From: welchb@WOODS.ULOWELL.EDU (Brendan Welch, System Analyst,
              UMass/Lowell)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.dectei-l
Subject: 34 ESL products?
Date: 13 Aug 92 17:50:40 GMT
              <DECTEI-L@UBVM.BITNET>
Reply-To: welchb@woods.ulowell.edu
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU


	Do I have the correct list of ESL Bill of Materials?

	I save almost every notice that gets posted on this list, but a search
shows that the last notice about what products are included in ESL gives me a
date of 8/29/90.  If that list of 34 products is correct, then I am confused
(not to deny that, even if the list is incorrect, I am still confused).
	My approach has been, both for the computers that I have some
direct responsibility for, and when communicating with managers at other
sites on campus, to first fill out the CSLG report.  This means making a
list of hundreds of possible products for each machine; those CSLG
products which are also in the ESL are marked with an asterisk; on a
second go-around, anything without an asterisk is removed, and the raw
material for the ESL report has therefore almost been processed.
	Like the ad for Frosted Flakes says, when I go to a meeting,
I wonder "Am I the only one having trouble with this?".  There are
various places to get the name of a product.
1) The ESL list mentioned above.
2) The CSLG Portfolio (in a separate place in the TEI Customer Guide.
3) The DECdirect Software Edition.
4) The Master Index for the Discs, which comes with the CONDIST cdroms.
They all have their own way of naming a product, or listing it in a
supposedly searchable order, and they do not agree well at all with
each other (in my opinion).

Just to mention some of my difficulties with the ESL list:
1) For DEC PHIGS, you have to know that the one mentioned applies only
   to one of the many PHIGS products (runtime, not RISC, not ULtrix,
   not 3D).
2) VAX LISP ULTRIX nows says PAK not needed in CSLG; does that take it
   off this ESL list?
3) VAX CDD/PLUS when installed under its later versions is called /REPOS.
4) How do we handle the VAXSET Package if we have installed only one or
   two of its component products.  On CSLG, I have been listing each
   component, but on ESL counting the package once.
5) DEC Lanworks.  After all the name changes etc., am I correct that for
   the server, which is the one thing a Vax manager is most likely to
   encounter,  a license is no longer needed, so it should not be mentioned
   on the CSLG list, nor on the ESL?
6) VAX FORTRAN ULTRIX; same as 2).
7) REMOTE SYSTEMS MANAGER; am I correct that the Ultrix version no longer
   exists?
8) Am I correct that all these are equivalent: VMS/ULTRIX CONNECTION,
   UCX, DEC TCPIP Services for VMS?
9) Just what products, previously considered separate, are now
   considered part of VMS (besides DECNet VMS and VAXcluster)?
   I forget the history of this, but at one time we were not counting
   VMS itself as a product for workstations; then somebody said that
   DVNETRG did not count (is that the same as DECNet VMS?), but the
   last printout I saw seemed to imply that it did.


	Forgive me, because I still am at the level of having trouble when I
see "ULTRIX" in a product name, deciding whether it really goes on a VMS
machine.  Indeed, from my limited experience, TEI seems like a most
generous package from DEC.  From their viewpoint, maybe all they are asking
for is the same type of accounting (when they "give" us software in bulk)
that they would expect from ordinary customers buying products individually
at retail.  But, to be honest, I often wonder if they know what they are
asking us to do, whether they know the unnecessary hassle it causes,
whether they make use of the large amounts of monotonous printouts,
whether they even have the personnel to handle it.  [no flames please].
I tried Hunter Goatley's software to keep track of all this, but found
that we needed to install later versions of several products, we
could not bend the package to keep track of the product name changes,
it was not a good place to get your feet wet with Datatrieve, and that
automating the procedure actually made things harder; that time is
more productively spent collating large lists by hand.
	I do not necessarily mind the "dog work".  Into each life a little
rain must fall, and sometimes a job involves monotony, or a mindset that
just for a couple of days we must grind through the work, and then it will
be all done, like housework or homework or income tax returns.  But I find
CSLG reporting to have become a chore I really detest.
Brendan Welch, UMass/Lowell, W1LPG,  welchb@woods.ulowell.edu
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU