From: terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: DECwindows ==> Motif license upgrade
Summary: US DECUS BPSSG Chair's response
Date: 30 Jul 92 21:49:28 GMT
Reply-To: mayhew@decus.org
Organization: St. Peter's College, US

In article <9207300855.AA22401@genrad.com>, dongray@cdclu1.genrad.com (Derek Dongray) writes:
> Yesterday I discovered that our DECwindows interface to NOTES had stopped
> working. The reason? We were running Notes 2.2 with DECwindows XUI; the SPD
> says that 2.2 requires Motif. We'd been running 2.2 with 5.4-2 for some time
> and either nobody noticed that the DECwindows interface didn't work, or it
> *did* work and only got broken when we upgrade the VMS 5.5.

  I forwarded your comments to the US DECUS BPSSG Chair. The following text
is his response:

Your message touches on a wide number of issues which are difficult to 
respond to in one quick sitting.  Within the U.S. Chapter of DECUS, there 
is an organization called the Business Practices SSG, which deals with all 
this stuff, primarily using DECUServe as a discussion forum.  We have 
considerable support from DEC at corporate levels and have been successful 
in dealing with some major issues in our first year-and-a-half of active
life.  The issues you raise are all ones we have worked on, not always
completely successfully.

The Motif upgrade issue was discussed in at least two of the Cover Letters 
that came with VMS 5.x.  These documents also warned that DECwindows-XUI 
would no longer be supported and defined the time at which that would 
occur.  So, at least you were warned; whether or not you like what the 
warning had to say is, of course, a different issue ;-}.

It is very clear that DEC botched the implementation of the upgrade.  Those 
who use DECUServe were kept up to date on this point and BPSSG was successful 
in arranging with DEC to extend the termination date of the upgrade program 
so that people who, e.g., used ConDist or had no "media update service" could 
take advantage of the program even though DEC didn't notify them.  Of 
course I am speaking in the context of U.S. customers here, and I don't 
know what DEC did in Europe; the upgrade program was a creation of DEC's 
U.S. Customer Services organization, and the rules were likely different in 
other geographies.

For U.S. customers, at least -- and I mention that limitation only because
it is the only context I *KNOW* about -- the intent was to keep them "whole".  
If you had a workstation with an older version of VMS that lacked a Motif 
license, and you were under some form of software support, Digital was 
willing to give you a Motif license if you asked, during a predefined 
transition period which was extended when Digital was shown that they'd 
botched it.  If you buy a new workstation, you get the Motif license.

Whether or not you personally like CPU-rated licensing, it has been 
traditional in the computer industry for decades, way before PCs existed.
Most people would agree with you that user-based licensing is more 
appropriate in many situations, and Digital offers more user-based 
licensing alternatives today than any other vendor (to my knowledge).  I 
have enough beefs with DEC that I don't typically act like a DEC 
mouthpiece, but I do believe in giving credit where credit is due.  BPSSG 
has also been instrumental in the detailed development of these user-based 
licensing alternatives and we continue to do so.

If your chapter of DECUS is interested in establishing a business practices 
entity, I would be more than happy to hear from some representatives of the 
chapter to see how we can help.  Slowly but surely, it is paying off here 
in the US.

(Note that I do not have direct Internet access and don't participate here, 
so I have asked someone else in our group, who does, to post this on my 
behalf.  DECUServe access is now available internationally, so you might 
want to look into that too.)

	-Bill, chair, DECUS US BPSSG