me who any long suffering VMS customer goes to, to get his applications on the web! Please tell me in what year the last Java Client GUI was developed (in the world) as I haven't see nor heard of one in years! Please tell me why, when Mark Daniel has the Web Server performance stats, and JFP has the Python, MySQL, django ports, and Tier3 Software has provided one of the few publicly accessible RIA/VMS examples, what the fuck it is exactly that your employees do! Ann McQuaid said: - [We will also continue to enhance OpenVMS for the HP Integrity and AlphaServer platforms with new HP Integrity systems; storage performance and connectivity; performance and scalability; the integration of industry standards around security, integration software, Web Services, Java, and UNIX®/Linux® interoperability; and virtualization capabilities.] So, you bet the farm on Web Services; so did many others. But coming back, Gartneresque, year after year saying *this* is the year they'll take off is like someone still holding dotBOMB shares and expecting them to come good, or when you keep sending money to that Nigerian Prince so that when he turns up in the US he can repay you ten-fold. It just ain't gonna happen! Learn to let go! Even Tibco have come up with something Ajax like the General Interface so they can cash in - What are you waiting for??? Regards Richard Maher PS. Speaking of shares, it's amazing what one can glean from the NASDAQ website! When I was trying to track down Eric and IONA I stumbled across ISE.IE and NASDAQ.COM and had a look at the share-price to see what sort of industry-leader gets invited to give keynote speaches at a VMS BootCamp. To be honest I was a bit under-awed with the stock chart for the last 12 months (couldn't find any cause for the Jan08 rally; any ideas?) and the chart for the last 10 years was a real eye-opener! You can also find out who's selling their share-options when they mature (even if they're in itty-bitty bundles). You can compare IONA to TIBCO to IBM to the NASDAQ overall index and even HP. The good (or bad) news is that HP shares look to be over-performing the market like a company posessed. No need to change anything there; the market loves them. Let me add here that I'm a novice at stock charts and for all I know IONA have split their stock every six months for the last 10 years and their market capitalization has actually increased exponentially - who knows? The charts are there if anyone's interested. PPS. Here's a tip for the customers out there. I've got another universal-adapter; it's called a "Socket" and they come free with pretty much every computer or network appliance that you buy. Could be worth looking into? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 May 2008 09:25:26 +0200 From: "Martin Vorlaender" Subject: Re: VMS equivalent of Unix su (was Account creation) Message-ID: Richard B. Gilbert wrote: > bradhamilton wrote: >> JF Mezei wrote: >>> And what do you use "su" for ? To do management tasks that your >>> user doesn't have privileges for. >> >> My apologies in advance for pedantry, but doesn't "su" allow you >> to "become" *any* other user (with the proper password)? If my >> recollection is correct, that would bring the $persona services >> closest to this meaning. >> [...] > > su does just that. You become whatever user you su to. Normally > it's used to acquire the privileges of root but it's by no means > limited to that. And if you su from the root account, you won't even need a password. cu, Martin -- One OS to rule them all | Martin Vorlaender | OpenVMS rules! One OS to find them | work: mv@pdv-systeme.de One OS to bring them all | http://vms.pdv-systeme.de/users/martinv/ And in the Darkness bind them.| home: martin.vorlaender@t-online.de ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 May 2008 11:37:13 GMT From: =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Jan-Erik_S=F6derholm?= Subject: Re: VMS equivalent of Unix su (was Account creation) Message-ID: Martin Vorlaender wrote: > Richard B. Gilbert wrote: >> bradhamilton wrote: >>> JF Mezei wrote: >>>> And what do you use "su" for ? To do management tasks that your >>>> user doesn't have privileges for. >>> My apologies in advance for pedantry, but doesn't "su" allow you >>> to "become" *any* other user (with the proper password)? If my >>> recollection is correct, that would bring the $persona services >>> closest to this meaning. >>> [...] >> su does just that. You become whatever user you su to. Normally >> it's used to acquire the privileges of root but it's by no means >> limited to that. > > And if you su from the root account, you won't even need a password. > > cu, > Martin I use HGLOGIN a lot to do work as other users as needed. And if you *have* the password, you could always telnet localhost, not ? HGLOGIN creates a virtual terminal session inclusing all (sy-)login.com stuff and everything. HGLOGIN can also be used for "one-liners" where you only execute a single command as someone else and then returnes back to your own process/user. Jan-Erik. ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2008.275 ************************